Baking One Girl Cookies with Dave Crofton

By Tim Bruderek

Dave Crofton, head baker at One Girl Cookies, is a warm guy with a big personality. He has a unique passion for baking that’s inspiring to watch. But Dave’s story does not follow the traditional path to success.

Dave graduated from ICE’s Pastry & Baking Arts program in 2003, working during the day and taking his classes in the evening. Upon completing the program, like most graduations, Dave began his search for a job in the field, and his Career Services advisor gave him a lead that sounded interesting. Little did he know this new job would change his life for good.

Dawn Casale, founder and namesake of the Brooklyn-based bakery One Girl Cookies, was becoming well-known for her delectable sweet treats, but was seeking some help with the growing demand and notoriety of her business. Dave contributed his baking talents, and soon enough, the pair was working diligently to make One Girl a success. But they got more than they planned – they ended up falling in love and getting married.

Flash forward a few years, and now Dawn is running the business side of things, while Dave serves as the company’s lead baker. The shop has become famous for its cookies (as the name suggests), but has grown to offer a huge variety to satisfy their customer’s sweet cravings. The pumpkin whoopee pie has become the shop’s most popular item—with pillowy cookies sandwiching a smooth vanilla cream cheese filling, it’s easy to understand why!

This spring, Dave graciously returned to ICE to teach a class, sharing stories about his success and recipes to make his delicious cookies, cakes and other desserts at home.

A student learns to pipe the pumpkin cookies for One Girl’s whoopie pies.

The class featured many helpful tips (proper dough preparations, mixing techniques and baking tricks), and secrets to One Girl’s top recipes (such as their famous chocolate cake, prepared with zucchini to keep it moist). Aside from the seductively sweet whoopie pies, the aforementioned chocolate cake and several varieties of crispy biscotti, the class whipped up a citrus olive oil cake to spice things up.

Light, airy, with a touch of citrus zing, this delicate cake allows the flavor of the olive oil shine through. For an extra sweet and salty crunch, we finished the cake with a sprinkling of sea salt and turbino sugar. It was my clear favorite recipe of the evening, is easy enough to prepare at home and special enough to impress dinner guests. Scroll down for the recipe, and don’t forget to stop by one of the two One Girl Cookies Brooklyn locations to say hi to Dave (and indulge your sweet cravings)!

One Girl’s Lemon Olive Oil Cake. Photo Credit: UltraTeg.com

Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Yield: Makes 1 (9-inch) cake

Ingredients

¾ cup granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
5 large egg yolks
¾ cup olive oil
1½ tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup cake flour
4 large egg whites
½ tsp table salt
1 tbsp Turbinado sugar
½ tsp coarse sea salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare a 9-inch round cake pan by greasing with cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar and lemon zest. Using both hands, rub the zest into the sugar, breaking up as many lumps of zest as possible.
Whisk together the egg yolks and 1/2 cup of the sugar. Continue to whisk for 3 minutes, or until the mixture has become light yellow. Add the olive oil and lemon juice and whisk 1 more minute. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the cake flour.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites until they are frothy, about 30 seconds. With the mixer running on medium-low speed, add the salt and the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Increase the speed to high and whip until stiff peaks form. Using a spatula, carefully fold the whites into the batter. Make sure that all of the whites are incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle the Turbinado sugar and the sea salt on the top.
Bake for 25 minutes, and rotate the pan in the oven. Bake for 25 more minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the oven and let cool for 20 minutes. The cake will shrink from the side of the pan and have a rustic appearance. Turn the cake out onto a clean plate, remove the parchment paper, and turn the cake back over onto a cooling rack. Let the cake cool completely.

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Key Ingredient: Butter

By Hillery Wheeler

“It’s a miracle of fat and flavor!” That’s the passion with which Chef Cara Tannenbaum welcomed our class to the wondrous world of butter. As the night went on, we tackled recipes of varying complexity and international flavor, but here are some core tips about this key ingredient for both chefs and bakers:

How to make your own butter: Many people make butter accidentally. All it takes is heavy cream with at least 36% fat content and a mixer. Whip it continuously until the butter and buttermilk separate. The higher the fat content, the faster it will turn to butter, and cream that’s not ultra-pasteurized provides a finer texture.
Skip the salt: Not only is it prudent to use unsalted butter so you can control your sodium intake, but many pre-salted butters are also made with inferior cream, which is easier to mask by pre-salting.
Terminology: Professionals call the one-pound blocks we buy in grocery stores a “print” of butter.

