Banana Hazelnut Crumb Cake

I've discovered this year that banana+hazelnut are an amazing combo! I mean, it's not really extraordinary and unique, but I just had never really thought of this combo as I would peanut butter+chocolate. I think it was experiencing Momofuku Milk Bar's Banana Cake.

So when I was browsing Tastespotting and came across this Banana and Hazelnut Coffee Cake on Technicolor Kitchen, I was sold.


The Star Ingredient- HAZELNUTS! (Yes, they were chopped up on my pig cutting board! Eco-friendly, pig cutting board!)


Crumb Topping- A simple flour, brown sugar, butter, salt, and hazelnut mixture.


The ultra-ripe BANANAS layered on top of the cake batter. Then top the bananas with the crumb mixture and bake!


BAM! The texture of the cake was awesome, super moist but still had a soft bounciness like a sponge cake! And I think it's relatively healthy because it uses plain yogurt and only like 6-ish tablespoons of butter (the recipe was in metric nonsense so I had to convert it!)... I wish I put more bananas on because I loved the moist, ooey-gooey layer that it created :-(

FYI- This cake is more like an afternoon snack cake. It's light, not too sweet, and not decadent. Perfect for me because I had it for my afternoon snack. BUT, if I were to make it into a more indulgent dessert type cake, I would probably add some chocolate or nutella! And... more bananas! I love bananas!

Big Menus=Indecisiveness

I just saw this hysterical video on Serious Eats. If you have never eaten out with me, all you have to do is watch this video to experience the Miki Menu Indecision. It's like I'm making the most important decision of my life.


Awkward Orderer



Hahaha. Ed will totally agree.

Rice: The Best Blank Canvas

I Love Rice.
Here are my Top Three Favorite ways to eat rice.

1. Rice with Shiso Natto (Shiso Flavored Fermented Soybeans) and Scallions


2. Rice with Karashi Mentaiko (Spicy Cod Roe)


3. Rice with Shirasu (Baby Sardines)

W-W-WD50-D?

WHAT WOULD WD-50 DO?
Answer: Nothing that you would think of.

I'm still like so giddy about my meal at WD-50! It was fun... like exciting, fun, and thrilling!

My whole experience was just really chill and great. It was father's day (my dad lives in Japan, so I hang out with Dad #2 A.K.A my mom :-P) so the restaurant was packed by like 7. All the waiters were great! So friendly, and very knowledgeable!

We went with the Tasting Menu. I read reviews saying that WD's creativity really comes out in the Tasting Menu. The funny thing is that the menu itself only vaguely explains the dish, so it left me wondering how the hell it was gonna be executed and presented to me... and most of the time, I was completely off.

START
Cuttlefish, Root beer, Watercress, Cashew, Myoga- Interesting flavors. Not too exciting... yet.


Everything Bagel, Smoked Salmon Threads, Crispy Cream Cheese- THE BAGEL WAS ICE CREAM! wtf?! It was all the classic flavors, but just completely transformed.


Foie Gras, Passionfruit, Chinese Celery- Heavenly. The passionfruit just bursts out when you cut it!


Scrambled Egg Ravioli, Charred Avocado, Hamachi- My favorite dish of the night. Inside the block of egg is... soft runny scrambled egg!! The avocado was a cream mixture of like wasabi, yogurt, and other stuff. Then the hamachi and the potato crisps... OMG, the hamachi was extremely high-qual.


Cold Fried Chicken, Buttermilk-Ricotta, Tabasco, Caviar - The fact that they chose to serve this chicken cold is really courageous. It's like a guilty pleasure that no one likes to admit. Cold fried chicken=awesome. Plus, the Honey Tabasco sauce was just awesome.


Snails, Red Lentils, Juniper, Orange- This was the only dissappointment of the night. The orangey lentils were just too much. Too sweet, too orangy, but not in an accent way.

(Before the meal started, they asked if we had any dislikes, so I mentioned that I am not a fan of Snails. They substituted the snails with these Shrimp Noodles with Mushrooms and Yogurt Sauce- Nothing really special.)


Duck Leg, Popcorn Pudding, Kalamansi, Lovage- Third favorite dish of the night! Duck leg? I was expecting bone, something that looked like a leg! But, no. Thin slices. Beautifully cooked. Moist. Exotic flavors.


Lamb Loin, Black Garlic Romesco, Pickled Ramps, Dried Soybean - My second favorite of the night! OMG the lamb was so tender, and cooked perfectly (look at that color)! And the garlic romesco.... I scraped every little bit off the plate :-)


Vanilla Ice Cream, Balsamic, Raspberry- Sounds simple right? No. Best Ice Cream Of the Year! It's a tiny little log of vanilla ice cream covered in raspberry powder, and on the inside, it's filled with balsamic vinegar!


