The Daring Baker's Challenge, September 2010: Decorated Sugar Cookies

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

A few months ago Ms. Kumquat sent me a note requesting my favorite sugar cookie recipe. She thought that as her baking-est friend, surely I must have something I could send her. Embarrassingly I had nothing. Despite all of the baking I do, sugar cookies are something I had avoided. While I love other varieties of homemade cookies, homemade sugar cookies have always hit a flat note with me. They are usually too hard, with a hint of cardboard flavoring. Several failed attempts and I swore them off forever. 

As such, it was with much curiosity that I greeted this month's Daring Baker's challenge. I had taken a pass on the challenges over the past few months as my new job and our vacation kept me more than occupied. Who knew that a sugar cookie challenge would bring me back? Decorated sugar cookies were something that I had always wanted to try and this was the perfect opportunity. I just needed to figure out what I would do with all of the cookies. 

I made just one elephant. For some reason the thought of decorating an entire batch of elephants seemed overwhelming,

At first I thought Aaron could just take them to work. Maybe I could decorate the cookies with little dollar signs or something equally ridiculous but appropriate for his office... perhaps a few elephants. A sole elephant cutter is the only non-round cookie cutter I have. Aaron didn't seem completely thrilled about having to tote a bunch of "cute" cookies into his office. Fortunately a friend freed him from that duty by planning a small party - the perfect venue for disposing of a batch of baked goods.

To say the cookies, themselves, were easy to make is an understatement. It might have been the easiest recipe I have ever tried... except for the part that said to add "any flavorings you are using". For some reason I interpreted that to mean "pick a random flavor and add it", so I accidentally dumped in a TON of cinnamon. Oops. Fortunately I don't think anyone at the party noticed, as the cookies disappeared quickly and nobody complained about the flavor. Maybe they were being nice? 

I found the icing to be a little more challenging. It was my first time working with royal icing and I was totally unprepared. For some reason I assumed that decorating would be a piece of cake - the icing would come out of the tip smoothly and slowly. Of course the opposite was true. I found the icing to be runny and difficult to manage. It drizzled out of the tip and ran over the edges of the cookies once applied. My photos are misleading because I only took photos of the best ones.

Despite the mishaps, this was one of the more enjoyable challenges I have undertaken. I would call my first attempt at decorated sugar cookies an almost success, and certainly something I will repeat. 

The 2010 NYC Vendy Awards

Aaron and I are sitting on the couch in a sort of food coma. For one of the first times in my life, the thought of eating seems totally and completely unappealing. Not another morsel of food shall pass my lips... at least for a few hours.

A falafel sandwich from the Vendy Cup AND People's Choice winner - The King of Falafel.

Today we attended the annual Vendy Awards on Governors Island with our friends David and Jen. The Vendy Awards are sometimes referred to as the Oscars of the street food world and always understood to be a day of delicious gluttony. Each year, dozens of NY's best food trucks (as nominated by the people) come together to compete for the coveted Vendy Cup and People's Choice awards. The trucks assemble to serve attendees for a few hours, and then professionals select the winner while the hoi polloi vote for the People's Choice. For me, it was an exciting opportunity to sample trucks in NYC that I had not yet had a chance to try, such as the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, while also enjoying some of my favorites, like the Bistro Truck (their merguez sandwich is a religious experience).

"Sides" from Schnitzels and Things included potato salad, sauerkraut, beets and chickpeas. 

They also had a number of sauces to add to your schnitzel. I took the spicy mayo. 

and finally... the schnitzel. 

The Vendy Awards was an event I had anxiously awaited for months. Those who know me (and perhaps those who read our updates from Southeast Asia) know that I have an unhealthy obsession with food trucks. In my opinion, one of the good side effects of the great recession has been the renaissance in American street food and the rise of the gourmet food trucks. The only thing I miss about working in Times Square is the absence of great street food near my office in suburban Jersey. Bland salads and boring sandwiches from the cafeteria seem so unappetizing when compared to the tacos and lamb over rice that I used to take for granted.

Taiwanese pot stickers with two kinds of soup. 

Something delicious and Venezuelan. Don't remember the name but it was juicy pork sandwiched between fried plantains. 

