post66 // foodstuffs turns 1!

hi guys and gals! today i’m celebrating something a lil’ special: foodstuffs’ first birthday! it was one year ago today that i launched this blog and i’m feeling quite nostalgic for all the fun i’ve had with it in the past year.

from launch day where i announced my big move to paris (and made some julia child croissants) to explaining french wine and all my incredible travels around europe this year (paris! london! amsterdam! normandy! lille!), this blog has been an incredible platform for me to share, cook, bake, and learn.

to celebrate what a year it’s been, i rounded up my reader’s top ten favorite foodstuffs recipes! and fittingly, the number one spot was narrowly clinched by a great recipe for celebrating, birthday sprinkle cake!

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foodstuffs top 10 recipes of all time

1. birthday sprinkle cake

what’s more fun than making a cake and tossing sprinkles on it to celebrate? absolutely nothing (especially on your own birthday). inspired by christina tosi of milk bar and molly yeh of funfetti cake-dom, this cake is now a birthday staple in my kitchen. snag the recipe here!

2. dark chocolate chip cookies

warm chocolate chip cookies are one of life’s best pleasures. amp up your standard recipe with dark chocolate chips and dark brown sugar like i do here for a richer, even tastier cookie. after posting this recipe, i received a lot of texts declaring just how good this recipe truly is. (*heart melts*) snag the recipe here!

3. avocado shrimp rolls

if one recipe could speak summer, this is it. after a big family party with leftover shrimp cocktail, i put the little shrimpies to use as the center of this roll. with easy-to-buy ingredients such as avocado, herbs, and mayo (don’t forget the potato chips!), this recipe is a simple lunch or dinner on a hot summer day. snag the recipe here!

4. homemade bagels

want a fresh bagel in the morning? do you live in new york city? if you answered yes first and no second, this how-to is for you. and don’t be intimidated! this recipe is fool-proof. snag the recipe here!

5. fairground peanuts

candied nuts are one of the best food gifts out there. you’ll see them more in the colder months but don’t underestimate their addictingly crunchy texture that’s perfect for your next dinner party’s aperitif hour. snag the recipe here!

6. saturday pancakes

a go-to pancake recipe for weekend mornings is pretty necessary in my book. enter my easy pancakes, adapted from a classic martha stewart recipe. you’re ready for the weekend! snag the recipe here!

7. ricotta and tomato tart

tomato season is *almost* upon us so it’s time to get familiar with this recipe and add it to your repertoire. fresh ingredients are key to this dish so make sure you choose wisely at the farmers market or grocery store. snag the recipe here!

8. french crêpes

my crêpe-making skills have come a long way since this first post. maybe it’s time for a reboot? in the meantime, this recipe is a great place to start. and know that you can find the best crêpes in paris at breizh café and the best in france in the brittany region! snag the recipe here!

9. salted butterscotch apple pie

i made my own butterscotch! coupled with an all-butter pie crust and apple fruit compote, you’ve got pie perfection. this recipe also has a latticing how-to for pie decorating so it’s truly worth the read! snag the recipe here!

10. homemade french fries

humans and canines were big fans of this recipe. it’s always refreshing to learn what goes into something you eat at restaurants all the time. and for what it’s worth, french fries are very good in france as well! snag the recipe here!

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so what’s next for foodstuffs??

i’m looking forward to more recipe creation in the year to come, much of which will be inspired by all the technical recipes and skills i learned while studying at cordon bleu.

and the kicker is that i’ll be working out of paris! i’ve just accepted a pastry externship at the ritz paris. “thrilled” is an understatement of my feelings right now. much like culinary school, i’ll be blogging about my experience over the next 6 months there. so stay tuned!

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and last but not least, in this week’s other stuff:

the absolute cutest pajamas i’ve ever seen

just purchased a couple backdrops from these guys. looking forward to putting them to use!

this just got me. happy belated father’s day💛

oh and i have a new instagram handle! make sure you’re following @catherinekatemargaret

post39 // birthday sprinkle cake

hi friends!! happy day after monday. i hope your week is going well so far. mine sure is as i am still riding high from a big birthday weekend, celebrated with family and friends and most notably: homemade birthday cake! twenty-four has been pretty sprinkly so far (see below).

while living in new york, i discovered momofuku milk bar, a well-known bakery in the city. “discover” is a loose term as momofuku’s famed cake, their birthday cake, is everywhere. it’s all over your instagram feed. it’s at every birthday dinner you go to. it’s sitting front and center at every milk bar. it’s everywhere, and for good reason. the cake is charmingly delicious, filled and topped with their signature birthday batter “crumbs” and vanilla cream cheese frosting. for my past two birthdays, i’ve eaten milk bar’s birthday cake. but those birthdays weren’t the only time i got a milk bar birthday cake fix. throughout the year, i found myself periodically “stumbling” into milk bars, buying birthday cake truffles, their small bite-size rounds made from the same birthday batter “crumbs” that sit atop the cake. yes, i’ve bought a number of those truffles…you can too.

anyhow, this year i decided to make a birthday cake of my own, riffing off of the momofuku recipe and blogger molly yeh’s funfetti cake recipe. as my aunt joanne says, it’s a “happy cake.” and it’s true! this cake will make your birthday (and any other day) happier. i promise.

as you can tell already, the batter is full of sprinkles. molly yeh’s funfetti recipe perfected the suspension of all these sprinkles so i used her batter as a jumping pad for my cake. as a big fan of almond flavoring, i opted for almond extract in lieu of vanilla and i’m so happy i did. another fun idea would be to use lemon extract (holler if you try it!).

