Marissa Flaxbart

Buttercream as Metaphor

Last week, one of my two roommates had a birthday. In any other year, Kat would have arranged for a picnic outing in Malibu or a chicken parm dinner at Little Dom’s, maybe. But this is 2020, and we live in Los Angeles. The guest list and the venue were predetermined by the rules of quarantine.

Something extravagant seemed necessary to make a Safer-at-Home birthday feel like a celebration, so I volunteered to make a cake. A BIG cake. I pulled out a cookbook called Sky High, which — no kidding — exclusively features recipes for triple-layer cakes. My baking bible has long been Shirley Corriher’s Bake Wise, my cookbook shelf is crowded with workhorse volumes: Julia Child, Joy of Cooking, The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. But in my 20s, when I went through my primary cake phase, Sky High was my go-to for fun party cakes. I only stopped making them because it never seemed like anyone else was as excited to eat a slice of cake as I was to offer it. The cakes were beautiful but huge, and they rarely got finished off. Is there anything sadder than putting cake in the trash?

I asked Kat to flip through Sky High and choose any cake in the book. She went with a “Mile High Devil’s Food Cake,” which the authors paired with a lovely “brown sugar buttercream” frosting. Classic, straightforward. Or so I thought.

I made the three cakes with relish. It was distracting, even meditative. All my old, learned tricks came back to me — dropping the filled pans onto the counter from a few inches to knock out air bubbles; folding 3 pieces of parchment in half to create identical pan liners; rotating the pans just once during baking so that the cakes were even but the oven stayed hot. The cakes came out springy and fragrant, filling our third-floor walkup with the aroma of chocolate and vanilla.

Then it was time to make the frosting. Buttercream. What could be simpler? All I had to do was follow the recipe.

On closer inspection, this recipe was something unfamiliar, totally unlike any frosting, buttercream or otherwise, I’d made before. It called for (1) beaten egg whites; (2) a brown sugar/water solution cooked to soft-ball stage, then added to the egg whites; (3) a full pound of room temperature butter. That was it. Four ingredients, four steps.

Any baker (successful or failed, in fact) can tell you that specificity and exactitude are more important in baked goods than in any other type of cooking. The only saves for a vague (or bad) baking recipe are wisdom or luck; ideally you bring both into the kitchen. I was operating with only a little of the former and (as always) an unknown amount of the latter. As I got going, I became aware of a great many ways my buttercream could fail. Was this one of those egg white recipes where the bowl must be scrupulously clean? The recipe didn’t say. Must my whites be fluffy before I add the sugar solution? The recipe mentioned nothing about this. Is this butter really supposed to be room temperature? Or had that been a mistake in the ingredient list?

This recipe had the audacity to specify that the brown sugar solution needed to hit precisely 238°F on my candy thermometer, but then suggest that I blend it with the eggs whites until that mixture reached “body temperature.” Body temperature! 98.6º? The temperature of my cold baker’s hands? Who knew. I put my hands on the mixing bowl and tried to remember what it felt like to touch a human body. Then I added the butter.

Here’s what the recipe told me about what would happen next:

“When all the butter has been added, raise the speed to medium and beat until the frosting almost appears to separate. Continue beating, and it will suddenly come together, looking like smooth whipped butter.”

What is missing from those two, simple sentences? After a minute or so of mixing melting butter into my feverish batter on medium, the deficit became obvious: no amount of time was specified. How long was this supposed to take?

HOW LONG WAS THIS SUPPOSED TO TAKE?

Sometimes we come across a situation so metaphorically apt that, for a few moments, it is as if we can see the matrix. The world snaps into focus with a certain poetry that is invisible to us most of the time. As I let my supposed buttercream spin away for minute four…five…six…I saw that churning mess in my KitchenAid for what it really was. The buttercream was the quarantine. It was this whole situation.