My obsession with food trucks has actually started to verge on crazy. Since I no longer have easy access, I have discovered that I really look forward to finding my favorite trucks when I do get to go to the city. Discovering a great new truck is even better than finding an old favorite. When I notice a new truck down the block, my pace quickens and I can feel the anticipate of findings a new purveyor of grilled meat or cupcakes. Then the disappointment sets in when I realize the truck I saw was actually a mail truck, not a food truck. Yes, I have started seeing "mirages" of food trucks in NYC. It is bad. 

Enchiladas and other Mexican goodies from El Rey del Sabor. 

The weather in New York was perfect for the event. Though it looked like rain in the morning, but the time we got off the ferry on Governors Island it was sunny with cloudless skies, verging on a little hot. We had brought a quilt with us that we spread out under some trees to serve as home base. Then we split up to conquer the event, leaving one person on the quilt at all time while others fetched food. I had full intention of sampling the dishes at every truck, but after eating tacos, schnitzel, ice cream, bread pudding, panna cotta, pot stickers among other things (most inhaled too quickly for photos), I had to call it quits. I just could not stuff another thing in my stomach. Aaron fought through it and was the real champion of our group, as he managed to try something from almost every truck, save the souvlaki truck and the communist ice cream truck. 

Slow food hot dogs with sauerkraut from one of the Philadelphia trucks.

 Of course the desserts were my favorite part. I was particularly excited to see both the Dessert Truck and The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck in attendance. I had wanted to try both for sometime, but neither parked close enough to my office when I worked in the city. The Dessert Truck brought their famous pudding and panna cotta, pictured below. The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck had a number of hand prepared soft serve treats, including vanilla with nilla wafers and dulce de leche sauce, and smaller samples of more off the wall flavors like curried coconut.

Chocolate bread pudding from The Dessert Truck.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, however, where the slushies from Kelvin Slush. The naturally flavored frozen concoctions were refreshing in the heat of the day and nice and light after all of the greasy food we had eaten. We slurped ours down too quickly for pictures (and then regretted the speedy consumption when we were hit with painful brain freeze!).  The line at Kelvin Slush was more than one hour for most of the event, but folks couldn't get enough. Despite the wait, they managed to walk away with the dessert prize, which we felt was well earned.

Cassis Panna Cotta from The Dessert Truck. 

Samples of mixed berry ice cream from The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. 

All in all, my first Vendy's experience far exceeded my expectations. Though I am stuffed now, I can honestly say I can't wait for my next NYC street food experience.

Back to reality... *le sigh*: Heirloom Tomato Tart

Well, we have been back for a little more than a week now. It is amazing how quickly you fall back into your old routine; it is almost like our trip didn't even happen. Seeing how little things changed over the six weeks we were gone just makes our trip seem even shorter. Aaron and I are already trying to dream up ways to take another extended vacation sooner rather than later.

As a summer loving foodie, returning home at the start of the fall season has particularly punishing. Sure, I should be excited about the abundance of colorful produce at the market and the ability to grill outdoors without melting from the heat. I am just not finding anything particularly inspiring. Aaron and I often look at our weekend grocery shopping as an adventure - what kinds of surprises will greet us at the store... will we find that impossible to find chili pepper that we have been searching for since last spring... are there any new types of bread in the bakery that I should try to copy? **Sure, I can admit it, we are super geeky about food. Some people find it annoying - others just try to get on the barbecue invite list :).** I'm sorry to say, after all of the exotic things we tried during our travels, even the ripe heirloom tomatoes aren't doing it for me.

Running errands on Friday, I decided I needed to snap out of it and stop whining. After all, one of the things that made our great adventure so precious was that it had to end some time. Moreover, I get about two or three (at the absolute most) more weeks of summer produce and if I don't take advantage I know I will regret it when I am on month two of eating parsnips and celery root with many more to go before warm weather arrives again. 

With that I ran to Union Square to explore what seasonal goodies were being hawked at the farmers market. We missed Hoboken's annual heirloom tomato festival, so I settled on a mixed bag of tomatoes at the very reasonable price of $3 a pound. 

Aaron's only menu request was that I used at least most of the basil growing in the back yard; we have two flower boxes full that need to be emptied before it starts to get too cold. After some searching, I came across this Epicurious recipe for Heirloom Tomato Tart and thought I would give it a whirl. The recipe seemed a bit suspicious at first (a tart with RAW tomatoes???), but it called for heirloom tomatoes, basil and other ingredients I had on hand. 

Surprisingly the uncooked tomatoes, pesto and mozzarella paired nicely with the parmesan crust. I assembled the tart just before eating it, as I worried any sitting would result in a soggy tart. I might have worried too much about sogginess because the leftovers kept beautifully in the fridge over night. 