the cakes themselves are pretty basic. the usual mixing of wet and dry ingredients takes place, the only difference being to throw in a cup of sprinkles at the end of mixing. in light of the family and friends who i expected at the birthday dinner — we celebrated both mine and my dad’s birthday on saturday night — and keeping in mind my hope for some leftovers, i doubled the recipe and made a four-layer cake. right now i’m happily eating a leftover slice as i type to you.

the hardest part of the cake is the assembly. i’d never baked a four-layer cake like this before, let alone frost it! knowing this, i dropped some questions on my bakery friends before taking it on. a big takeaway from my peers was around preparing the cakes: making sure the cakes are cold and leveled out before icing. wherever the cakes are not leveled, use icing to help even out the layers. all this intel, and some great tools (bench scraper, angled spatula, tall cake stand) helped enormously.

most importantly, my boss ben at bread furst helped inspire the sprinkling. instead of placing a heavy layer on the cake, ben recommended simply throwing the sprinkles on the cake. he did the same at a restaurant he used to work at and reminisced on the sprinkle throwing parties that happened in the kitchen. it sounded so fun that i decided to make my own mess!

the cake was a true success. i was thrilled! the inside was dotted with countless sprinkles that stood out brightly against the white cake. the frosting was pure butter and sugar and my one edit i’d have for next time is a bit less sugar in the frosting — i’ve gone ahead and adjusted this in the recipe below. beyond that, i wouldn’t change a thing. my cousin george even commented that it reminded him of the momofuku variety. my dream come true! my family and i feasted on the cake that night, and the next night, and still today. i’ll make known the little secret that i’ve eaten it for breakfast the past two days. tomorrow will be three!

so, if you are in the market for baking a birthday cake make sure to give this one a go. it’s a delight to serve and cut into with a big crowd around. bake it for yourself, bake it for a friend, bake it for anyone! you will be so happy you did.

and here are a couple other sprinkles from my past week:

this babka sugar high will make your day

haim’s something to tell you album is a+++++++++++

peter pan donuts started selling ice cream sandwiches on donuts and my brother rob has reported they’re incredible

thank you to everyone who made my birthday special this year! i have the best family and friends. and last but not least, here is a birthday cake carnage visual for you:

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birthday sprinkle cake

feeds 10-15

fixings

cake:

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 egg whites

1 tablespoon almond extract

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups flour (i used a combination of 1 cup cake flour and 1 1/2 cups all-purpose)

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup whole milk

1 cup sprinkles (i used rainbow jimmies!)

frosting and assembly:

4 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 pinch salt

1 cup sprinkles

special tools

8 or 9-inch cake pans

electric hand mixer

cake stand is great for pics but not necessary, i used this green beauty by mosser glass

angled spatula is super helpful for icing! (again, not necessary)

bench scraper

instructions

cake (adapted slightly from molly yeh’s, funfetti cake):

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees. grease two cake pans (8 or 9-inch work best). cut out parchment circles to match the pan’s bottoms and place in the pans. grease parchment well.
2. mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a small-ish bowl. then mix butter and sugar together in a larger bowl, using a electric mixer. add the egg whites, almond extract, oil, and milk to the butter bowl and mix well.
3. add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing slowly. once all the flour is incorporated, add in almost the full cup of sprinkles. fold the sprinkles into the batter with a spatula.
4. scoop the batter evenly into each of your prepared cake pans. once in the pans, sprinkle the last bit of rainbow jimmies on top of the batter.
5. bake the cakes for 25-28 minutes, using a toothpick to make sure it comes out clean from the batter.
6. let cakes cool in their pans for 10 minutes and then pop them out to continue cooling on a rack. make sure they’re completely cool before you start frosting! (i actually froze mine overnight and let them thaw out the next day a bit so they were hard.)

frosting and assembly (see notes above on how to best prepare the cake for assembly):

1. prepare frosting: beat together butter, sugar, almond extract, and salt. voila!
2. stack cakes and frost their tops as you continue to build your layers. once all layers are stacked, frost the outside of the cake with a crumb coat. put the cake in the fridge if you can so that it can rest and sit after your crumb coat.
3. continue to build your frosting layers by adding more! use a bench scraper and angled spatula to help you.
4. sprinkle time: just throw ’em! make a mess and briefly toss sprinkles on every side of the cake for a natural and “light” sprinkle look.
5. eat!

 

post38 // french crêpes

good morning to you! or afternoon, or evening — just the time of the day you happen to be reading this. you’re in luck because whatever time it is, it’s time for a crêpe.

crêpes have never been a routine meal of mine. i’m usually eating their cousins (a.k.a. pancakes and dutch babies), which i have more confidence in cooking. my memories of crêpes are special though, associated with château montebello, a hotel in quebec that my family used to drive 12 hours to each new years eve. the endless hot chocolates and crêpes at the hotel made up for the “when are we there yet” and often nauseating car rides for my brothers and i. year after year, crêpes with maple syrup were reason enough to go back.

since those days at montebello, i haven’t spent much time eating crêpes. until now! just two months ago i was invited over to my friend stella’s apartment, which she shares with her sister sarah. sarah is a francophile and has lived in france on-and-off over the years. she has a wonderful host mother from paris, who was visiting new york at the time. given my impending move to france for the year, the sisters thought that i should meet sarah’s host mum and experience a true french crêpe.

