Apple Cake (made with freshly picked apples!)...and apple picking

This past Saturday, Dave and I headed over to Parlee Farms for some apple picking.  Typically we go apple picking at the end of the season, and we always miss the early varieties.  I'm so happy that we remembered to go in September this year!  I made an amazing apple cake with some of the Ginger Gold apples we picked (we also grabbed some Jonomacs and MacIntosh.  (1/3 of the cake is missing in the photo above, because Dave and I were too impatient to wait for me to take a pic!  We scarfed a few pieces down when it was hot out of the oven)

Fist a few pics of our outing, followed by the recipe:

On the hayride

 

The fresh cider donuts- absolutely incredible, although they're no Lakeside donut :)

Above you'll see about half of the apples we picked- we only picked one peck (about 10 lbs).  I've been eating apples all week, but we still have a bunch left over- I hope to make some cinnamon apple ice cream this weekend!

note: Sorry there's a mix of US and metric measurements- I adapted an existing recipe, and have not gone back yet to figure everything out. I'm hoping that I can get everything in grams, because I much prefer to weigh than measure!

Ingredients
Cake:
140 grams unsalted butter, softened
150 grams firmly packed soft dark brown sugar
2 eggs
225 grams self-raising flour (or make your own- 1 ¾ c flour, 2 ⅓ tsp baking powder, ⅝ tsp salt, then measure 225g)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon milk
500 grams apples (about 2-3 apples), peeled, cored, diced.

Streusel Topping:
½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup brown sugar, packed
½ stick unsalted butter
½ tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Heat oven to 320 degrees, and line a 8 in square cake pan with parchment paper.
2. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then gradually add the eggs, one at a time, continuing to beat until fully combined.
3. Sift in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. 
4. Add the milk and apples, then fold everything together. The batter will be very thick!!
5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth surface. 
6. Place the topping ingredients in a food processor and pulse until crumbly.  Sprinkle the topping evenly over the batter. 
7. Bake for 1 hr 10 mins, until a skewer inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Oh my....super moist, not to sweet, and totally delicious.  I will be making it again soon!

Recipe adapted from Cakelets and Doilies

Food Crawl - 30th Birthday in Boston

Yep...I'm 30!  It was my birthday yesterday, so the friends took me out for high tea downtown!  It was a fancy afternoon :)

Before we met up with the gals, I tried to pose real cool in my bday dress.  I'm sure you can imagine how that turned out...

 

posing

falling

Yea. Real cool (see Dave's successful attempt at coolness at the bottom of this post).

After a quick trip to Hotel Chocolat for my favorite salted caramels, we popped over to L'Espalier. 

View Larger Map

Totally fancy-schmancy, with a cool elevator guy.  I was with Theresa, and when we got upstairs, we were greeted by the hostess- she then directed us to the salon to wait for Leah (she got trapped near the Commons because of the Jimmy Fund walk!).

The first tea that we received upon arriving at our table was this hand-tied little ball of tea/flowers:

You plop it into hot water (although I doubt "plop" is the technical term)...

 

...and wait for it to bloom:

Below is the menu for the rest of the teas- they were all included, so we could try each one!

We chose the "Little Red Riding Hood" fantasy tea, which came with a delightful assortment of tea sandwiches and petit fours.

Lobster with herbed cream on a breakfast radish, Roasted guinea hen profiterole with garlic aïoli,

Jonah crab salad with gribiche and American caviar on a deviled egg (the best one!),

Smoked salmon on wheat with yuzu kosho crème, and English cucumber with candied lemon and sorrel creamcheese on citrus bread .

Theresa and Leah being all fancy (pinkies are up, if you can't tell)

When the dessert plate came out, mine had a special birthday treat!

Here is the Pâte à choux swan with espresso Chantilly cream:

...and here are the Almond apricot scone and chocolate cinnamon scone (hanging out with a delectable mango trifle!)

Not pictured is the Greek yogurt panna cotta- which was just heavenly!  It was an unassuming little patty of creamy, rich goodness.  Trust me.

We also got a few amazing accoutrements:

which we ate by the spoonful :)

Here's the view of Boylston street from our table:

I asked the hostess to snap a photo of us on our way out, but I think she didn't understand what I was saying when I explained how to focus on my camera (I think she MUCH preferred the girls who handed her an iPhone to take their picture!)

After we ate, we went out for pedicures. I told you...this was a fancy outing!

Can you tell which color is mine? I'm sure you can, and I'm sure you're not surprised

Post nails, we shopped at a few boutiques on Newbury street, where I picked up a clearance skirt and necklace, Leah got a cute shirt, and Theresa purchased 2 shirts! Success!

It was time to meet up with the boys, and when I was asked what I wanted to do for dinner, I had a hankering for hot dogs.  Ha!  Not as classy as the rest of the day, but boy did they hit the spot!!

Of course, we went to Spikes.


View Larger Map

Matt, Theresa, and Adam

Chili Cheese dog:

Junkyard dog:

And mine, the 57 T Bird (no, that's not grease...the oogy stuff is honey mustard, covering the melted cheese!!)

The boys apparently had a food crawl of their own while we were doing girly stuff- including Tasty Burger, Marliave, Thinking Cup, and a trip to Chinatown for pork buns.

At the beginning of the post I promised you Dave's attempt at cool-ness.  WAY better than mine! (but maybe that's because I captured the radical lens flare! hehe)

The drive home over the Mass Ave bridge

Thanks for making my bday so fun!

Simple Miso Soup

At the end of our recent family vacation to the Jersey Shore, Matt and Melissa mentioned that they wanted to make some miso soup.  Dave and I thought it was a great idea, so we looked up a recipe and made a big batch.

It makes quite a few servings of soup (probably 8-10), so you can always halve the recipe if needed.

Ingredients:
12-ounce block firm silken tofu
1 cup han tsuyu (we got this one from Hmart)
7 cups water
2 tablespoons dark or red miso
6 tablespoons light or white miso
4 scallions, thinly sliced

Directions:

1. Wrap the block of tofu in 2 layers of paper towels and lay on a plate. Invert a second plate on top of the tofu and weigh down.  Leave for 20 minutes then cut the tofu into 1/4 to 1/2-inch cubes. 
2. Heat the water and han tsuyu in a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. When it reaches 100 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, ladle 1 cup into a small bowl. 
3. Add the miso, and whisk until smooth.
4. Bring the remaining liquid to a bare simmer, approximately 10 minutes. 
5. Add the miso mixture and whisk to combine. Return to a slight simmer, being careful not to boil the mixture. 
6. Add the tofu and scallions and cook for another minute or until heated through. 
7. Remove from the heat, ladle into soup bowls and serve immediately. 

The soup was just as delicious leftover, but we wish that we had added the scallions fresh each time.  We'll try that next time!

Recipe adapted from Food Network