fashion is love: chocolate

Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts

Saturday, August 10, 2024

black and brown and brown and white

on broadway uws

at Columbus Circle

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Friday, December 29, 2023

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

make a wish!

happy birthday, dear bob!

we love you (and mary) so very much,

more than vanilla spritz cookies;

or a chocolate ganache bakery cake;

or even your favorite lemon meringue pie!

mary and bob

89 expeditions around the sun, so fun!!

make a wish!!

xxx

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Sunday, April 19, 2020

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!