aside from learning so much about paris, i learned how to make (and eat) many french crêpes that night. fast forward two months and sarah is now living with my family for the summer in washington, d.c. (her own american homestay of sorts!). within her first week here, crêpe ingredients were added to our grocery list.

crêpes are an anytime meal. while we made these ham, egg, and cheese crêpes for dinner, they could just as well be your breakfast or lunch. the batter itself is simple, as sarah says, “think 4-4-2: four eggs, four cups of milk, and 2 cups of flour.” a bit of salt and vegetable oil added complete the batter and next is just the fillings. both sarah and sofie, her parisian host mum, cooked off the entire crêpe batter, kept the cakes warm, and then prepared the fillings right before serving. this is the best way to ensure your crêpe comes out hot. the batter will be much thinner than a normal pancake batter, so don’t be afraid if it looks runny! sarah describes that the consistency is best when it coats a wooden spoon upon lifting, but still drips back into the batter bowl.

once you’ve cooked off all your crêpe batter and have a stack of eager cakes waiting to be filled, it’s time to load on the toppings. a couple good tips for fillings are to keep them thinly sliced so that they don’t overwhelm the crêpe, another being to spread your crêpe with sour cream (for flavor!) before adding the fillings. if working with uncooked eggs, cover your pan so that the egg can cook off while the rest of the toppings are melting together.

folding the crêpe together at the end is a simple envelope fold. visually divide the crêpe into three, fold the bottom third up and fix it together by folding the top third down. you can use a little sour cream to seal. by this time, your egg yolk will have burst and it is seriously time to sit down and eat your crêpe.

very soon, i’m sure you’ll be reading about all the different types of crêpes i’ll be trying in france. until then, i’ll be working on my own crêpe-making skills.

au revoir!

p.s. this week’s other stuff!!!

i’ll admit to singing this with the windows down very loudly this past weekend. one of my favorites

obsessed with this account and their shop in greenpoint, bk

the drink of my summer (recipe comin’ soon to foodstuffs!)

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french crêpes

makes 12 crêpes

fixings

4 eggs

4 cups milk

2 cups flour (all-purpose is fine)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil (+ more for coating the pan)

1 teaspoon salt

sour cream

toppings: parmesan, mozzarella, eggs, nutella, powdered sugar, maple syrup, etc.

special tools

a medium-sized fry pan

instructions

1. mix the milk, flour, eggs, and salt together to form your batter. heat the fry pan over medium-high heat. prepare any toppings such as slicing or shaving the cheeses.
2. pour a large spoonful of batter into the pan and move it around so that the entire pan is coated in a thin layer. let warm until the bottom side turns lightly brown. turn and repeat. take the crêpe off the burner and let it rest on a nearby plate. repeat until you’ve baked off all the crêpe batter.
3. you can eat your crêpes now as is with sweet toppings but if you are looking for a more savory crêpe, keep your fry pan warm and add a crêpe back to it.
4. top crêpe with a thin layer of sour cream. add your egg immediately to the center of the crêpe. as the egg begins to cook, add other toppings around it. cover pan until the egg cooks off and other toppings have melted.
5. fold the crêpe in an envelope manner, as i described above. visually divide the crêpe into three, fold the bottom third up and fix it together by folding the top third down. you can use a little sour cream to seal.
6. serve immediately and enjoy!

post37 // homemade bagels

hear, hear! homemade bagels! sure, going down to the corner deli and grabbing a bagel is easy when you live in bagel capital of the world. but if you live in a bagel desert or prefer a homemade version, keep moving your eyes down this screen for a week’s worth of heavenly bagel breakfasts, cream cheese not included (but highly recommended).

as the daughter of a new yorker who lived in brooklyn before it was “brooklyn,” bagels have always been a part of my breakfast appetite. growing up, each trip to visit my aunts and uncles and (many!!) cousins in long island included a very large bagel breakfast with buckets of cream cheese. at home, sunday breakfasts to this day mean bacon and eggs, mopped up and sandwiched between bagels from pumpernickel’s, our quasi-new york deli down the road.

i’ve always been curious to know how bagels are made. i truly didn’t have a clue until i decided to make them myself. all i could imagine was dipping the bagel dough in seeds or toppings like doughnuts when they’re fresh out of the fryer. and i wasn’t that far off! but there’s a lot more that goes into the dough-making and shaping of bagels before that step. above you can see my bagel dough after it’s been proofed. the dough itself is super simple = flour + salt + water + malt. i’m telling you, you can do it!

the hardest part is shaping the actual bagels. as you can see, my rolled out dough isn’t *totally* symmetrical. but that’s okay! just attach your two ends together, roll ’em a bit to stick, and no one will care if your bagels are proportional. (this is a bit different if you work in a bakery 🤣.)  next comes the actual making of the bagels. for those of you who didn’t know how bagel dough is baked/cooked/made (like me), it’s first poached in boiling water, dipped in toppings (if necessary), and then baked in the oven. voila! that’s it, you’ve made bagels!

my favorite part of homemade bagels is the diy toppings! you can add how much, whatever, or absolutely nothing to your bagels. they’re good in every way. i loved coming up with my toppings, mixing classics like sesame and poppy seeds with anything i could think up: lemon zest and sugar becoming my homemade bagel frontrunner.

once baked, make sure you have cream cheese, butter, lox, jam, whatever your bagel vice is on hand. “fresh out of the oven” is a real thing and you’re going to want one asap.

beware: once you tell your friends you made homemade bagels there will be lots of visitors to your house. i had friends show up in droves, just “stopping by” because they were “in the neighborhood.” and who doesn’t love bread.

last but surely not least, this week’s other stuff!!

this corgi cake by adrianna of acozykitchen is recipe #goals

my favorite bagel deli in nyc

this song is everything

okay, now go and have a bagel-filled day!!

