I racked my brain. I Googled. I Tastespotted. I Martha Stewart-ed. The last time I made something from gifted lemons was when I baked (and whisked my heart out) a lemon sabayon with a pine nut crust for my next door neighbors. I didn’t want to bake another tart. I didn’t want to make cupcakes. For a few days, I seriously considered making vanilla bean-infused lemon marmalade, but canning is a process, and I’d rather take the time to make marmalade with fourteen lemons than four. And then I saw it. Of course. Candied lemon peels.

The gifter was going on a trip and they’d make a great on the road snack. Plus, creating them would give me the opportunity to try a new technique. I love candied ginger and such things, but I’d never made my own before. And, this would only use the lemon peels…allowing me to make sorbet or something else soft and creamy with the flesh of the lemons.

I followed the recipe from The Luna Café. It’s just one of their many mouth-watering recipes….

The four lemons

The first step: Separating the flesh from the skin. A very sharp, small knife is recommended. My knives need sharpening, but they did the job.

Next, remove as much pith as possible. Then, to reduce the bitterness, blanch the peels three times in simmering water.

And, finally, submerge them in sugar syrup.

After about an hour or so of boiling, they’re semi-translucent and ready to be removed from the sugar syrup and dried so they can be coated with sugar.

Voila.

The result was the peels are still a little bitter (they are lemon peels after all), but the combination of sweet and bitter is such that it coaxes you to keep eating them. Mmm.

For the second year, Secret Marmalade was requested to bake cupcakes for one of the best Oscar parties in Los Angeles. It isn’t an “official” Oscar party, but trust us, this is one party you want to be on the list for.

It’s also an event we look forward to as the gracious host allows us to flex our creativity and play with designs and flavors. Last year, we brought three different flavors of cupcakes. Vanilla cupcakes wrapped in a red liner and topped with a gold star, Red velvet cupcakes topped with cream cheese icing for 127 Hours, and chocolate cupcakes topped with vanilla icing and a hand-piped dark chocolate swan for The Black Swan.

This year, we had a little more fun with the flavors and designs. It’s hard to do too much design work on mini cupcakes, but we were happy with the results. So without further adieu, here were this year’s four cupcakes:

“Drive”
A cherry-infused cupcake with vanilla frosting topped with a stenciled gold scorpion from the Driver’s iconic jacket. (We selected cherry to pay homage to the Eighties.)

“The Artist”
A double vanilla cupcake topped with rich vanilla frosting and a fondant clapboard.

“Moneyball”
A chocolate cupcake topped with vanilla frosting and a dark chocolate money sign.

“Midnight in Paris”
A French-inspired cupcake with a lavender base and lemon frosting.

For the record, though Drive was not nominated for Best Picture, we firmly believe it should have been. Or, at the very least, Thomas Newton Siegel should have been nominated for Best Cinematography.

This morning we debuted our newest flavor at L’Epicerie: Red Velvet! Topped with a tangy cream cheese frosting and a hand-piped dark chocolate heart, we have a feeling this will warm your heart! When paired with our chocolate cupcake and our double vanilla cupcake, they make up the unstoppable Valentine’s Trio!

Can’t make it to Culver City this weekend? Then join us at the Unique LA’s Local Love event on February 11th and 12th! We’re so excited to be part of this amazing event – free photo booth, 125 local artisansand we’ll have lots of yummy treats on hand…including mini versions of the Valentine’s Trio pictured above!

See you soon!

xoxo
Secret Marmalade

Secret Marmalade is so very excited to be a part of Unique LA’s Local Love show on February 11th and 12th in downtown Los Angeles! Come say hello and pick up some goodies exclusive to the show! Read more about the event here.

I came around the corner and there they were. Deep red and tempting. I had to buy them. But…then what? Just devouring a pound of cherries seemed like a waste.

I pored over my recipe books hoping to find inspiration, but finding none, I turned to the Flavor Bible to find what paired well with the succulent fruit. Port, pistachio, cream, chocolate…ok, now I was getting somewhere. And I couldn’t stop thinking about eating the cherries. They looked so good.

Finally, I decided upon making my classic dark chocolate brownie and topping it with pistachio ice cream, a cherry reduction, and freshly whipped cream. It would plate well and give me a chance to work on another reduction and a nut-based ice cream. Plus, I thought the savory nature of the pistachio would balance the sweetness of the port-infused reduction.

In the end, everything went smoothly…except for the ice cream. It was the first time I ever had an ice cream curdle on me. I was working with it on the stove, stirring it and just at the moment it seemed it would be done, it separated and became a gloppy sludge. Ugh. Concerned, I took it off the stove, strained it, put it over the ice bath and stuck it in the fridge a couple hours later hoping that the cup of heavy cream I would add to it in the morning would remedy it. It did. And, though it wasn’t the silkiest, smoothest ice cream I’ve made, I was delighted with its flavor and how everything came together in the end.

