Mast Brothers Chocolate Tour

I'm usually too frugal to take cabs or park my car in a garage, but take me to the factory where my favorite chocolate is made and even though each bar costs a dollar more than I pay at the Park Slope Food Coop, I buy six. 

In my defense, I found a few flavors that the coop doesn't carry. I also love the papers they're wrapped in and hadn't seen the yellow and red one before. Isn't the anchor one awesome? I bought two of those, but gave one to my Mom.

Inspired by my own post about a Mast Brothers tour being a better way to celebrate Valentine's Day, I bought tickets for me and Daniel and we visited a few weeks ago.

Mast Brothers began about five years ago when Michael and Rick Mast, two Iowa boys,  began making chocolate together in their Brooklyn apartment. Now they work out of a 2,000 square foot space in Williamsburg that didn't feel like a factory to me. Sure, there are a few big, crazy looking machines, but overall, it felt more like a laid-back place where a group of good friends hang out and make chocolate together.

Our tour guide told us to call him Herbster, drank what looked like coffee from a mason jar and said they make about 4,000 bars of chocolate per week. They're all hand wrapped and the brothers thought about changing that, but decided to keep what's known as "the golding table" because it's simply so fun to sit around, talk about girls and wrap the bars themselves.

Mast Brothers uses cacao that's been organically farmed in Madagascar, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Before our tour, I had never seen a cacao bean. Now I've tasted one fresh from the oven and watched them get winnowed, conched, tempered, molded, and turned into beautiful, glossy bars.

 I've always been drawn to Mast Brothers because they don't dumb down chocolate and load it with unnecessary fillers. The only bean to bar chocolate shop in New York, they use just cacao and sugar. The only other ingredients they'll add are things like cocoa nibs, hazelnuts, sea salt and crushed Stumptown coffee beans. For some, Mast Brothers chocolate might seem too intense or take some getting used to. I love having a few squares after dinner and rather than chomp right into it, I like to savor a piece at a time, letting it melt slowly so the different flavors linger.

The tour lasted about an hour, cost $10 per person, and even though there was a lot to learn, Herbster made chocolate-making sound easy. If I didn't have such good options in my very own borough, I might try making my own at home. For now, I'll rely on the Mast Brothers. (By the way, what is it with siblings making such good sweets in Brooklyn these days?)

Mast Brothers
105 North 3rd Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Tours are Saturday and Sunday at 1pm

Butter Lane

I've been meaning to write a post all day since my last one was old news after 3pm. But I spent the day in the city seeing Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical with Nico. After the show, the cast came out and answered some questions. Some kids wanted to know why they added things that hadn't been in the book or how they designed the set. When Nico had a chance to ask a question, he said to Trixie, his favorite character, "Do you like ice cream?"

After, we walked over to the East Village cupcake shop Butter Lane to pick up some sweets to bring to lunch with Daniel, Leo and our friends Orrin and Alyson. It's a cute and cozy place that smells heavenly and all of the ones we bought were delicious, especially the banana with chocolate hazelnut frosting which I split with Ginger who lives around the corner and is the person who first introduced me to Butter Lane. Hoping to keep Nico from having a cupcake until after lunch, I bought him slices of fresh mango at a bodega nearby. He had a few pieces before the whole container toppled over, spilling onto the sidewalk. He ended up with a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing that he refused to share. We made Magnolia cupcakes together last week, and they were good, but it made me realize that I still have no idea how to properly ice them. I loved the ones at Butter Lane and just saw on their website that they offer classes. They're sold out through August, but I still want to give one a try.

 Now I'm trying to watch the Oscars which have been kind of weird so far, but I guess these awards shows always are. James Franco, for one, doesn't seem too excited to be there. The Kirk Douglas bit was bizarre. Anne Hathaway could carry the show on her own in my opinion and Mila Kunis has the best dress. I'm hoping it gets better, otherwise, I'm going to bed soon and will catch up on all the winners tomorrow. 

Butter Lane
123 East 7th Street
East Village, Manhattan
212-677-2880

Show Me the Sweets

If anyone is hosting an Oscars party this weekend, these cupcakes and cookies from Eleni's would be fun to serve. I love the Black swan cookie and Javier Bardem looks pretty good on a cupcake if you ask me.