Hazelnut Tart, Coconut, Chocolate, Chicory- This ain't nothing compared to that ice cream! It was good though :-) The coconut powder was definitely awesome though!


Carmelized Brioche, Apricot, Buttercream, Lemon Thyme- OMG yum! I was getting so incredibly full that I was only able to have a few but that was some damn good apricot filled brioche! The not-sweet broiche was the perfect canvas for all the other dramatic flavors.


Cocoa Packets. Chocolate shortbread, Milk Ice Cream- I'm still so intrigued by the eatable chocolate packets! What are they made of!? It was delicious <3


My conclusion is this: WD-50 is all about textures and flavors. In every dish, there was a crunchy accent. Also, in most dishes, there were a few sauces/sides. I think the key is to taste each flavor separately first, and then combine as you like. I think eating everything on the plate together, in one bite ruins the fun of picking and choosing different flavor combos.


I LOVE WD-50! It was definitely one of the most unique dining experiences I've ever had. WD-50 is like the American version of Sushi of Gari. These people are culinary geniuses.

WD-50
50 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002
Phone: 212.477.2900

Butter+Milk

Sounds fattening but it's not!

Buttermilk Mission #1
I'd never used buttermilk in baking so I looked up tons of buttermilk recipes... mostly biscuits, pancakes and chicken. But I wanted cake, and I just happened to scroll through this Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake on my Google Reader. It's a recipe from Cooking Light, so it's healthy :-)

It makes 5 small loaves! It made great little gifts for my gloomy friends.... jk!

Look at how moist it is! It was delicious. It was actually quite light and delicate. And the flavor was not too sweet, but the perfect sweetness for an afternoon snack... which is exactly what it was for me.

Best Part= the chewy top and edges!

Buttermilk Mission #2
Of course I had a lot of buttermilk leftover so I needed another recipe! I gave in to the millions of pancake recipes and tried this one on Cooking Light also...

I made these to freeze for future breakfast so I can't comment on how they are. I had a little niblet of a piece and it tasted good! They were quite thick, and very fluffy!

I packed these for breakfast for Ed and he loved them :-)

Pizza Pizza!

Homemade Pizza Trial #2:

Thinner crust! Half turkey pepperoni, half tomatoes and olives. YUM!

Made on our new Pizza Stone :-)

And whose got it better than me? I have a boyfriend who prepares me a salad just the way I like it. Plus he writes me messages with the ingredients:

"I LOVE YOU"
I love you too, babe!

Going With The Flow

I always look for the "perfect" recipe. By that I mean, I have this non-existent recipe in my mind, something that involves everything that I want. A "perfect" recipe. So I look on millions of websites and search after search, I can never find that "perfect" recipe. A lot of times, I end up finding a very basic recipe, or one that has something that I want, and then completely change everything else. I go with the flow with many recipes... now why can't I do that with my life?

On Friday, I wanted a Chocolate Cookie. I was thinking a chocolate chip cookie, but I wanted something super chocolatey. And I remembered that I had recently stocked up on Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa Powder! So at that point, I wanted a super soft, chewy, fudgy, brownie-like cookie. I had made amazing chocolate cookies from Martha Stewart, so I wanted a different source. DORIE GREENSPAN.

I have a lot of her stuff bookmarked on Google Reader, so I browsed my starred items. CHOCOLATE CHUNKERS!!

I busted out the love of my baking-life. I haven't used it in a while because I just mix everything by hand when I'm too lazy to bust this beauty out.

Dry.

Wet.
Annoying Point*- Melting the chocolate chips in a double boiler. The action itself is not annoying, but I didn't read the directions carefully enough to know this part, and it required more bowls than I had expected. Yeah I'm lazy :-)

Chunks.
I got the recipe here, and I played around with the "chunker" part... A.K.A. use up all my leftover pantry stuff! ---> Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, Dried Cherries, Butterscotch Chips, White Chocolate Chips, Sliced Almonds, Walnuts... I think that was it.


I was convinced that the cookies were gonna come out gross because the batter was soooo much runnier than I had expected. Maybe I did do something wrong. I know for a fact that my chunks didn't add up to the amount of chunks in the recipe because it said in the directions that the batter should be mostly chunks.

Taste? Texture? Delish. Fudgy. ---> SUCCESS!

Next time, I would probably omit the butterscotch chips. It's such a strong flavor, that it got in the way of the chocolate/cherry combo. And I love chocolate and cherries.