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homemade bagels

makes 8 bagels (slightly adapted from peter reinhart’s whole wheat bagels along with food52’s homemade bagels)

fixings

4 cups bread flour

3 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon instant yeast

1 tablespoon barley malt

1 1/3 cup lukewarm water

1 tablespoon baking soda

4 tablespoons of each topping (cinnamon sugar! sesame! poppy! salt! lemon zest!)

cornmeal/semolina flour for baking sheets

special tools

baking sheets

parchment paper

instructions

1. mix the bread flour, 2 teaspoons salt, yeast, malt, and lukewarm water by hand or with a mixer. either works!
2. knead your dough on a lightly floured surface for 3-5 minutes. i used a marble board but you can use your counter or a cutting board, just make sure flour is on it. knead until slightly tacky.
3. shape dough into a ball and plop it in an oiled bowl (just clean and use the same bowl you mixed with). cover bowl tightly with plastic and let rest in a dark, untouched place on your counter for 1 1/2 hours.
4. in the meantime, line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. once the dough has risen and swelled, turn it out onto a (very) lightly floured counter and divide it into 8 pieces. to shape bagels, roll them out into a foot-long log. moisten each end of your log and press the ends together, rolling together so that they stick to each other and seal. put prepared bagels on the parchment paper, at least 1 inch apart. let them rise for 30 minutes!
6. heat oven to 425 degrees. remove proofed bagels and their parchment paper from the baking sheets. replace sheets with fresh parchment paper and evenly scatter a layer of semolina or cornmeal on sheets.
7. fill 1/2-2/3 of a saucepan with water and bring to a boil. add baking soda and malt. drop bagel, one at a time, into the water. after 30 seconds, flip over, and after another 30 seconds, remove from water with a slotted spoon and place on the prepared baking sheet. sprinkle topping on bagel right away! repeat until you’re finished poaching all your bagels.
8. place baking sheets in oven and bake for 12 minutes. rotate your baking sheet and bake for another 8 minutes. great tip from peter reinhart: “If bottoms are getting too brown slide a second baking pan underneath the first one for insulation after first 12 minutes.” remove from oven, let cool (maybe), and feast!

post36 // flag trifle

hello people! happy 4th of july!

i know you might be thinking it’s too late to make a dessert for the holiday but i promise, it’s not! over the past 5 years, i’ve had high hopes for my independence day desserts. i’ve dreamed of making this flag cake and this flag cake and this flag cake. but year after year, even after purchasing ingredients to make said cakes, i never do it. who wants to spend their whole day-off baking when they could be napping, drinking, sunbathing, swimming, vegging out, etc? not me.

so this year, i vowed that i would finally make a dessert for july 4th. the only way i knew i would actually get it done was if this dessert was easy — simple, quick, and unfussy. after seeing a number of trifles pop through my email and instagram, i decided i’d give it a go. what’s easier (and tastier) than cake, fresh berries, and whipped cream? not too much in my opinion.

this dessert is simple because the only baking required is mixing one big bowl of batter, plopping it in two cake pans, and baking for 30 minutes. after that, all that’s left is cutting the cake into chunky pieces, whipping up some cream (or buying whipped cream), and chopping some berries. for an even lazier route, you can purchase a store-bought cake, no baking required. no judgment here.

also, the fact that i made a trifle for the fourth of july is a big joke! trifles are traditionally british. but i made sure to make an ~american statement~ with this one, 50 blueberries and 13 strawberry-and-whipped-cream stripes complete.

so go on, make your own flag trifle! your family and friends will be a) impressed and b) very full after they eat it.

but, on the “off” chance you don’t get to it this year, that’s okay too. take it from me, there’s always next year!

oh, and this week’s other stuff!

been listening to these guys all morning

the weirdest/funniest video if you’re trying to learn the french alphabet

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flag trifle

makes one 9-inch trifle cake

fixings

cake:

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon fresh baking powder

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs, separated

1 cup buttermilk

assembly:

2 pints heavy whipping cream

3 pints blueberries

2 quarts strawberries

1 lb cherries

anything else you want to throw in there that’s red or blue! i added blackberries to mine.

special tools

trifle bowl (i used this one and would highly recommend!)

hand mixer

instructions

cake (adapted from Divas Can Cook, Moist Yellow Cake):

1. preheat oven to 325 degrees and generously butter two 9-inch cake pans.
2. cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl.
3. mix all the dry ingredients (baking powder, salt, and cake flour) in a smaller bowl.
4. add the vanilla extract and egg yolks to the butter and sugar mixture. whisk the egg whites but do not add them to the mixture yet.
5. slowly add the buttermilk to the wet ingredients, alternating with adding the flour mixture.
6. once all buttermilk and flour is added to the big bowl, gently fold in the whipped egg whites.
7. pour batter evenly into the two cake pans and pop them in the oven. set a timer for 30 minutes. (mine baked a bit over, around 35 minutes so keep watching the cakes once they’ve passed 30.)
8. take pans out of the oven and let cool before cutting into 1-inch pieces.

assembly (this two recipes really helped me visualize the assembly: Tasting Table’s Cherry-Pistachio Trifle and The Feed Feed’s Red, White, and Blue Trifle Cake):

