February 18th, 2011

Lemon Meringue Tart
Beacon Hill Bistro
Boston, MA

Changing things up at lunch today, we made a reservation at Beacon Hill Bistro. A little fancier than our usual fare and also further down Charles Street.

Funny story. Everyone was gathering to depart at 12:10pm. My test wasn't complete. I had 3-4 minutes left of run time. I told one of the girls to not wait, since it was going to be a little while, everyone walks really slowly anyway and I'd catch up. She says okay and they head off.

I finish my test and head down the slowest elevators ever - the elevators that visitors take. So busy and confusing. I never thought they were coming, but when they did it was a surprisingly short trip down. I booked it out of the building and down Charles Street to the restaurant. I arrive, say I'm with the party of eight -- and they say I'm the first to arrive.

Really? The first? When I left like 8 minutes after they did for a 5 minute walk?

I take a seat in the waiting area and few a minutes later they arrive. They looked surprised. I inwardly roll my eyes, and say to the girl I told to go ahead with me: "I told you they way insanely slow." But given that we took the same exact route I'm still baffled as to how they managed to both end up behind me and not see me pass.

In any case, my meal was delicious. I had a butternut squash sandwich - which was sweet and savory all at once in a toasted bread. Perfect. I didn't eat the fries - why do restaurants still put fries with meals? Ew. This isn't McDonalds. Dessert, however, was this delicious lemon meringue tart. The lemon curd was ultra sweet, but the meringue and crust offset it with buttery, creamy goodness. The touch of caramel also went well with the sweet-tart lemon.

Yum. Totally lavish for a workday lunch.

February 16th, 2011

Coconut Cream Cupcakes

Coconut cupcakes Part 2 starts here. I frosted the tops of the cupcakes with the same coconut frosting, then rolled them in toasted sweetened coconut flakes.

As you can tell, this was like semi-homemade since I used the box cake and bought sweetened coconut flakes. My previous coconut cake from two weeks ago was far more advanced with every last thing from scratch - coconut cracking fresh.

But these were a lot more moist than all of my from-scratch cakes, so I fell back on the box after several disappointing cake textures. Everyone loved these and they disappeared almost immediately. Sweet decadence. I can still smell the sugar coconut in the air.

This was a request by the way, from a coconut loving birthday coworker.

February 15th, 2011

Filling the coconut cupcakes

These are my half-complete coconut cupcakes. It's a basic yellow vanilla cake mix. Instead of water, I used coconut water. I added pudding mix for moisture. I added coconut extract for amazing flavor.

I then made a coconut frosting from scratch - which was a little runnier than I wanted, but still fluffy, sweet and most important coconutty. It was infused with coconut extract also, along with coconut milk.

I filled up a pastry bag with the frosting, buried the end into each cupcake and squeezed until the tops bulged and threatened to split.

That was Part 1.

February 14th, 2011

Breakfast and lunch: Protein shake, roasted veggies and a blood orange

I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with this photo, I'll admit. I just was documenting what I was taking to eat that day and was never meant to be an impressive photo. I love blood oranges. I'm obsessed with protein shakes, specifically Biochem 100% Whey Vanilla. Roasted veggies are better than steamed.

I have little else to say about this.

February 12th, 2011

Downtown Boston from the pier in East Boston, MA

It's taken my 9 months to take this very simple photos. It's the view from East Boston across the harbor to downtown. It's stunning. The most beautiful view in all of Boston.

I run past this daily (or would be daily if the weather were better) as I jog around the harbor.

This is why East Boston rocks.

February 9th, 2011

Nail Rescue

At the beginning of January I became really obsessed with fake nails. I was buying and applying those Broadway Nails Petites in peach. They're much shorter than your classic fake nails, almost coming across as natural. I had always imagined that I'd immediately break them off - rather like the cheap fake nails you get with Halloween costumes at CVS. These are much nicer. I was blown away by the strength of the nails. Sturdier than my own naturally grown nails. And they stayed in place - which they should since you're using superglue to apply them.

The major drawback that I learned after the fact was that no matter how gentle you are when removing the nails, they will have destroyed your natural nail below. Over a month later, my nails are still, peeling, weak and torn up. There is no going back from this! So I turned to Sally Hansen nail rescue to try to rub some gel-based strength back into them. I don't have high hopes, but I'm willing to try anything at this point.

February 7th, 2011

Mango Mousse and Chocolate-Espresso Cake

The second birthday of the week inspired a new level of cake-making. My very first mousse cake. Mango mousse at that. I've been in love with the mango mousse from the Whole Foods bakery for several years now. It's technically made off-site at a local bakery, but I forget the precise name.

In any case, I went looking for a simple mango cake recipe. Then I realized that I didn't have the beautiful acetate wraps to hole it in place. I did some shopping over the weekend, but couldn't find anything locally. I considered using a clear cellophane used to wrap books or gift baskets, but decided against it in the end. Instead, I went in search of a recipe that was a little sturdier - and fell upon this Mango Mousse and Chocolate-Espresso Cake at the blog Desserts For Breakfasts. The sturdy bottom layer made from a rich mocha topped by a fluffy mango mousse and finished with a sweet espresso jelly, all wrapped and held together in a thin bark of bittersweet chocolate.

The original recipe is designed for 6 small cakes, but I made a 9 inch single cake instead. I was able to bake the cake part in a single pan as a result rather than deal with a baking tray. This made the thin chocolate wrap harder to handle in the end (an extra set of hands would be a lot easier), but I got it on and it turned out brilliantly.

The only bad part of the cake, was the cake-part itself - the chocolate cake was really dense. Again, a density issue with these from-scratch cakes. I was told that it was texturally appealing when eaten in combination with the mango mousse and espresso jelly, however. In the future, I will cut out the cake part altogether though and just make a solid mousse-and-jelly cake. Or do a layered mousse cake with maybe passion fruit, mango and vanilla cream. Yum.