Right now, all we want to know is how long? But we just don’t know. We have vague instructions to wait for things to come together, with no timeline, our only assurance a warning that they will get worse before they get better. We know how we got here, we know what we want things to look like in the end, but in the meantime, we watch the beater spin and hope that we haven’t already ruined everything. There’s no real reason to think that it’s ruined; only our fears that, without better guidance, hope itself is foolish. How long is this supposed to take? Why haven’t things changed in a way that I can see? When will it look like it is supposed to? Will it ever?

Seven minutes passed. Eight. I really needed this frosting to come together, and not just for Kat. I needed it to work out because of the metaphor. We were going to be okay, right? We were going to get the world back, right? I had great idea: I consulted my bible (BakeWise; see above). Alas, the only comparable recipe was so different from this one that there was no usable advice. Classic bible. So I consulted a couple of other valuable sources while the beaters spun on. I found a few buttercream recipes with similar ingredients, but the details were different, as were the methods. I put my cookbooks away. They had been little help, beyond the affirming my feeling that this whole situation was totally bizarre.

Nine minutes. Ten minutes. I leaned on the counter’s edge. It was already after 10pm. The smell of warm chocolate on the air had long since faded. I watched the blade spin and tried to determine if anything at all had changed. Was the color finally uniform? Had all the butter pieces finally dissipated? Was anything working here?

And then, it started.

“…Until the frosting almost appears to separate” is a scary directive. In whipping anything, be it mayonnaise, cream, or frosting, separation is a crisis. It means that all your hard work, your ingredients, your elbow grease, have gotten you nowhere. And yet, as my frosting appeared to separate before my eyes, I felt a rush of relief. It looked awful, but that was what was supposed to happen. It was supposed to come apart so that it could come together. My hope restored, I watched a few moments longer until, finally: brown sugar buttercream. Looking like smooth whipped butter.

The cake was delicious, and gigantic. The three people that live in my apartment polished it off in 5 days. And even though it was Kat’s birthday cake, my roommates saved the last piece for me.

 

 

Foolproof Holiday Baking

I pulled into my parking spot at 5:30 last night with one item on my to-do list: I had to make a pie.

I've made countless pies in the past, so I knew the steps required: throw together a quick crust dough, chill for an hour; roll it out, chill a bit more. The filling is the easy part, so you can whip that up while the bottom crust is blindbaking; then your just have to put it all together and let it sit in the oven. I knew I might not have a finished product until almost bedtime, but as most of the prep time was marked "chill," I planned to spend a much of the evening doing the same. Netflix might even come into play.

Before I'd even opened my car door to head upstairs, I opened my go-to crust recipe, which lives inside the "How to Cook Everything" app – an interactive, digital version of Mark Bittman's famous cookbook. At least, I attempted to open the recipe. Instead, my phone alerted me that "The developer of this app needs to update it to work with iOS 11." Bittman, you slippery bastard. My ancient version of this app had been outmoded; a fresh new copy of the program was available, but it would cost $9.99, and on principle I couldn't bring myself to re-pay for an app that, to my mind, I already owned. Pie crust recipes are dime a dozen, and my roommates and I have a bookshelf full of cookbooks. Not, like, one shelf: the entire bookcase is full of cookbooks.  

I pulled out my Cook's Illustrated Cookbook, a versatile (if sometimes overly fussy) kitchen treasure. They didn't have one recipe for pie crust. They had three recipes, all broken down further into single- and double-crust versions. Perfect. My eyes gravitated at first to "Classic Pie Crust," but then I noticed the name of the neighboring recipe: FOOLPROOF PIE CRUST. Now, I'm no fool, but I was looking to whip up something quick and easy and forego any unnecessary extra steps. It didn't have to be a culinary masterpiece, it needed to be a finished pie.

This was going to be a piece of cake. As the saying goes.

