nesting

easter parade, earth day style.... 

\

easter parade, fifth avenue

 

easter energy

on central park south 

 

joy in the ordinary

a little inspiration for the new week.... 

stay safe!!

Easter day, doodles, riverside park...

mary cooks continued: Easter egg cake and frosting recipes

hi again, fellow quarantinistas!

so, i found a great photo of my mother's mini egg cakes and also haver her reply to the questions posed in my pre Easter blog post asking her for the recipe and frosting details.

https://fashion-is-love-nyc.blogspot.com/2020/04/mary-had-little-lamb.html

she writes from isolation with my father in New Jersey:

Hi,

The cake is a Dromedary pound cake (sadly extinct!) (she uses Betty Crocker now) 

The cookies are in the book--Veronica's Xmas cookies!  (referring to the cookies i asked about) 

The icing recipe is as follows: 

1 cup granulated sugar.

1/4 cup  unsalted margarine

1/4 cup shortening (I use Crisco)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup milk

3 cups confectioner's sugar

1 1/4 t. almond extract

Food coloring

Combine first five ingredients in saucepan.   Bring to a boil over moderate heat, stirring  constantly.  

boil vigorously 1 minute.   Remove from heat.   Beat in XXX sugar  and  almond  flavoring until smooth.

Tint with food coloring as desired.  Cool 2 or 3 minutes or until icing is a good consistency to use.

Using fork to hold cakes, cover top and sides with icing.  If icing gets too thick to pour over cake, reheat a fews seconds in microwave!  

If Decorating tops of cakes with rosettes, use buttercream icing!     

For chocolate glaze I use Shirley's glaze :  

XOXX Mom

Mary's mini egg cakes, Easter, 2017

here as well is the recipe for Shirley's chocolate glaze: 

1 pkg. (4 ounces) sweet chocolate (German's) or

3/4 cup chocolate chips

1 Tbsp. butter

3 Tbsp. water

1 cup powdered sugar

dash of salt

1 tsp. vanilla

Break chocolate and melt with butter and water. Remove from heat. 

Beat in sugar and salt til smooth . Stir in vanilla.

and the buttercream icing is:

3 cups XXX sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1t. vanilla
1-2 TBSP heavy cream (or milk)

Cream together butter and sugar. add vanilla then gradually add milk to desired consistency.

p.s. she adds, if you are doing icing for fewer eggs (i made 55 last time) you can probably half the recipe. or use leftover to ice cupcakes when you make them. (it can be frozen).



and while we are at it, Veronica's Christmas Cookies recipe follows as per below.
if you cannot read it clearly, let me know and i can always type it out for you! it is obviously adaptable to Easter, Valentine's Day, or any holiday or occasion for which you have a favorite cookie cutter!

butter cookies recipe
mary, with her granddaughters abby and charlotte and my sister eleanor

really. mom?  55 mini egg cakes?!  extraordinary!
xx

dear Gilli

found this in my blog drafts from April, 2014, not sure how it got stuck there!

the first time i visited Florence was possibly in the year 1995 (or was it 2004?) to meet up with my parents, sister and cousins who were already there, renting a house in the hills of Chianti. 

i remember that it rained for most of the trip, poured at times, and that my parents and cousins took us for coffee at Caffe Gilli on the morning i arrived.

we sat outside in the damp Piazza della Repubblica on cold, wet metal chairs. it was divine.

thought work took me to other areas of Italy, i  do not think i returned to Firenze until 2014, when i took a week or so to join a food tour coordinated by the daughter of a designer friend of mine.

we again stayed in a house just outside the city gates and had daily field trips into the hills for various culinary focused adventures. we also made it into the city several times as we were so close by.

i think i took this photo as we grabbed quick morning coffees at the little bar inside.

sending love and light to Italy!

stay safe!

caffe gilli, florence, 2014

saying goodbye

from a safe distance...

riverside park 

ramp season

in line for leeks and for potatoes and for the fleeting first ramps of this surreal spring season...

Easter morning,
Grow NY farmers market w76th street....

track stripes three ways

Easter weekend, riverside park...
#stayhome

bunny hop

Easter blessings to all.

now, back to my reading....

riverside drive....
#stayhome
#staysafe

Good Friday

on my walk up West End Avenue late yesterday afternoon, four blocks of flowers, each in various stages of bloom ...  

on west end avenue...

Happy Passover, Happy Easter to all...  stay home, stay safe! xx

and defiant daffodils on riverside drive...

mary had a little lamb

Easter, Ventosa Drive, from our Mary Cooks family calendar

i promised you the Lamb Cake recipe before Easter!

it is in the final installment of the food memoir created for my mom's 70th birthday.
i called the chapter Next Generation and the focus was on all the fun baking and cooking shared between Mary and her two granddaughters, Abigail and Charlotte, and with and for her Butterworth neighborhood of kids, many of whom adopted my mom as their own, and vice versa....

but, i was never able to finish assembling and publishing all the remaining chapters so here it is piecemeal, along with a story about the recipe and cake mold used to bake it. enjoy!!

the story of the lamb cake

mom, about the darling rabbit and duckling and hen shaped butter cookies on the platter with the lamb cake.  do we have the recipe for those in our Cookies chapter?  i think you gave me the cookie cutters when you moved from Ventosa to Mendham!

cookie cutters ...

the recipe, typed for the cookbook 

and, i see the chocolate and marzipan glazed egg cakes in the photo as well but did not come across the recipe. i think you made it with a Dromedary pound cake mix as well, and with Shirley's Chocolate Glaze but am not sure?  perhaps you can refresh my repertoire with those recipes, along with the pastel marzipan frosting, too?

mom's original notes 

mini egg cake molds 

mom, backyard egg hunt for the neighborhood

Ventosa Drive kids taking swings at the pinata...

happy baking! happy memory making! stay safe! xx

another walk

Riverside Park, Palm Sunday....

baking bread

the recipes that follow are from the Daily Bread installment of Mary Cooks, a food memoir and recipe collection my family created together just over 15 years ago to celebrate my mother's 70th birthday. 

as a child, i loved the Casatielli, though i did not know its formal name back then.   it was my Uncle Richard who offered that detail when he shared the recipe for the cookbook project.  

as at Christmas, my Grandmother Marie made this for her family along with other traditional Italian treats.

to me, it indeed tasted like a buttery brioche and had the added magical feature of the egg tucked beneath the 'cross' of dough in the basket ...  

the Easter Braid was another favorite, with sugar glaze, lemon and raisins flavoring the bread.
this recipe is credited to one of my mom's friends in our  neighborhood.

my mother is famous for her cakes, too.

Easter in our house is traditionally time for the Lamb Cake, baked in a cast iron lamb shaped mold and decorated with marshmallow icing and coconut sprinkles, and for Glazed Egg Cakes, delectable pound cakes with either chocolate or marzipan glaze and decorative rosettes on top.  

i will feature those by the weekend as we move closer toward the holiday. 

wire baskets in my city kitchen along with a butter mold from my mom's collection....

stay home, stay safe. stay connected, 

xx

shelter in place

"gratitude to gratitude always gives birth."  Sophocles 

spring, riverside park...

weather friendly

Earth Day, Broadway...

egg therapy...

Happy Easter, fashionistas!

Mendham, NJ

spring is so sweet!

william greenberg desserts...

spring training

the perfect precursor to spring -- a bunch of tulips that blooms beautifully for days....

at 260 riverside...