I am so into this stuff. I first had it in New Haven just after Thanksgiving... then Kevin and I found Bubblemaineia in Portland... and then I noticed it on the menu at Dado Tea in Cambridge. But bubble tea just hasn't found its way to Bangor... until now! I bought some tapioca pearls at the Portland Spice Company (my favorite vendor at the Portland Public Market) a few weeks ago, but realized on my way home that I didn't have the half-inch diameter straws required for slurping up said pearls! I went on a furious internet search, and found some, but the shipping was going to cost about three times as much as the straws. Argh. My only hope was to save my straws when I buy bubble tea in Portland or Boston. I was saved, however, when I found myself -- and this bubble tea kit! -- at the Market on Thursday. The Portland Spice Co. comes through yet again! The kit contains (and I am copying this directly from the box, because I love bad translations from Chinese text!): Shaker cup, 1 pc. Fruit flavor, 8 bags. Plastic cup, 8 sets. Big straw, 8 pcs. Black pearl tapioca, 1 bag. Green tea tapioca, 1 bag. Instruction, 1 set. That's enough for about 16 servings, as far as I can tell, all for the price of about four at a tea salon! Life is good.
Hmm... maybe I should offer a good explanation of just what bubble tea is? I know very few of my friends around here will know what it is, since it isn't available in Bangor! I'll quote bubblemaineia.com: "Bubble tea is a frothy concoction made of tea and flavorings, served with blended or cubed ice and with or without tapioca pearls. Tapioca pearls provide texture to the drink. The consistency of tapioca pearls is somewhere between gelatin and gummy candy. The term "bubble" originated from the froth created when the drink is prepared by vigorous shaking." And you thought the "bubble" part referred to the tapioca pearls, right? I certainly did! =) Now we know, and knowing is half the battle. Go, Joe! Oops. Childhood cartoon flashback.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the instructions in my bubble tea kit: "Stir, avoid the pearl sticking on pot." " Turn to small fire when pearl float out of the water." "Enjoy the 10 minutes-cooking Pearl." "Add some tapioca pearl; place a straw. Then a cup of delicious Bubble & Pearl Drink is serve." Oh, and the "pictrure" on the box "is for reference only."
The tapioca pearls will be so much fun. They're good not just in warm or iced tea, but also in smoothies, shakes, iced coffee... anything you care to suck up through a half-inch straw! Normally I don't care for beverages that require chewing, but this stuff breaks all the rules.
I spent half an hour waiting for The T at Harvard Square today, thus missing the bus I had planned to take to Portland, where my car was. So I got to spend a lovely 45 minutes at South Station once I finally got there, followed by two hours on a bus, and two more hours driving. I'm too tired to play Bubble Tea tonight. But I'll be all over it tomorrow... be ready for a Special Report (did I work in TV too long or what?!?)!
PS: I also procured (in Portland) what may be the state's only bottle of Winterport Winery's cranberry wine! Well, until they bottle a new batch later this winter. I'll get back to you on that one, too, eventually... but I'm not opening it until the next time Kevin gets more than one day at a time off from work and can come up here and help me drink it!
I'm telling you: the fun just never ends around here! Yesterday, I found a recipe at williams-sonoma.com that required the use of my purple mixerand my Bundtlette pan!
I bought the pan a couple of months ago, but I hadn't used it yet. It's finally time. So, without further ado, here's the recipe for...
Mini Spice Bundt Cakes
For the cakes: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/4 tsp. salt
8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
For the glaze: 1/2 cup plus 1 Tbs. confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup apple juice (I used cider, because it's what I like, and what I had on hand!
Directions:
Have all the ingredients at room temperature.
Position a rack in the lower third of an oven and preheat to 325°F. Generously grease and flour a 6-well bundtlette pan.
To make the cakes, over a sheet of waxed paper, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, cardamom and salt; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy and smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and egg yolk one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, alternating with the cream and beginning and ending with the flour. Beat each addition until just incorporated, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla and beat until incorporated.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and spread the batter evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted near the center of a cake comes out clean, about 25 minutes (do not overbake). Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cakes cool upright in the pan for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the glaze: Over a sheet of waxed paper, sift together the 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar and 1/2 tsp. of the cinnamon. In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the apple juice to a boil and boil until reduced to 1/4 cup, about 10 minutes. Stir in the confectioners’ sugar mixture.
Gently tap the pan on a work surface to loosen the cakes. Set the rack over a sheet of aluminum foil or waxed paper and carefully invert the cakes onto the rack. Using a pastry brush, brush the surface of the warm cakes with the glaze. Let the cakes cool completely before serving.
Just before serving, in a small bowl, stir together the 1 Tbs. confectioners’ sugar and the remaining 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Dust the cakes lightly with the sugar mixture. Makes 6 mini-cakes.