If you have little ones, Eleni's is also hosting a cookie decorating event on Saturday and Sunday from 10am-3pm in their Chelsea Market store. For $20 per child, you'll get 3 sugar cookies, 1 cupcake, icing, sprinkles, a keepsake apron and take-home boxes. Kids will also be able to personalize any of Eleni's party favor cookies for free. They can add their names to gold stars, director's slates, or cast their votes for Toy Story 3.

Eleni's
75 Ninth Avenue
Chelsea Market, Manhattan

Playing Top Chef at Fatty 'Cue

Fellow Top Chef fans, tell me something. Do you ever pretend you're a judge on the show? If you haven't tried this, you should. Anthony Bourdain is especially fun to imitate while eating a meal you don't like. Tom Colicchio, too. When I told Daniel I was going to admit that we do this, he warned me it's geeky. Oh well, I guess we're geeks.

And if Fatty 'Cue were on our version of Top Chef, they could easily win a quickfire with their BLT. A clever take on a classic sandwich, it wedges extra crispy coriander bacon, green tomato, baby lettuce and a spicy aioli between two thick slices of perfectly toasted pullman bread with crunchy edges. As Padma might say, they really hit it out of the park with this one.

But their Sunday special, a whole smoked pig that sounded so promising was one-dimensional, bland, uninspired, and not what we expected at all. Tom would have said that the flavors just didn't develop. Anthony would have wondered if they scrubbed the pork under water and then wrung it dry like a dish rag before serving it. Gail probably would have added that even two over easy eggs and bao buns just couldn't save a REALLY BORING DISH. We begged our server for something, anything to give it more kick. She came back with a really good house made sriracha that helped a little bit.

All joking aside, I don't think brunch is the best time to fully judge a restaurant. I love Fatty Crab and am not ready to tell Fatty 'Cue to pack their knives and go. Not yet.

Fatty 'Cue
91 South 6th Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-599-3090

Momofoku Milk Bar Cookies

Nothing's better than a friend who happily comes from the Upper East Side to hang out in Brooklyn with you and your kids, entertains your toddler while you put your baby down for a nap, doesn't seem bothered by the fact that your apartment looks like a hurricane just swept through, and who brings a big box of cookies from Momofoku Milk Bar with her, too. As if that weren't good enough, that same friend then comes back the next day to help you attend five open houses with your two kids because your husband has to work and you really need to find a new place to live. Karen, you are the best!

Karen brought us two types of cookies from Momofoku Milk Bar. The cornflake-chocolate chip-marshmallow and the compost which is loaded with two types of chips, graham cracker crumbs, pretzels, potato chips, and all sorts of other stuff. To be completely honest, the long ingredient list on both cookies freaked me out a little bit. I usually steer clear of things like lake 4 and partially hydrogenated oil, but once I was able to look past that, I could see why people are so obsessed with Momofoku's cookies. Total sugar bombs, they make you feel like a kid again. Thanks to The Amateur Gourmet, I just found the recipe for the compost cookies. I'm going to give them a try this weekend and tinker with the ingredients a little bit. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

A Birthday Trip

For Nico's birthday last year, we planned a trip to Philadelphia in place of a party. We spent a night at a swanky hotel near Rittenhouse Square, visited the Please Touch Museum, and hung out with some good friends. Lee goes back to our college days and he couldn't be a more thoughtful guy and gracious host. He sends cute cards to our kids, remembers our wedding anniversary, and once put photos of us on his fridge right before we came to visit, a good trick that I need to try. We met April and Josh through friends and and now they feel like family. They have an adorable daughter named Hudson who Nico likes to call Hummus and together we've taken many trips and shared more memorable meals than I can count. Thanks to all of them, I'm now a fan Paesano's sandwiches, Yogorino's frozen yogurt, and Metropolitan Bakery's almond croissants. I'm still not sold on Philly cheesesteaks though.

Nico turns 3 in a few months and I want to make birthday trips a ritual. He's an adventurous little guy and I'd like to think he'd prefer visiting a new city instead of being the center of attention for two hours and getting tons of gifts. I'm sure he'll beg for a party some day, and should he demand a celebration this year, we can always have some of his Brooklyn buddies over for Blue Marble ice cream cupcakes.