Clarifying butter

It’s not vegan: Butter is a dairy product that contains milk solids, and those solids help distinguish the product’s many uses. For example, clarified butter—known as “ghee” in Indian cuisine—is butter with the milk solids removed. On the other hand, browned butter requires milk solids to produce the nutty flavor it’s known for.
Compound it!: Combine butter with other ingredients (as in beurre maitre d’hotel, traditionally served with steak), and you can freeze it for up to three months and just cut slices as you need it.

While a seemingly simple ingredient, butter is a major player in cuisines and desserts around the world, and has been for centuries. So next time you over-whip you cream, just toast a slice of bread and enjoy the “miracle.”

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ICE named IACP “Cooking School of the Year”

A letter from ICE President and CEO, Rick Smilow:

Last night in San Francisco, ICE took home the International Association of Culinary Professionals Award of Excellence for “Cooking School of the Year”. We are thrilled to win this honor, having previously won other IACP awards in 2008 and 2011.

This award is made possible by the skill and passion of the dozens of chef-instructors who teach in ICE’s School of Recreational Cooking. Additionally, this award is a credit to our staff from stewards and the customer service team to the kitchen assistants and maintenance crew, who coordinate the schools’ almost 24 hour a day of operations. In particular, this year’s win recognizes the planning and creativity of Kate McCue, Director of our School of Recreational Cooking,as well as Susan Streit, Associate Manager and Dan Stone, Recipe Editor.

More…

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Cooking with Vegetables the Dirt Candy Way

By Carly DeFilippo

As the head chef of what is arguably New York’s most popular vegetable restaurant, you would expect Amanda Cohen to be a vegetarian. She was, in fact, for 16 years – a life choice inspired more by teenage peer pressure than any moral qualms about eating meat. But as she trained to become a chef, Cohen realized the restaurants she frequented rarely offered vegetarian dishes that actually featured vegetables. It was an observation that led her to start eating fish…and later, to start her own restaurant.

Cohen helps students prepare her famous tempura poached eggs.

It’s an important distinction to make – vegetarian vs. vegetable – and one that defines the mission of Dirt Candy. Each dish celebrates one particular vegetable and explores its full potential. Take the carrot risotto, which features not only diced carrots, but also carrot broth, carrot juice, fried carrot ribbons and carrot dumplings. That’s a lot of carrot, but the dish is better for it, due to the many different textures of the same ingredient – a signature of Cohen’s cooking style.

Preparing and plating Cohen’s carrot-centric risotto.

Interestingly, many of the students in Cohen’s class had not yet visited her restaurant, but knew its reputation – and most owned her quirky, graphic novel-inspired cookbook. As a first-time cookbook writer, Cohen was receptive to the class’ comments, and mentioned that, in her own experience, sometimes recipes don’t work. Just like a person, a recipe takes time and repetition to understand – and the ability to adapt, as necessary, in the moment.

Dirt Candy celery salad, with grilled grapes, king oyster mushrooms, celery pesto and fried cheese curds.

No one better demonstrated this concept of adaptation than Cohen’s “prep queen”, Danielle, who has been at Dirt Candy since the restaurant’s opening. As students attempted to master the various cooking techniques required by each of the recipes, Danielle gracefully talked them through everything from grilling grapes to making caramel corn.

Dirt Candy corn pudding with caramel corn and butterscotch sauce.

The latter was my job for the evening. It seemed simple enough, but when my caramel burnt before reaching the instruction’s 300 degrees, Danielle talked me through the process in terms of color, texture and smell. The second batch came out perfect, and I was doubly proud. It’s rare that I have the ability to fail and rebound so quickly in a cooking situation, a testament to the hands-on learning afforded by an in-person cooking class.

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The Art of Blending with Lior Lev Sercarz

Lior Lev Sercarz is spice blender to the stars – star chefs, that is. From Eric Ripert to Michelle Bernstein, Paul Kahan and Apollonia Poilâne, his roster of clients is a veritable “who’s who” of culinary innovators. Even those chefs who know how to blend their own spices agree: Sercarz just does it better.

Lior teaches a recreational student how to prepare chocolate pots de creme.

Sercarz’s culinary education started early, as a young boy in Israel. His is not a romantic story of techniques and recipes handed down from his elders, but rather one of practical cooking. His mother worked late, and would leave behind ingredients for him to prepare dinner for his younger siblings. As years passed, and his family lived and traveled throughout Europe, Lior’s exceptional palate was honed by the wide range of cuisines and cultures he encountered.

Lior teaches a student how to segment a grapefruit for a fluke crudo dish.