There’s a lot I want to accomplish this year, especially when it comes to pastry. After all, if the world is going to end in December, I should make sure to indulge in as many delicious bites as possible before then. Right?

This weekend, I was requested to bring dessert and it inspired me to examine what skills I want to further develop this year, what types of dishes I want to experiment with, and what changes to my menu I want to make. In the process, I decided that each weekend, I want to create a new dessert…one I’ve never tried before and one that requires me to step outside my comfort zone. It’s the best way I learn.

So, I made a shortlist of desserts – about 20 or so – that I will add to throughout the year. Some are seasonal and will have to wait until ingredients like plump, juicy berries are ready for plucking later this summer. In the meantime, I’ll dabble with recipes that are more winter-friendly.

This weekend marked week one.

First up: Apple Cider and Caramel Ice Cream with Pirouettes.

I pulled the recipes from The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle and French Laundry. Thumbing through Sweet Life, I became more and more inspired by I am beyond impressed by Kate Zuckerman. Her creative pastry skills are something that I aspire to achieve.

I began by creating the ice cream. Over the course of an hour or so, I reduced the apple cider and mixed it together with the homemade caramel. Then, I added it all slowly (so as not to curdle the eggs) to the whisked egg yolks and heated it until it was a thick custard. The result? A very creamy, rich soft ice cream. 8 egg yolks, a cup of whole milk, and a cup and a half of cream will do that.

But, I wasn’t entirely impressed with the flavor. It was too sweet for my taste. And, though I added rosemary, cinnamon, and ginger to try to give it a savory essence, sugar was still the primary flavor I tasted in each bite. Blah. My motto when it comes to my products is “Flavor first, sugar second” and this was just the opposite.

The next day, I poured the ice cream in my handy ice cream maker and let it do its thing. In the meantime, I made the pirouettes. For many of the baked desserts I do, I use my Kitchenaid, but for this, the recipe called for me to handmix the ingredients using a large wooden spoon and a bowl. So, into the bowl went room temperature butter, onto which I sifted confectioner’s sugar. I mixed the pair together, added some flour, mixed more, then added the rest of the flour, an egg, and some vanilla. Around this time, my roommate decided I needed some inspiration.

Once the batter was ready, I scooped it onto the back of a offset spatula and spread it on a stencil that I had made. This was the tricky part. I needed to get the batter thick enough to be able to wrap but not so thick that the cookies would be chewy. The book said “thin, but not transparent.” This will take practice.

The first round baked on the top rack of the oven for 5 minutes, the second for 4 minutes. Now comes the tricky part. The cookies emerged from the oven light and delicate…and hot as hell. To form them, you leave them on the oven rack and pull them out one at a time. Curling them around the handle of the wooden spoon resulted in a lot of swearing. Let’s just say if I were a cartoon, a @*#$! bubble would have been floating over my head.

There has got to be an easier way.

The first batch looked a little funny…

…but the second batch turned out much better!

Here is the final result!

Lessons learned:
- The ice cream was not my favorite in terms of flavor. Next time, I will create a spiced apple ice cream with fresh apples and add a swirl of caramel.
- I need to determine how thick pirouettes should be. A trip to Bouchon bakery might be in order.
- More practice on wrapping pirouettes needed.
- I must find an easier way to curl the pirouettes that will result in less grumbling.

December certainly arrived with a *bang* here in Los Angeles last night and not-so-subtly reminded me that today is the day that I start taking holiday orders! This year Secret Marmalade is featuring two different tins.  I’m only be taking orders up until December 15th, so don’t delay! Each package is $30. Email me here to order!

For the Cookie Lover:
4 dark chocolate brownies
10 peanut butter cookies
15 ginger cookies
20 glittery sugar cookies

For the Candy Lover:
15 salted caramels
15 ginger cookies
4 dark chocolate brownies
1/2 pound of nut brittle topped with dark chocolate and fleur de sel

Ok…well…sort of.

From 4-6pm today, Secret Marmalade will be participating in An Afternoon of Gratitude, an event that is raising money for the cause Free the Slaves. The organization works tirelessly to combat human trafficking around the world and I’m very honored to be a part of it.

And you can too! If you’re in Los Angeles today, brave the rain and come to Venice! Secret Marmalade will be there with our rich, mouthwatering Truly Vanilla cupcakes and our decadent, dark chocolate spicy bourbon brownies. Gjelina, Whole Foods, and Primitivo are also donating food and wine so there will be quite a buffet of delicious nibbles that you can enjoy for just $20 at the door! I know. It is awesome.

If, for some reason you can’t make it, but you want to learn more about the cause or donate, click here and it will take you to the event’s site.

See you in a few hours!

…comes light.

And with it, Truly Vanilla. On Friday, I unveiled Total Darkness at L’Epicerie Market in Culver City and this morning, Truly Vanilla made its debut. This luscious, mouth-wateringly moist cupcake features vanilla bean and extract in both the frosting and the cake. The result is a “truly vanilla” flavor. Enjoy.

“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.” – Maori Proverb