1. whip your cream and hull and chop all your berries.
2. layer in the trifle bowl, starting with cream, then cake, then berry. repeat.
3. layer until you’re just short of the top of the trifle bowl. to assemble the flag on top, delicately place 50 blueberries in the left-hand corner, and thinly slice your strawberries and place them across, 7 red stripes.
4. eat!!!

post35 // saturday pancakes

hi friends. i realize it’s not saturday just yet. but you are likely wishing, hoping, wanting it to be saturday and soon enough it will be and you’ll be enjoying a holiday weekend, celebrating the fourth of july. whether you’re spending the holiday with a dozen drunk friends, at home with your family, or maybe on this rare occasion, by yourself, making pancakes this saturday morning is a good idea.

pancakes have always been one of my favorite things to eat. growing up, they were a saturday ritual in my house. unlike my family’s sunday breakfast routine of fried eggs, bacon, and bagels, which my dad still cooks up weekly, saturday pancakes were made by my mom. i have memories of her whipping up pancakes on the lake in north dakota where she grew up, in chincoteague, maryland before watching the pony parade, and in our house on lazy saturday mornings where i would wake up smelling the maple syrup, hot out of the microwave. my mom’s pancake batter varied from truly homemade to a quick bisquick assembly, always bubbling with her signature blueberries.

it isn’t surprising that i developed a pancake routine of my own. when living in new york, pancakes grew back into saturday ritual status, a time when i could invite friends over for breakfast or enjoy a homemade (and cheap!) meal as fuel for the day. the photo collage up top is just a sampling of pancakes i ate while living in new york, both homemade and diner-bought.

throughout the last few years, i’ve tested different pancake recipes and experimented with add-ins. the pancake recipe below is one of those always reliable recipes, time after time producing delicious, basic pancakes. a trick to give your pancakes some fluff? whisk the egg white before you add it to the rest of the pancake batter, a trick i learned from at food52. and don’t hesitate to play around with fun toppings and fillings. lemon zest! jam! nuts! honey! coconut! add some maple syrup and a fat slice of butter — you’re set.

when breakfast duty inevitably comes up this saturday, step up to the plate and keep this recipe in your back pocket. oh, and here are some other things to do with your holiday weekend!

if you find yourself in nyc this weekend or any other, make sure to check out lorimer market for a+ sandwiches

watch this and this. not really #foodblogger aesthetic lol but hey, they’re great films

my friend sam just recommended this. next on my reading list!!!

check out this account. she makes bread = art

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saturday pancakes

makes 12 four-inch pancakes (adapted from martha stewart’s easy pancakes)

fixings

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk (i like to use buttermilk)

2 tablespoons salted butter, melted (+more for cooking)

1 large egg, separated

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 pint blueberries, or other fillings (optional)

special tools

nothing! (assuming you have a bowl, spatula, and skillet. i hope you do, call me if you don’t.)

instructions

1. overachiever step 1 that actually pays off but is by no means necessary. i rarely do it: preheat oven to 200 degrees. place a baking sheet in the oven as it heats up and transfer pancakes to that sheet as you finish cooking to keep them nice and warm.
2. mix all your ingredients together, with the exception of the egg white (and blueberries if you’re using them). whisk your egg white for 30 seconds and then add to the rest of the batter. remember, do not overmix. lumps are a-ok.
3. place your skillet on the stovetop and heat to medium-high. upon heating, add a (fat) slice of butter to the skillet. wiggle your skillet around so that the butter covers the entire bottom surface, coating the pan. once the butter melts off, add two big spoonfuls of pancake batter. add more or less depending on how big you want your pancakes to be. try your best to dollop cleanly, so that you get those pretty symmetrical circles for your pancakes. if you’re making blueberry pancakes, add a handful of blueberries to the spoonful of batter you’ve just placed on the pan.
4. cook pancakes for 3-4 minutes on each side, depending on your stovetop’s heat and how big you make them. once cooked through (you’ll see both sides browning), transfer pancake to your heated baking sheet in the oven. they’ll keep cozy there.
5. repeat steps 3-4 until you get through all your batter. a little bit left over? make a baby pancake like you can see in the top right of the first photo. it’s a good topper for any pancake stack.
6. keep pancakes in the oven while you prepare your toppings: heat up maple syrup, pull out the powdered sugar from the pantry, or cut fresh fruit. once ready, pull the baking sheet out and enjoy your saturday pancakes!

photography by catherine o’donnell/foodstuffs

post34 // welcome to foodstuffs

hi friends. welcome to foodstuffs, my new blog!!! i hope you’re eating something good today.

it’s been a while since i last wrote and i’m so happy to be back at it. why don’t we play a little catch up…

my old blog chronicled six months spent abroad eating in peru. it was there that i took my first cooking classes (in spanish 🙈), ate guinea pig, and told my friends and family all about peruvian cuisine via the interweb. i loved it! every sunday, i’d sit criss-cross applesauce on my bed and start typing and translating a peruvian recipe.

when i left peru, i went back to finish college in davidson, north carolina. to liven up the food scene there, i started working at summit coffee, baked my tail off, ate too much milk bread, and wrote a food column for the student paper. i even took a course in nutrition, which explains some of the way-too-damn-healthy recipes i have in my archives. i was lucky enough to land a summer internship at food52, the james-beard awarded culinary website, which led me to my first job out of school on their marketing team.