Pie crust recipes often call for a food processor, which I don't have. Instead, I always opt to cut in the butter myself; this naturally takes a lot more time and effort and doesn't necessarily yield better results. So I had the bright idea to break the recipe into halves and use a handy miniature food processor/blender tool that I often forget is living under my counter. Halving the ingredients was no struggle, but using the processor was; it was only macerating the flour and butter at the bottom of the mixer, and I was making a huge mess. I had to go in with my hands, a knife, and a spatula, just as if I hadn't used the processor at all. At one point, I knocked the thing over and sent a portion of my poorly mixed dough sailing across my stovetop, into all those hard-to-clean nooks and crannies. I had a flash to the previous day, when my roommate, Selah, and I were watching the just-added-to-Netflix season of Great British Baking Show and I'd said aloud, "How can these people be so clumsy?" Oof. To make matters worse, when all was said and done, I knew the dough didn't look right. It was way too dry. I looked back at the recipe.

Fuck. The shortening! I had only added the butter. This kind of rookie omission was abnormal for me, but butter is practically a religion in my maternal lineage, and the addition of shortening to pie crust was not my custom. It had totally slipped my mind after reading the recipe. And the shortening was supposed to be chilled. 

I went back to my shitty little mini Cuisinart and added the shortening I'd hastily chilled – in two batches, of course, as that's all that could fit in the small container. A lot of filling and emptying and spilling and refilling later, I had dirtied two more bowls and created a dough that was wrong in the opposite way – it was almost a paste, way too wet to do anything with, and this was before I had even added any liquid. I messed with it a bit more, prepped it for a deep chill, stuck two dough disks in the freezer, and prayed. Meanwhile, I complained to Selah that my lack of proper equipment was hindering me. She replied (generously, if too late), "do you want to use my food processor?" She then pointed to the full-sized Cuisinart that has been sitting on the bottom shelf of our pantry for, oh, probably 18 months. Goddammit, Marissa. 

Fast-forward one hour. I'd made some headway with bottom crust (incorporating lots of flour during the rolling) and successfully wrangled it into the pie tin. Covered with foil, filled with baking weights, I stuck it into the very hot oven and noticed that I'd forgotten to remove the baking sheets we store in there. They were now too hot to be moved. Oh well. I only needed the bottom shelf. Seven minutes later, our apartment seemed a bit smoky. And after another minute, our smoke alarm went off. Part of the crust edge had fallen onto the oven floor and was blackening into floury charcoal oblivion. I apologized profusely for the smoke and the smell and self-flagellated about my growing list of mistakes. Luckily Selah is a laid-back angel who knows how these things go, so she didn't bat an eye as I threw open every door and window in the place. 

At this point, I decided it was time to chill myself. I rolled out a top crust that I knew would be ugly, and then asked Selah if she was up for the remainder of the Bake Off episode we had to finish. She was. She offered to light a scented candle to distract from the smoky odor and I plopped onto the couch with a considerably sized cocktail. We proceeded to watch 11 of the best home bakers in Britain make an absolute mess of their gingerbread house challenge. Gingerbread walls were destroyed, gingerbread trees were burnt, gingerbread bell towers crumbled under their own weight. Selah cringed at the scrambling contestants – "this is painful to watch" – and normally I'd have been right there with her. But at that moment, watching talented bakers make dumb mistakes felt pretty damn good. 

I returned to my pie. The blind-baked bottom crust seemed acceptably golden and was holding together, even if my carefully fluted edges were smooshed. Those would be covered by the top crust anyway. I prepared the filling while the bottom crust cooled, and powered through a few more minor errors with a shrug. The top crust ripped as I put it in place, but I decided it didn't matter. I even made some last-minute decorative leaves with my paring knife, freehand. I'd never done that before, but I thought some creative flourish was in order. I smiled as I placed the crooked leaves over the crack. They were kind of cute.

Watching Bake Off, it had dawned on me: I wasn't making this pie to impress the judges. I wasn't going to be sent home if it was ugly, or chided by Mary Berry if it had a "soggy bottom." I was making this pie for the guests, mostly homeless, of All Saints' Beverly Hills' Monday Meal, which today was a Thanksgiving feast. The pie didn't need to be at home at in a patisserie window; it needed to be edible, and hopefully tasty. I'd stressed myself out and beaten myself up for turning something "foolproof" into such a shitshow. But now, I was over it. It would be no less, and no more, than an apple pie. Homeless people would eat it for dessert. Maybe it would remind them of their childhoods. Maybe it would be a sloppy mess. But either way, it would be a dessert, and it would be made with love and care. 