If I could take him anywhere, I'd pick the Ballyvolane House, a country B&B in Ireland that's run by a young family. I read about it in Cookie Magazine a few years ago and it sounds like such a cool place for adults and kids. The house itself looks beautiful and all of the food comes from the family's garden and surrounding area. They're also near one of Europe's most important salmon rivers and offer fly fishing. It's not an option this year, but maybe some day.

A road trip is more realistic, so I'm thinking that a spring weekend in Boston would be nice. Nico would love riding the T, we could eat lots of sweets at Flour and hang out with our friend Tara, a teacher, yoga instructor and one of the most calming people I know. Nico loves her and flirted big time when she visited us a few months ago.

Another idea would be to rent a house in the Catskills with a big backyard and kitchen where we could play and cook all day. Daniel and I spent our anniversary in Saugerties five years ago and it'd be fun to go back with two kids in tow. I still have a few months to decide and am not sure where we'll end up. If anyone has any ideas for places that aren't more than four hours from Brooklyn and would be good with a baby and toddler, I'm all ears.

You Had Me at Dough

I've always had a thing for doughnuts. I'd say it started around the time I was 5. My grandfather used to take me to our local diner every Sunday for a cinnamon sugar twist and on the days my grandmother didn't join us, he let me order coffee, too. For the last few years, Caffe Falai and Trois Pommes have been my favorite places to get doughnuts. Trois Pommes makes jelly ones that are very different from the ones I grew up eating, but they're still so good. Caffe Falai has unbelievable bomboloni.

After a trip to Dough yesterday, I now have a new favorite doughnut place. A small, easy-to-miss spot in Clinton Hill (or is it Bed Stuy?) with a simple paper sign taped to its window, Dough sells Stumptown coffee, hot chocolate, and some local Brooklyn products, but the real stars are enormous yeast doughnuts dripping with sophisticated glazes. Opened by the same people behind Choice Market, a good breakfast and lunch spot a few blocks away, Dough has just a few stools where you can sit and savor your treat while watching a few bakers make new batches.

Enormous and just $2 each, the doughnuts are almost too cheap. When I went yesterday, I was tempted to buy a bunch, but held back. Nico chose the chocolate with cocoa nibs and made it very clear that I couldn't have a single piece.  Eventually, he ran his little finger through the glaze and offered me a taste of that. He tried to eat it all, but only managed to have half. I wrapped up the rest and polished it off on our way to the playground.

I also picked up two for me and Daniel to share after dinner. The hibiscus was a big hit and I loved the magenta glaze that was both sweet and tart. The petals on top looked cool, but were hard to chew. Dulce de leche was also delicious and sliced almonds gave it a nice, crunchy texture. Now I'm curious about the lemon poppy and toasted coconut and wish I lived a little closer to Dough. Luckily, the G stops just a few blocks away, so I'm sure it won't be long before I go back.

Dough
305 Franklin Avenue
Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
G to Classon Ave
7am-4pm, daily
347-533-7544

Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

Sometimes, I want to race to the finish when baking. I look forward to the final product and wish I could skip some steps to get there. Take this blood orange olive oil cake, for example. It's a recipe from Melissa Clark that I made for the first time a few years ago. I loved it then, but one step made me wait a while before making it again. I don't like to supreme oranges. Not one bit.

I should have watched a YouTube video on segmenting citrus before trying it again last week, remembering how I'd struggled the first time. Instead, I did a really sloppy job and cursed my beautiful little blood oranges and their pesky piths while I worked and wondered why Melissa Clark made it sound so easy. In fact, I came close to hurling a few of them out of frustration, but I held back. I wasn't in the mood to scrub the walls or give Nico any ideas.

Since blood oranges are in season right now and nothing beats a cake that's flecked with ruby-colored citrus, I think you should try this recipe. Luckily, once you supreme the oranges, it's smooth sailing. Here are some things I need to remember for next time, and maybe they'll help you out, too.

1. Either figure out how to supreme an orange before you start, or recruit a good sous chef who will do this step for you.
2. If you have a baby and he or she starts fussing while you're in the middle of baking this cake, do not put them in an Ergo or other baby carrier and keep going. Take it from me. Blood oranges and a squirmy baby are not a good combination.
3. This cake is best made first thing in the morning so you can eat it for breakfast and throughout the day. If you start too late, say around 5pm, you run the risk of having little ones in the bath when the buzzer goes off and by the time you can take the cake out, you'll be left with a loaf that's not burnt, but a bit too brown on the bottom.
4. Once it's ready, don't even try to cut yourself a skinny slice. You'll just be back for seconds and probably thirds after that. Go all out and hack off a big hunk. Put some whipped cream on top, too.
5. If you blog about food, snap a picture soon after your cake comes out of the oven and looks like this, not a few days later when you're about to eat the last three slices all by yourself. 
  
Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
From Melissa Clark via The New York Times
Time 1 hour 20 minutes plus cooling

Butter for greasing pan
3 blood oranges
1 cup sugar
Buttermilk or plain yogurt
3 large eggs
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Honey-blood orange compote, for serving, optional (see note)
Whipped cream, for serving, optional.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. Grate zest from 2 oranges and place in a bowl with sugar. Using your fingers, rub ingredients together until orange zest is evenly distributed in sugar.
2. Supreme an orange: Cut off bottom and top so fruit is exposed and orange can stand upright on a cutting board. Cut away peel and pith, following curve of fruit with your knife. Cut orange segments out of their connective membranes and let them fall into a bowl. Repeat with another orange. Break up segments with your fingers to about 1/4-inch pieces.
3. Halve remaining orange and squeeze juice into a measuring cup. You will have about 1/4 cup or so. Add buttermilk or yogurt to juice until you have 2/3 cup liquid altogether. Pour mixture into bowl with sugar and whisk well. Whisk in eggs.
4. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gently whisk dry ingredients into wet ones. Switch to a spatula and fold in oil a little at a time. Fold in pieces of orange segments. Scrape batter into pan and smooth top.
5. Bake cake for about 55 minutes, or until it is golden and a knife inserted into center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then unmold and cool to room temperature right-side up. Serve with whipped cream and honey-blood orange compote, if desired.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

Note: To make a honey-blood orange compote, supreme 3 more blood oranges according to directions in Step 2. Drizzle in 1 to 2 teaspoons honey. Let sit for 5 minutes, then stir gently.

Site I Love: Pinterest

So, remember my post about digital design magazines and how I said I missed ripping pages from my favorite ones? Well, scratch that. Since discovering Pinterest, a site that lets me collect images from anywhere on the web and create online inspiration boards, I'm a happy girl again. Finally, I have a place to store design ideas, cool color combinations, pretty fonts, dream homes and more. Similar to Flickr or Twitter, I can also follow other users and browse, post comments on, or repin their images to my own boards.

To use the site, it's best if you download the "pin it" bookmarklet. That way, all you need to do is click on an image, choose or create an inspiration board and Pinterest will save it there. Best of all, Pinterest automatically sources each image making it easy to remember where I found them.

I heard about the site from Liz Stanley of Say Yes to Hoboken, a blog I mentioned last week. She had shared the image above on her site and I loved the pink and orange combo. After I asked her how she found it, she invited me to join Pinterest, warning that it was highly addictive. She was right. I stayed up way too late on Sunday pinning photos from some of my favorite sites and exploring other people's boards. If you'd like to join, leave a comment or email me and I'll send you an invite. The first five images in this post are some I pinned on Sunday and I plan on saving many more. 

{Photo credits: #1 Cupcakes and Cashmere, #2 Lonny, #3 Betsy Dunlap, #4 Pinterest, #5 Bolog Magasinet}

A Cool Way to Store Toy Cars

I've always thought it'd be cool to use a magnetic strip for my knives, but with two little boys and more toy cars then I can count, this is a much better idea. It would make it a lot easier to find Nico's ice cream truck, G train, lamborghini or any of his other transportation vehicles once the lights are out and he's in bed and decides he just has to have one of them. Usually, we rifle through the big basket we keep them in, hoping the one he wants isn't buried at the bottom. It usually is and the cars, trains and trucks that we just begged him to clean up often gets dumped back on the floor. Letting him snatch one right off the wall would be wonderful. He has a lot of cars and they wouldn't all fit on one rack. I guess we'd have to install a few, or use the strip for his favorites.