upon moving to new york city and starting life in the real world, my blogging fell off the wagon. i was busy! too busy! really, ask anyone who saw me my first six months in nyc. this was me. but now life has changed a bit! i just wrapped up two very full years in new york, and am living in washington, dc for the summer before heading to culinary school in paris this fall. you could say i’m excited.

i’m sure you’re wondering why dough pictures are just creeping onto your screen without any acknowledgment or explanation. that dough is the beginning of my very first croissant bake! in preparation for my summer job at bread furst, a fabulous, james-beard winning bakery in d.c. that you must visit, i made homemade croissants! jokes on me though because i am now weeks into my work at the bakery and i don’t actually bake the croissants. instead, i bake loaves and baguettes all day with the bread bakers (pastry bakers cover croissants).

regardless, i’m happy i made croissants from scratch because i learned that they take a very very very long time and are a hard thing to get right on your first try (#learning). i spent little time deciding on where to pull a croissant recipe. it was to be julia child’s croissants, the queen of french cooking (with english translation).

a quick google search pulled up this throwback video that made me appreciate how informational The French Chef was and what today’s cooking shows truly lack.

i followed julia’s recipe to a tee and recommend that if you want an authentic and true french croissant, you do the same. making the croissants took a full day so i’d bookmark this adventure for a rainy weekend. the actual mixing of the dough is simple and straight-forward, with the most difficult part of the recipe coming towards the very end of your day (after multiple hours of folding and waiting). this part is the forming of the isosceles triangles, which you immediately roll into crescent shape. they won’t be perfect but if mixed and folded correctly, your croissants will be truly impressive. not to mention, buttery and flaky upon opening. what’s better than that!

below you can find the recipe fixings, special tools, and link to instructions for making julia child’s croissants. i also included a couple quick croissant recipe suggestions in case time isn’t your friend these days.

and as you could guess from the title, this blog, while mainly about food, will also include snippets and tangents on other random happenings. here’s this week’s other stuff:

obsessed with (and basically want to eat) this lip balm in coconut (h/t my friend kate)

clicking spotify repeat button on this

currently reading A Revolution in Taste by Susan Pinkard. fun fact: Susan is my mom’s best friend and her use of the word foodstuffs was an inspiration for my blog name!

and for your information:

Definition of foodstuff

1. : a substance that is used as food

okay, that’s all for today!! 👋

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julia child’s croissants

makes 12 medium croissants

fixings

1 package active-dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1 1/2 teaspoon and 1/8 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon and 1/8 teaspoon sugar

1/2 cup tepid milk

2 cups all-purpose flour, leveled (plus more for shaping)

3 tablespoons tasteless oil (vegetable, canola)

1 stick, chilled butter

1 egg

1 teaspoon water

special tools

plastic wrap

scissors

rolling pin (a wine bottle works too!)

baking sheet

instructions

for the full recipe and instructions, see Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 2, or follow along with The French Chef video above.*

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some quicker croissant recipe ideas:

croissants, martha stewart

homemade croissants, pure wow

and when all else fails, my friend caroline swears by Trader Joe’s overnight croissants

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*most of my recipes are original or adaptations. for those that aren’t, i refer you to the original source where you can legally access them!

**i’ve transferred all my peruvian and nutrition recipes and blog posts over to foodstuffs. (hence this being post 34). have fun looking through the archives! 

photography by catherine o’donnell/foodstuffs

post33 // melting berry pie

there was a lot to celebrate this past month, most notably my big brother rob’s move up to the big apple. i’ve been hoping he’d make the move since, well since i moved up here, and on saturday april first it came true! i was glad it wasn’t an april fool’s joke. he showed up with my brother jake and i showed up with the best thing i could think of: pie.

pie, pie, pie. we really love pie in my family. probably because i really love making it. on summer weekends together, pie is my baking project of choice. i run out of hands when i start counting the number of friends and family i’ve made pies with.¹ so it seemed only right that upon rob’s arrival, a pie would be a nice treat. not to mention, a really good mid-move snack.

i had planned to make the pie saturday morning and bring it over to my brother’s new place that afternoon when they arrived. butttt my plans got a bit meddled after a night out on friday, spent very wisely at my favorite place in nyc: sid gold’s request room, which led to sleeping in on saturday.  who can blame me? needless to say, pie making was pushed a bit later in the day. and my brothers’ plans? they were actually arriving *earlier* than expected. not exactly what i wanted to hear. i got to baking right away.

two hours later and the brothers had arrived in brooklyn as i was just pulling out a hot berry pie from the oven. wow it looked good. but how the hell was i going to get this thing over there? i live seven stops away in manhattan requiring two trains to get to my brother’s new place. would i bring the pie on the subway? i thought about this. for like a second. hell no i was not taking a warm pie in the subway. how would i swipe my subway card and hold it? this pie was still hot so i would have to carry it on a cookie sheet. nope.

the pie didn’t make it on the subway. instead, i went with uber. i was already late anyways so hopefully a car would get me there faster.

my uber driver was not happy with my entrance. i had to ask a random man on the street to open the car for me and i didn’t really think through driving on nyc streets in a car with a liquidy, bubbling pie. as i sat clutching the pie plate so hard, the dessert spilled and leaked onto the cookie sheet. one big pothole and that pie would’ve leaked all over my uber driver’s car. and boy was he noticing. “is that going to spill??” he kept asking me. “everything okay?” came out of his mouth at each stoplight. i felt terrible, but what could i do! i needed to get the pie there! and i did. a few sticky fingerprints were left on my uber man’s car (sorry sir), but i made it and greeted my brother with a “welcome to new york city” shout and a pie shoved right into his face. a warm welcome right there.