At the age of 19, Sercarz joined the Israeli army, where he was charged with kitchen duty. It was there that he learned the simple but indispensable purpose of “food as satisfaction.” Upon leaving the army, he traveled throughout South America, and there discovered his interest in uncovering the source of food traditions. The spice trade, in particular, sparked his curiosity, because of the relative lack of industrialization in the creation of spices. His appreciation for these hand-harvested products only grew during his time at the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France, most especially during a culinary externship under the wing of Olivier Roellinger, a three-star Michelin chef renown for his rare knowledge of seasoning and spice blending techniques. From there, Sercarz moved on to New York’s Daniel, where he experimented with blends and eventually built an extensive spice rack, inspiring his current business, La Boîte á Epice.

For each of his 41 signature spice blends (plus 30 additional blends exclusively available to chefs), Sercarz seeks not to imitate a particular flavor, but rather to evoke a sense memory of a particular place. His “Cancale”, for example, is named for the town where he trained with Roellinger and features the region’s signature fleur de sel, as well as orange peel and fennel seeds from the plants that grow on Brittany’s cliffs.

A recreational student seasons raw tuna with Sercarz’s Salvador spice blend.

ICE recreational students had the pleasure of discovering twelve of Sercarz’s multi-sensory spices, including Cancale, in a cooking class that celebrated the release of Sercarz’s first cookbook, The Art of Blending. Like his spices, this book evokes an emotional response from its reader, with vivid pictures and anecdotes that span the world’s many flavors and cultures. Select chefs from Sercarz’s bevy of celebrity clients contributed recipes featuring each of his signature blends, from soups to sweets, smoked fish and even cocktails.

Sercarz himself is a highly skilled chef, and orchestrated the impressive production of fourteen different dishes that night. Yet his instruction was far from heavy-handed. As he explained to the class, he does not care how people choose to use his spices. He respects the creativity of the individual, and how they choose to interact with his blends. That said, the impetus to publish this cookbook originated with the frequent requests for recipe suggestions from his non-chef clients. Yet he believes that the cookbook also stands alone, regardless of whether or not an individual owns each of the spice blends included in the recipes.

Cocktails spices with Sercarz's Borneo blend.

Cocktails spiced with Sercarz’s Borneo blend.

It was in sitting down to enjoy our spiced feast that we were able to most appreciate Sercarz’s unique perspective. He diagnosed a certain ignorance in our treatment of spices, explaining that they are products like meat or vegetables. There is seasonality, labor and a variance in quality. His blends range from 9 to 23 ingredients, and can take as little as one day, or as long as six months, to create. Each blend is approached with a meticulous attention to detail that demonstrates a deep understanding of his raw ingredients. From the selection of salt, to heat, to more unusual flavors, no decision goes unweighed, infusing Sercarz’s products with an incomparable complexity. His spice blends are truly a pleasure to work with – for all the five senses.

Fluke crudo, eggplan relish, ratatouille pizzas and other dishes, all garnished with Sercarz’s signature spices.

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Wild Game Domain: Rustling Up A New Radio Show

By Carly DeFilippo

Chad Pagano’s backstory isn’t that of your average pastry chef. Long before he spent his days instructing in the art of kneading dough, he was serving in the United States Army’s 10th Mountain Division, utilizing his recreational hunting skills as a scout/sniper. After leaving the army, Pagano enrolled in culinary school, where he discovered a passion for natural, earthy and organic foods.

Rising through the ranks of the New York restaurant scene, Chef Chad served in a number of restaurant and hotel kitchens, eventually landing a leading role as Executive Pastry Chef at renown New York caterer Great Performances, before joining the ranks of ICE’s Pastry & Baking Arts instructors in 2002.

chef chad2 Ten years of flour-laden work later, Chef Chad is bringing his hunting and foraging past to the forefront. After a guest appearance on Culinary Arts instructor Erica Wides’ radio show, Let’s Get Real, he set his eyes on bigger game, launching his own radio series, Wild Game Domain: from the Hunt to the Hearth, on Heritage Radio Network.

Every Tuesday at 11AM, tune in to hear Chef Chad’s thoughts on hunting, harvesting and the sustainable consumption of wild or foraged foodstuffs. You can also download MP3s of past episodes, including today’s pilot.

Looking for a more hands-on experience? Whip up recipes from Chef Chad’s wild game repertoire – while listening to his favorite hunting stories – in his brand-new recreational class.

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Mastering the Craft of the Cocktail Snack with Chef Chris Gesualdi

By Carly DeFilippo

Chef Chris Gesualdi is no slouch. Last night, he whipped 16 novice chefs into shape, prepping a 10-course New Year’s Eve hors d’oeuvres menu in just under three hours. Not only was it one of the most organized cooking classes I’ve taken, it was also one of the most intriguing.