It was a nice meal for our first real meal back at home. Farm fresh produce, western flavors... a last taste of summer... a return to reality. 

All good things must come to an end...

After hours of flying, we are finally back home, but not too happy about it. We thought that after nearly six weeks of traveling, both of us would be a little homesick and ready to stop living out of suitcases. Things couldn't be further from the truth - everything on our trip was so wonderful that both of us easily have about 6 more months of travel in us. Maybe we would not ever feel like going home? 

At any rate, we are both getting ready for work as we speak which means the vacation is officially over. With that, this space will cease to be a travel blog (until our next trip anyway!) and return to its usual baking content with Ms. Cupcake at the keyboard. 

Cheers. 

Champagne and Laksa?

Ms. Cupcake, Ms. Kumquat, Mr. Ibu Oka and I are all sitting in our adjoined suite at the St. Regis right now drinking champagne, eating strawberries and macarons.

How in God’s name did this happen?

We started this morning shedding tears as we left Bali. Looking out at the ocean as the sun rose this morning, it was dawning on all of us that our lovely days of vacation were coming to end. We had our last lak lak for breakfast, courtesy of the wonderful staff at the villa, and then departed for the airport.

We arrived in Singapore in the middle of the afternoon. Changi airport’s efficiency had us land and be in our hotel within 50 minutes. We enjoyed our free cocktails and canapés and head out to Singapore for our final food tour.

Laksa!

Another temple, of course.

We hit up the Katong for the majority of the evening. The red light district is a food emporium and we loved it. We went to Katong Laksa and savored the delicious spicy coconut broth. We went to Larong 9 and ate two heaping mounds of beef noodles, fried carrot cake (not what you think) and downed it all with Tiger beers. Finally, we ended with some satay and pork buns at La Pu Sat.

Beef Kway Teow, "wet"

Beef Kway Teow, "dry" (we liked this one better, which apparently is "typical" for westerners according to our cabbie)

Carrot cake. It is NOT sweet, but still tasty.

We were exhausted and dreaming of bed. Arriving back at the hotel, we went to say goodbye to our dear friend Andy. For the entire trip he has gone above and beyond to take extra special care of us and we felt really bad to be leaving him behind. In all of our travels, his service has certainly been amongst the best we have ever received.

Somebody get this restaurant some pig!

Our departure gift... bittersweet.

After saying our farewells, we clambered up to our rooms, depressed to be saying goodbye to vacation.

We arrived to two bottles of champagne, two dozen macarons, two plates of fresh berries and beautiful hand written notes from our Andy. Thanks a million, Andy. You have brought an incredible end to an incredible vacation. 

Champagne started this vacation, and apparently it is going to end it. 

Soap, Sand and Nasi Campur

The beach outside of the soap-maker's shop.

For our last day in Bali, and arguably our last real day of vacation, we decided that we needed to take it easy. The beautiful grounds and sea views from our villa were alluring enough that we really wanted to make that the focus of our day.

Nonetheless, there were a couple of last things that we needed to tend to, not the least of which was going to an ATM. We knew that the ATM pickings in East Bali were few, but we hoped this would not end up being an all morning endeavor. Indeed, it should not have been, but for whatever reason Mastercard and Cirrus were not working so we took a somewhat scenic (yes, really) tour fr Amlapura searching for an ATM that would work.

Freshly made soap waiting to set.

The "shop" was really just a shelf with a lot of soap on it.

Eventually, success. From there we set off to Jasri where we visited a natural soap maker. Both of us couples needed to buy some soap as gifts and, situated on a pristine black sand beach, there were certainly less desirable soap makers to visit. This particular soap maker produces the soap for a number of luxury resorts on the island. Next, we went to White Sand Beach, just south of Jasri, where we were promised virgin white sand and beautiful waters. The water was beautiful and I am not going to say that the sand turned tricks, but it was not quite what we were looking for. Pretty yes, spectacular no; moreover, with even just a few touts present, our villa presented a much more attractive option.

White Sand Beach - looks deserted, right?

Not so much.

One more stop: on the coastal road again, we headed down to Kusamba, where just past the Bat Cave temple, they are famed for their grilled fish and nasi campur, a dish consisting of two types of fish satay, a fish cake steamed in banana leaves, rice, fiery sambal, a spicy fish broth soup, nuts and snake beans. We ended up at Mertha Sari, a local favorite, and got set for our meal. We received no shortage of stares as the weird farangs visiting the local haunt – pilgrims had come straight from the Bat Cave for lunch and they were certainly looking a whole lot more presentable than we were.