¹s/o to some special folks i’ve made memorable pies with: this thanksgiving apple w/ my mom, this lattice beauty with stella, this strawberry cream version w/ my dad, this low-res pie w/ yarbs (from my ig’s days of infancy), and this berry number showing off pie process with avh.

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berry melt pie

makes 1 double-crust pie

fixings

pie crust:

2½ cups flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) well-chilled unsalted butter

filling:

1 1/2 cups sugar

5 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

7 cups fresh berry medley (i used strawberries blueberries, and blackberries but cherries, peaches, plums, and any other fruit will be delicious.)

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons sugar

special tools

rolling pin (or wine bottle!)

pie plate

instructions

pie crust (adapted from Kate Lebo’s, Pie School):

1. fill a spouted liquid measuring cup with about 3/4 cups of water, plop in some ice cubes, and place it in the freezer while you prep the following steps.
2. in a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and salt. drop 1-tablespoon pieces of butter into the flour and toss the fat with the flour to evenly distribute it.
3. place your palms up and curl your fingers back to scoop up the flour and fat. rub, rub, rub it between your thumb and fingers, letting it fall back into the bowl after rubbing. make sure you reach into the bottom and around the sides of the bowl to incorporate all the flour into the fat, until the mixture is slightly yellow, slightly damp. it should be chunky—mostly cherry-size pieces, the smaller bits resembling coarse cornmeal.
4. take the water out of the freezer. pour it (slowly!) in a steady thin stream around the bowl for about 5 seconds. toss to distribute the moisture. as you add a bit more water and toss, the dough will become a bit shaggy and slightly tacky to the touch. press a small bit of the mixture together and toss it gently in the air. if it breaks apart when you catch it, add more water, toss to distribute the moisture, and test again. if the dough ball keeps its shape, it’s done.
5. gather the dough in 2 balls, one slightly larger for the bottom crust. quickly form the dough into thick disks using your palms and thumbs. wrap the disks individually in plastic wrap. refrigerate for an 30 minutes to 3 days before rolling.

filling: 

1. heat oven to 450 degrees.
2. in large bowl, stir together 1 1/2 cups sugar, the cornstarch and salt. gently toss with all the berries and let stand for 15 minutes. dump into the bottom crust-lined pie pan. fold the top crust over the pie plate and arrange strips in a lattice if desired! crimp edges and brush crust with milk, followed by a sprinkle of sugar.
3. place pie in the middle oven rack and put a cookie sheet below it in case of leakage. bake 20 minutes and reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees. cover edge of crust with foil strips to prevent burning. bake 40-45 minutes longer or until middle part of crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling. recommended: let stand 2 hours before serving (we know I didn’t do that…).

photography by catherine o’donnell/foodstuffs

post31 // sweet potatoes with thyme

Thyme-Infused Sweet Potatoes

Like many people, I have a sweet tooth. I love cakes, cookies, brownies, pies, cobblers, crisps, ice cream, floats, the list goes on and on and on. However, recently I’ve been trying to substitute these cravings of mine with smaller portion sizes and sugar I can benefit from. High in fiber, potassium, and Vitamins A and C, sweet potatoes are a starchy root vegetable that should be added to your grocery list ASAP. Low in grams, one sweet potato contributes an extensive amount of nutrients for its percentage of the recommended dietary allowment (RDA). Also beneficial, sweet potatoes are high in amylopectin, a digestible type of starch.

If those scientific benefits didn’t lure you in, then this taste will. Littered in thyme leaves and a kick from red pepper flakes, these sweet potato rounds are full of flavor. I promise they’ll keep you full for a long time and if you make the whole recipe at once, you’ll be able to add them to meals throughout the week!

Thyme-Infused Sweet Potato Rounds

Adapted from Kathryn Matthews, Epicurious

Materials:

Large bowl to mix

Cutting board

Knife

Vegetable Peeler

Cup/spoon measurements

Baking sheet or baking dish (13X9)

Ingredients:

4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch-thick rounds

3 tablespoons olive oil

4 large garlic cloves, minced

⅓ cup fresh thyme leaves, plus 6 thyme sprigs for garnish

½ teaspoon kosher salt

Extra butter or oil to grease pan

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450° F. Grease your baking sheet or dish with butter or oil.
2. Combine all ingredients and toss in large mixing bowl.
3. Arrange potato slices in a single layer on baking sheet or dish.
4. Place on middle oven rack and roast until tender and slightly browned, about 40 minutes.
5. Serve warm or at room temperature, garnished with thyme sprigs.

post26 // a day with chef joel: where i gained an irreplaceable wealth of culinary knowledge

with Chef Joel Delmond and our Tarte Tatin

It all began on a warm Palm Springs night, under an umbrella-covered dining table where I sat languidly, dead from the parties of Mardi Gras that had slowly sipped the life out of my body. My mom and I sat in the chairs of Pinzimini, the new dining spot in the Westin Mission Hills Golf Resort and Spa. Despite my normal rash approval of my mothers’ occasional wine offer at dinner, tonight, I declined. Yet, when our waiter circled back around, his news enlivened my drained sensibility. He pointed over to the corner of the veranda, identifying a tall man clad in a pleated tall pearly hat as a James Beard honored chef. For those of you lost as to what “James Beard honored” indicates, the James Beard Award is the highest of national culinary awards, typically referred to as the “Oscar’s” of the food world. While Chef Joel Delmond is not a recipient of this award, he has cooked in the James Beard House, a sensational recognition of its own. In this moment, my ears perked up like those of a puppy hearing the word walk. My mother and I immediately wrapped our friendly waiter into a conversation where we relayed my infatuation with all things culinary, the blog that I began writing in Peru, my obsession with photographing meals from every imaginable angle, and so on. Before I could add another detail about peruvian cuisine, the waiter had brought the amiable Chef Joel to our very table.