{Spotted on Swiss Miss}

Shopping for Sweets

If you haven't noticed, I really enjoy shopping for sweets. I believe it's much more fun to order a dozen ice cream cupcakes before you've had breakfast than to search for shoes or clothes. These dark hot chocolates on a spoon (or a stick) that I saw on Say Yes to Hoboken have my name written all over them. They'd make it so easy to have the kind of hot chocolate I love, the kind that isn't too thick, rich or the consistency of hot fudge. I prefer deep dark chocolate swirled into steaming milk. I'd even use these to turn my decaf lattes into mochas. I sometimes put a pinch of chili powder in my hot chocolate, so I'm curious about the three-chili flavor, too. I love supporting small businesses and this one was started by two moms in California. What's even more impressive is that they have seven children between the two of them.
These fat, fluffy marshmallows from Whimsy & Spice, a Brooklyn company that sells handmade sweets with a hint of spice would take my hot chocolate to new heights. They come in cool flavors like cardamom, caramel, maple, espresso and a few others. I've been meaning to take a trip to the Brooklyn Flea to try them and some of Whimsy & Spice's other sweets, but if I don't make it there this Sunday, I think it's time to just place an order. I should probably throw in some biscotti and shortbread, too.

(I'm so in need of a sweets intervention.)

Have a great weekend!

Photo credits: #1 from The Ticket Kitchen, #2 from Whimsy & Spice

Taking the boys to Brazil

We're going to Brazil this summer. I'm excited to sip cold coconut water, fresh juice, caipirinhas, choppinhos, go to my favorite places for breakfast, eat sweets in the street, listen to samba, add new places to my list of favorite bars and restaurants in Rio, and more. The last time I was in Brazil, Nico was just 8 months old. He crawled for the first time in his grandfather's house in Bahia. Now he sings songs in Portuguese and is a big brother. I can't wait to see him and Leo on the beach together.

Blue Marble Ice Cream Cupcakes

Nico and Leo's birthdays are still a few months away, but I bought 12 ice cream cupcakes yesterday for one of them. I got them through Doodledeals, a site that has cool offers for kids and moms. I'm subscribed to their newsletter and get an email each morning. When I saw yesterday's deal, it was 6:55, and I hadn't even eaten breakfast. That didn't stop me from buying some before it was 7:00. Most people who read my blog regularly know I love Blue Marble and who doesn't like cupcakes?

I meant to share this sooner, but it turns out the deal is available until tomorrow at 5am. If you live in New York City and want some awesome sweets for an upcoming birthday or just want to treat yourself to a dozen ice cream cupcakes, don't pass this up. For $27, you'll get 12 artisanal cupcakes made with organic ice cream and you have until June 30, 2011 to order them.

Hot Chocolate and Crepes

Nico used to always ask "Where are we going today?" Winter brings his Brazilian side out and lately, he's been begging to stay in. Even though the sidewalks are still full of snow, he now likes to ask "Is it spring yet?" Monday was fairly mild, but it still took awhile to get him outside. I assumed we'd just go to the park or call a friend. Instead of asking to walk, he hopped in his stroller and requested hot chocolate. On the way, we spotted this sweet house with a white picket fence. Wedged in between apartment buildings it was an unexpected sight. A little piece of country in bustling Brooklyn. Determined to take a photo with my phone, I crossed the street. Trying to cross back, I got our stroller stuck in a mountain of snow. For a moment, I longed to move far, far away.

After setting the stroller free, we made our way to Cafe Grumpy where I quieted my chatty child for a few minutes with a warm mixture of milk and stone-ground chocolate that he drank slowly with a straw before finishing it off with one long gulp.

After that, we went to Crespella, a cute place with crepes that sells Stumptown coffee, Robicelli cupcakes (which I've heard again and again are some of NY's best, but still need to try), a granola made in Brooklyn that looks really good, and a small selection of Italian specialities. 

I planned to get our crepes to go, but we ended up sitting on stools and watching all the action on 7th Ave while eating them there. Danny, the friendly guy behind the counter even took photos for us with his phone. He also held the door when it was time to head home, a big help since Crespella is tricky to enter and exit with a stroller.

Blackberries and blueberries with a hint of honey for Nico

Spinach, mushroom, ricotta and olive oil for me

Spring really can't come soon enough. But adventures like these make winter a bit more bearable. Luckily, Leo likes this weather so far. Let's see how he feels about it next year.

Cafe Grumpy
383 7th Ave
Park Slope, Brooklyn

Crespella
321 7th Ave
Park Slope, Brooklyn