This is what we do at this time of year, seasoned chef and kitchen neophyte alike. We take a crack at putting our heart into the food we make. Sometimes, as with putting one's heart into anything, the process is more painful than we bargained for, and the whole business would be much simpler if we cared a little less about how things turned out. But caring is a part of the magic. Wanting to make something for another person, and to make it well, is a prayer and a sacrifice and a blessing...and that's true even if a chunk of what you made falls off and burns up in the oven. 

Anyone who looked at a slice of my craggy, mottled pie would know that it wasn't made in a factory. But when I took it out of the oven at damn near 11pm, I was pleasantly surprised. It was no masterpiece, but it had its own unique, handmade beauty. And it smelled amazing.

I guess the recipe was foolproof after all.

Farmers market has blackberries? I has pie.

 

Rainbow Cupcakes

Today, my dad comes home after being out of town for work for two weeks. What better reason does one need to make cupcakes? I felt like branching out a little from my usual baking cookbook staple, Shirley Corriher's Bake Wise, but there's no better source for recipes, so I used her "Moist Golden Cake" as a base for some extremely silly cupcakes that were inspired by a cake I saw at the River North Goddess and Grocer the other day:

I didn't really want to make a six-layer cake, but I loved the idea of coloring batter and playing with it. My cupcakes didn't involve any icing in between layers, which created a really psychedelic banding effect. I only made five layers (no yellow, alas) because I would be separating the batter over 12 little cupcake wells. Five layers seemed like trouble enough. My colors aren't as bright, either, but I'll keep that in mind next time. I didn't want to spoil the delicious cake with all that dye, and I didn't want to waste all my dye on an experimental dessert! I'm happy with the results, nevertheless:

On top is lemon cream cheese frosting, which I made by altering Shirley's "Carrot Cake Cream Cheese Frosting" recipe. There's about a tablespoon of pure lemon extract and the zest of one lemon in there. It's really lemony, which is perfect with the richness of the frosting and cake. Plus, dad will love it. But don't spill the beans; it's a surprise!

Let's get real: Cookies are good all the time.

This week, I was asked to write the feature for the Drive-Thru section of Gapers Block, a section that I've been writing for for a few months. I love being a food writer! I was allowed to write my feature about pretty much whatever I wanted, and in honor of this new cookie place in Lincoln Park, as well my forthcoming baking podcast (the first two episodes are about cookies), I decided to write about my favorite food.

I suppressed the urge to mention it in my article, but remember people: Cookies are a sometime food.

Simply Marshmallow Fluff

I got a KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer for Christmas from my World's Best Dad. He even got it in the Williams-Sonoma exclusive buttery yellow color I wanted. I cried when I opened it.

It's amazing how simple this one device makes the baking process. Mostly it's a time thing (also a little energy): I can start creaming the butter and then measure the sugar while the butter is creaming. I can gradually add the flour without stopping the mixing process and not get flour everywhere. It's just wonderful. (Note to home bakers: when using such a "set-it-and-forget-it" tool, it's important not to actually forget it. There is such a thing as too mixed, and it is bad news).

In packaging and advertising and such, simplicity also appeals to me. One recipe I'd been putting off since Christmas called for Marshmallow Fluff, which I don't really keep around the house. And since they don't sell it at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods (at least not the one near me) I was going to have to get some on a special trip to the "normal" grocery store. Ugh. Then, lo and behold, I spotted some at CVS last Friday. I think I might have purchased it even if I hadn't needed it, again because of the simplicity. It's not a fancy brand, it won't win any design awards, but it called to me: a white plastic (NOT glass! Yay!) container with a red lid and a blue label. Easy to get out the sticky stuff, nice to look at, reusable. Simple.

Sometimes simplicity can be bad. For example, I took this picture with the iSight on my computer because it would be simpler than using my phone or my normal camera. Oh well. You get the idea.