Gesualdi is not only a veritable fountain of culinary wisdom (he’s logged serious kitchen time with Thomas Keller, and worked at some of New York’s most renown restaurants), but a genuinely curious cook. Called “The Scavenger” by his colleagues, he enjoys working with odd bits leftover from other classes. Parsley stems? Throw them in “sachet d’épices” to season your broth. Organ meats? Turn them into such delicacies such as a foie gras terrine. And when it comes to troubleshooting a broken mayonnaise or keeping your mousse from deflating, Chef Chris is your guy.

When learning from a great teacher, it’s the tips that aren’t in the recipe packet that stick with you. Sure, we made a killer tarragon emulsion last night, but – more importantly – we learned how to properly care for the chinois through which it is strained. I couldn’t be more excited to whip up another batch of brandade, but if my guests aren’t big salt cod fans, I can also substitute a combination of sole, lobster and scallops. And that immersion blender I was so keen on purchasing? I’d actually get a smoother puree in a high-quality blender like a Vita-Prep.

Students shred pork for one of Chef Chris’ cocktail snacks.

In short, with Chef Chris, we didn’t learn how to follow a recipe – we learned how to cook. So tonight, when I’m assembling these hors d’oeuvres to share with my New Year’s guests, I won’t have my eyes glued to a piece of paper. I’ll taste, season and combine ingredients instinctually, because – as Chef Chris humbly insisted – it’s all up to the preference of the chef.

Foie Gras Mousse – Garnished with Minced Black Truffles

Recipe by Chef Chris Gesualdi

Ingredients

2 pounds foie gras terrine
2 sheets gelatin
3/4 cup heavy cream
Minced black truffles, as needed
Pre-baked pastry shells (or toasted, sliced baguette)

Instructions

Place gelatin sheets in water to “bloom”.
Puree foie gras in food processor.
Remove gelatin from water, squeeze out extra water. Place in a small sauce pan with 1/4 cream to gently heat and dissolve.
When gelatin is dissolved, gradually add cream mixture to (running) food processor.
Gradually add 1/2 cup heavy cream to food processor.
When evenly mixed, remove foie mousse from processor, and refrigerate until chilled.
Pipe mousse into pre-baked pastry shells or onto toasted baguette slices.
Garnish with minced black truffles.

Notes
To lighten recipe, you can use veal or duck stock instead of cream.

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Ho, Ho, Holiday Cupcakes

By Tim Bruderek

For most people, holiday desserts don’t include cupcakes. But Chef Melanie Underwood‘s “Holiday Cupcakes Workshop” helped this non-believer (and non-baker) realize that the cupcake is an excellent format for the festive flavors we all know and love.

Chef Melanie and students mix up a few batches of batter.

As mentioned, I’m a self-proclaimed “non-baker.” I have confidence in my savory skills, but when it comes to flour, eggs and sugar, my knowledge leaves something to be desired. So I brought along my fiancée, who loves to bake – especially cupcakes. She’s always testing out new flavors and techniques, making the class a fun way to kick off our first holiday as an engaged couple.

Chef Melanie taught us to integrate gingerbread, eggnog, peppermint and cocoa into a range of simple, seasonal recipes, while sharing a wide range of general baking tips. For example, I learned how to whip up silky meringues, proper pastry piping technique, the importance of mise en place, and options for ingredient subsitutions (yogurt or sour cream for buttermilk).

After mixing our batters and placing them in the oven, we learned that when it comes to baking cupcakes, time is truly relative. The best way to tell when the cakes are done is to press them with your finger. If they spring back to the touch, they are ready. If you leave a fingerprint, they’re not done yet. After taking them out of the oven, it’s best to let the cupcakes rest for a few minutes in the pan, before transferring them to a cake rack (so the air can flow to the bottom of the cupcakes).
pipingcupcakes

Next came the whimsical decorations. The “hot cocoa” cupcake was topped with a few mini-marshmallows and a candy cane “straw” or “handle” to make it look like a steaming cup of hot chocolate. The egg nog cakes were sprinkled with nutmeg (and a healthy splash of rum), evoking all the flavors of our favorite warming drink in a single bite.

Not only did I enjoy whipping up these impressive holiday cupcakes, but I’ve gained the confidence to lend my fiancée a hand in all her future baking experiments. Below, I share my favorite of the recipes, compliments of Chef Melanie.