My mother, Chef Joel, and I began discussing my love of food, rummaging through the details of my ever-developing blog. In his impeccable English, dusted with a distinct layer of french inflection, Chef Joel spoke of peruvian gastronomy with a striking fluidity. Though soon to get back to the kitchen, Chef Joel did not leave without sharing his information and inviting me to bake with him in the coming days. We exchanged e-mails the next day and decided on an afternoon spent baking a Tarte Tatin, an upside-down apple tart from the Loir-et-Cher region of France, along the Loire River. I later learned that the tart originates from the Hotel Tatin, where the two sisters and owners, Stephanie and Caroline Tatin, famously baked the first Tarte Tatin, the result of a horrid kitchen diaster. Fittingly, Chef Joel hails from this specific part of France and after hearing my stories on peruvian cuisine, he was anxious to share a quintessential french dish.

My afternoon spent in the kitchen was beyond any of my expectations for baking the Tarte Tatin. Not only did I learn an irreplaceable amount of information on pastry-making from Chef Joel, but he elected other members of his staff to introduce me to their large-scale operations of sushi making, pizza dough molding, and the like. When I say other members, I allude to Chef Shawn Aoki, a former Iron Chef contestant. I could not then and still cannot fathom my luck!

Rolling sushi with Chef Shawn Aoki

Learning how to handle the pizza peel

By the end of the day, Chef Joel and I had two baked Tarte Tatins. During the assembling of the first tarte, Chef Joel took me on a detailed journey through the art of pie-crust making and caramelizing. He shared tips only a pro would know like how to flour your dough before using your rolling pin, what kind of surfaces you should use for specific actions, how to caramelize for different end results (looking for a sweet and light caramel or an almost-bitter type?), the list never ends.

Letting the apples soak in water to keep fresh before baking

Constructing the upside-down tart

Top layer of the upside-down tart

Rolling the dough between two sheets of plastic to keep the dough from melting or sticking to the pin

Both Tarte Tatins slowly evolved into beautiful, really striking pieces of culinary art. Smothered in buttery caramel, the apples congealed together in a perfect geometric form, seated upon a thick base of flaky pastry crust. After many Friday afternoons and Christmas seasons spent baking, I cannot say I have made such a beautiful dish as this Tarte Tatin.

With our finished product, Chef Joel and I took the fore-picture of this blog post, a student and instructor, both grinning happily at a Tarte Tatin well done. That evening, my parents and I ate our final meal in Palm Springs at Pinzimini, electing Chef Shawn’s Tasting Menu. We couldn’t have chosen a better meal and to cap it off, we each engulfed our hardy servings of the Tarte Tatin, brought out by Chef Joel himself. I waddled home in the eighty-five degree paradise, brain full with improved pastry techniques and a stomach wide with caramelized apples.

The baked Tarte Tatin, before being flipped

 

The flipped and final Tarte Tatin

Unfortunately, I do not have Chef Joel’s Tarte Tatin recipe for you yet. However, in the meantime I thought that Julia Child’s rendition will do. Bon Appetit!

Ingredients
For the Tart Dough:
3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup cake flour
2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons chilled butter, diced
2 tablespoons chilled vegetable shortening
1/4 cup ice water, or as needed
For the Tart Tatin:
6 Golden Delicious apples, cored, peeled and halved
1 lemon, zested and juiced
11/2 cups sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, as accompaniment

Directions
In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, place the flours, sugar and butter. Pulse 5 or 6 times in 1/2-second bursts to break up the butter. Add the shortening, turn on the machine and immediately add the ice water, pulsing 2 or 3 times. The dough should look like a mass of smallish lumps and should just hold together in a mass when a handful is pressed together. If the mixture is too dry, pulse in more water by droplets.

Turn the dough out onto the work surface and with the heel of your hand, rapidly and roughly push egg-size blobs into a 6-inch smear. Gather the dough into a relatively smooth cake, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 2 hours (or up to 2 days).

Slice the halved apples into 4 lengthwise wedges each, and toss in a large bowl with the lemon juice and zest and 1/2 cup sugar. Drain the apples after macerating 20 minutes.

In a 9-inch skillet melt the butter over high heat. Stir in the remaining sugar and cook until the syrup bubbles and caramelizes, and turns a brown color. Remove the pan from the heat and arrange a layer of apple slices in a neat pattern on the caramel in the skillet, then arrange the remaining apples neatly on top.

Return the pan to moderately high heat and cook for about 25 minutes, covering the pan after 10 minutes. Every few minutes press down on the apples and baste them with the exuded juices. When the juices are thick and syrupy, remove the pan from the heat.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough into a circle, 3/16-inch thick and 1-inch larger than the top of the pan. Drape the dough over the apples, pressing the edge of the dough between the apples and the inside of the pan. Cut 4 small steam holes on the top of the dough. Bake until the pastry has browned and crisped, about 20 minutes.

Unmold the tart onto a serving dish (so the pastry is on the bottom), and serve warm or cold with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, as desired.

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tarte-tatin-recipe.html?oc=linkback