Do you like my whipped cream garnish? I had to do something with the leftover cream... so I put that mixer and its whip attachment to the test! I think it took all of three minutes to whip the cream. And the cakes? Absolutely fabulous. Spicy and sweet, with a nice contrasting flavor in the tart, apple-y glaze. The Bundtlette pan, frankly, is a pain in the ass to work with! It was not at all easy to grease and flour those little cups, and the cake batter was really thick, and hard to get into the cups. But it was totally worth the effort.
Just in case you didn't believe me when I blogged about my "cookbook problem," here is a picture of my latest acquisitions:
Boston has become a problem for me. I am surrounded by bookstores no matter where I go! More on that in a few... but the first book I will talk about is "The American Boulangerie" by Pascal Rigo. I didn't buy this one for myself -- I participated in The Amateur Gourmet's "Secret Cookbook Santa" last month. It was so fun! It's pretty self explanatory, but I'll give you a quick rundown: I signed up and submitted a wish list of three books. Someone recieved my info, and I received someone else's info. Cookbooks were sent all over the world for this! I think Amazon probably did a lot of extra business for a couple of weeks! I was lucky enough to recieve my first choice. It's an incredibly beautiful book that includes recipes for all of my favorite Paris pastries, like cannelles, palmiers, and macarons. Now that I have my purple mixer, I can't wait to try the macarons!
Now, the books I actually bought... I really shouldn't be left alone to wander the streets of Boston. In Harvard Square alone, there's the Harvard Bookstore, the Harvard Coop, Curious George Goes to Wadsworth... what's a girl to do? Shop, of course. I didn't realize until last week that the Harvard Bookstore has a used books section. I was so all over that when I noticed the sign! I love "vintage" cookbooks, of course. I was lucky enough to find "The Tassajara Recipe Book" there. I love their bread book, and this is just as good -- lots of veggie recipes that I will definitely try, great writing style, and recipe instructions such as "if properly cooked and properly eaten, the brown rice will properly become you." It's a little hippie, a little Zen, and a lot of fun!
From a display table at The Harvard Coop leapt "Going with the Grain" by Susan Seligson. Can you believe it? A book about bread just jumped right into my hands! Shocking!!! I'm only on the third chapter, but I am already completely fascinated with it. "Part travelogue, part cultural history, with a handful of recipes thrown in ..." reads a passage on the back cover. If you're as obsessed with bread as I am, a copy will probably throw itself at you the next time you're in a bookstore.
On Friday, I discovered the nation's oldest bookstore, the Brattle Book Shop: three floors of used books and magazines, along with a great selection of vintage postcards. And a not-too-shabby cookbook section. "The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book" left that store with me. It's pretty neat: Fannie Merritt Farmer's hand-corrected recipes, original black-and-white drawings and ads as they appeared in the 1896 printing, and recipes like "Milk for the Sick." Very entertaining.
I got home from Boston last night and did my routine e-mail/food blog scan. As I skimmed through a couple of my favorites, I was alerted to the fact that last Friday was a "Sugar High Friday." How did that get by me? I guess it got lost in the shuffle of all my bouncing around from state to state. What a bummer. I also was reminded of this month's IMBB?: Beans, beans, beans... do you think I will be able to remember this one?!? Wish me luck. I think I need to start taking ginko... but now, I need to get ready for my latest adventure. I'll tell you all about it later, plus I'm pretty sure I'll be making a "real" blog entry when I get home tonight.
But what they lack in good looks, they make up for in flavor.
I'm going to Boston for a few days and thought I'd take some baked goods to Kev. When I was trying to decide what to make for my inaugural purple mixer recipe the other day, he suggested oatmeal cookies. I thought that sounded good until I saw the recipe for whole-wheat snickerdoodles... but I also found this recipe while I was searching, and filed it away for another day, which turned out to be yesterday. It's another one from allrecipes.com, my new favorite source for cookie recipes -- since everything is user-submitted, the variety is just amazing. You never know just what you'll find once you start poking around! Here is the original recipe, and here's what I did to it...
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup wheat and barley nugget cereal (eg. Grape Nuts -- I used Kashi 7 in the Morning) Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a medium bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the egg, and vanilla. Sift together the flour, whole wheat flour, and baking soda; stir into the creamed mixture. Then stir in the oatmeal, chocolate chips, and cereal. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
These are so good and so much fun. There's a lot going on in these little cookies! I love oats, and they add a satisfying chewiness to these. The chocolate chips are the gooiness. And the cereal... oh, the cereal! I love Grape-Nuts and 7 in the Morning (they taste exactly alike, but Kashi's version has, as the title implies, seven grains instead of just one or two). I love them on ice cream. I love them in yogurt. I love them for breakfast with berries or banana. Why didn't I ever think to put them in cookies?!? I think I'll add them to all of my cookies from now on! Someone who doesn't know they're in there probably wouldn't guess that they're there, but when you know, you say "of course!" Try them. You'll like them. I think the next time I make these, I'll use cranberries instead of chocolate chips. Am I weird for preferring berries to chocolate? Probably. But that's my prerogative.