Grilling fish satay.

All the pieces of lunch...

What they look like dished up together - delicious!

Despite that fact, people were very nice. There is no menu there – just one dish – and it was served to us on our mat almost immediately. The dish had spice that literally lit your mouth on fire, but washed down with a Bintang, it seemed that nothing could be more delicious. I finished, tears in my eyes, wanting more.

The ocean view at the villa.

After lunch, it was time to enjoy our last afternoon in our villa. Mr. Ibu Oka and I played “coconut”, our self-devised game of lawn bowling that involves, you guessed it, using a coconut, while Ms. Cupcake and Ms. Kumquat read and looked out at the water and Nusa Penida island in the distance.

It was a great last day in Bali. 

Road trip Bali

The view from the van.

Today was another day to venture out. Ms. Kumquat, Mr. Ibu Oka, (names changed per request from a friend) Ms. Cupcake and I packed ourselves into the van for a day around Bali. We were to actually cover much of the island with the goal a late lunch at what was purportedly an excellent organic fusion restaurant up in Lovina, on Bali’s northern tip.

More rice!

We set out early from Candidasa, our east coast town, up to Gunung Batur and Danau Batur. As we rose into the mountains, we noticed dozens of large tour buses flying down the road. At first we were disappointed that throngs of other tourists were already enjoying the clean, cool, fresh air of the mountain before we noticed that they were all full of Balinese. Turns out that it was a pilgrimage from Lovina to Bat Cave temple, a temple located about 15 minutes from our villa.

The unofficial mascot of Bali, according to me, anyway.

Bali is a fascinating place in that respect. Despite the zillions of tourists that seemingly come each year, it has steadfastly held on to its traditions. The arrival of western influence has not at all infringed on the practice of Bali’s traditional practice of Hinduism. You pass through many towns where men are adorned in sarongs and crisp white hats on their way to temple. We got stuck in more than one traffic jam due to processions for religious ceremonies along the road. This is not at all what I expected from Bali.

Gunung Batur

When we arrived at the vista point for Gunung Batur and the lake, Bali looked almost like Switzerland. It was actually pretty chilly up there, but the lake shore looked very inviting. As we were reflecting on that, our driver explained that one of the villages along the lake, Trunyan, was actually not so inviting. They are the Bali Aga people, similar to those of Tenganan, but are not fans of tourists. They are very isolated and the only way to arrive in their village is by boat. One of their rarer traditions is to leave dead bodies to decompose under trees instead of burying them.

Just another gift shop.

From there we learned that Bali has essentially no roads that go across the island from east to west. Perhaps not the most efficient way of travel, but we did get to traverse more of the island this way! We went down south to Gunung Kawi, a temple and nine shrines hewn into a mountain side that is about 20 km from Ubud. You feel a bit like Indiana Jones descending the stairs into the valley of the mountain as a temple rises out of the jungle.  

Fruit stand on the road.

On the way back up to Lovina, we passed through Ubud (ugh) and then back up into the mountains. With mountains and farms surrounding us on all sides, we drove up the road through little towns and markets for more than an hour before we arrived at the turn off to go to the Jatiluwih rice fields. Lonely Planet describes these fields as “unimaginably green,” and there is little other way to say it. They spread out from every vantage point for almost as far as the eye can see, with the only break the mountains that rise above. It was stunning, and though it requires a journey along a rather challenging road to get there, it was well worth it.

Jatiluwih rice terraces.

We then continued straight up the way to Lovina, after a brief stop at a strawberry shop to get some milk shakes and juice (the central mountains are excellent produce areas). We were going to lunch at Damai Lovina Resort – supposedly one of Bali’s best restaurants. The views from the hilltop out to the sea were beautiful. We ordered some delicious pork sandwiches, some fish tartar, bali vanilla shakes and green chicken curry. We were, indeed, impressed.

Our relaxing lunch was followed by a meandering journey home all the way around the coast road. Throughout the whole journey, Bali’s magnificent sea views were to our left. We passed several beautiful temples, with ceremonies or processions in progress, and underneath massive Gunung Agung for almost half the ride.

Today we experienced the full beauty of Bali. Having now been to almost every part of the island though, I can say with certainty that East Bali is our favorite bit.