GINGERBREAD CUPCAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING

Yield: Makes about 20 cupcakes

Ingredients

2¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground cloves
12 tablespoons (6 ounces) room temperature unsalted butter
¾ cup molasses
¾ cup light brown sugar
3 large eggs
¾ cup buttermilk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350° F; Line pans with cupcake liners.
In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and cloves; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment cream together the butter, molasses and sugar until light and fluffy, 5 to 10 minutes.
Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.
Add one-third of the dry ingredients and mix, add one-half of the buttermilk, and continue alternating dry with wet, finishing with dry.
Spoon or pipe the batter into prepared cake pans and place in the oven. Bake until the cakes spring back when touched, 20 to 25 minutes for large cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Icing:

12 tablespoons (6 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 pounds (32 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

In the bowl of an electric mixer combine butter and cream cheese and beat until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. Add in the sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Top each cake with an icing and serve.

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Cooking Up Romance with Chef Vicki Caparulo

Chef Vicki Caparulo turned to her class, “Does anyone have any questions?” To the surprise of one student, Danielle, her boyfriend Jerry raised his hand. Or rather, got down on one knee. engagement The happy couple was hardly new to ICE. One of their first dates was Chef Loren Banco’s Great New York Restaurants’ Signature Dishes. When deciding how to propose, Jerry passed on a private yacht or freezing the ring in an ice cube at a fancy restaurant. Instead, he opted, “to give Danielle a story that was uniquely her own…that related to our story together, so I went back to that early date at ICE.” After an afternoon Cheese Lover’s Romp with Alexandra Leaf, the couple headed to Chef Vicki Caparulo’s Essentials of Mediterranean Cooking.

“I didn’t expect to be so nervous,” said Jerry, ” I kept going into the bathroom to practice my proposal while we were cooking.” Luckily, his accomplice, Chef Caparulo, is no stranger to kitchen romance. The engagement went off without a hitch, to the delight of Danielle and the rest of the class. “The only unanticipated downside was that after cooking for four hours, Danielle was too excited to eat anything. But she loved the experience, and we wouldn’t change a thing”.

Congratulations Jerry and Danielle! We look forward to seeing what you’ll cook up as husband and wife. The happy couple with Chef Vicki Caparulo

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Historic Holiday Drinks: Nogs, Flips and Syllabubs

By Hillery Wheeler

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Anthony Caporale

I’m the type of New Yorker who prides herself on her cocktail knowledge. If you’re looking for a $30 “apple-tini”, I’m not your girl, but when you want a proper martini or require fresh lime juice in your gimlet, I know just the spot. So I was humbled and surprised to attend a holiday mixology class – “Nogs, Flips and Syllabubs” – where I only recognized the name of one of the three drinks.

Apparently, I’m not the only syllabub novice. According to our instructor, Anthony Caporale, these frothy delights have fallen out of favor over the last century. When you learn their origin (the foam traditionally came from adding warm milk – straight from the cow’s udder – to a drink) it should be no surprise that that our sanitation, homogenization and pasteurization obsessed society got a little queasy over creamy cocktails. However, in the today’s mixology movement, nogs, flips and syllabubs are making a comeback.

Frothing egg whites and mixing up some yolks.

Frothing egg whites and “flipping” some yolks.

As with most recipes involving raw protein, here there is an implicit safety plan. The sanitizing agent for the egg is the alcohol itself, which kills any lingering bacteria, making that creamy Sherry Syllabub more than safe to drink. With the frothy consistency of a milkshake, these drinks (despite being associated with cozy winter nights) are typically served cold. That is, unless it’s a “flip”. Much to Caporale’s chagrin, no bars seem to be making flips the traditional way, which is to insert a hot poker fresh directly into a syllabub, causing it to froth so aggressively that it ‘flips’ over the side of the glass.

Anyone who’s hand-beaten egg whites knows modernity has its advantages, but – with a dash of Caporale’s creativity – improving on the past might be the best way to discover a new drink. Cheers!

Maker’s Mark Egg Nog

By Anthony Caporale, as featured on Art of the Drink

Ingredients

12 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 liter Maker’s Mark Bourbon
1 pint heavy cream (very cold)
1 pint milk
fresh nutmeg

Instructions

1) Separate egg whites and yolks into separate bowls.
2) Beat whites to soft peaks.
3) Beat yolks until smooth.
4) Add sugar to yolks and beat until pale yellow.
5) Add 1/2 liter bourbon.
6) Fold egg whites into mixture.
7) In a separate bowl, pour heavy cream and beat to soft peaks.
8) Fold cream into egg mixture.
9) Add pint of milk, stir well to combine.
10) Transfer to punch bowl and garnish with freshly-grated nutmeg.