What’s Cooking: King Cake Cupcakes

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King cake cupcakes


The other day, Cupcake made the suggestion of some king cake cupcakes. I thought it was a great idea, until I figured out that she wanted me to make them and not her. But with a weekend of king cake experimentation upon me, I figured the cupcakes wouldn’t be too difficult and they weren’t.

I used the same basic recipe that we’ve been working off of (see here) and took it down to the step where it was time to braid the king cake. This was where I learned how easy the cupcake would be compared to the real deal, as no braiding is required. You see, before I learned this lesson I tried to painstakingly braid a tiny king cake that I would then slip into a muffin tin. It took numerous tries before I finally had a perfectly braiding mini-king cake ready to drop in to the muffin tin. Then I realized it wouldn’t fit!

The result of fitting an oval king cake in a round hole.

As usual, Cupcake stopped by at that moment to casually provide me with the solution to my problem, “why not just make knots? You get the appearance of the braid on top with minimal work.” As per usual, her analysis was spot on. Making a knot was simple. Roll out a single strand, which is like making snakes in pottery class.

Comic from the amazing Gary Larson's Far Side

After you’ve brushed with butter and sprinkled with the cinnamon/sugar mixture simply tie a knot in the middle of the rope. Fold the ends up underneath the know and place in muffin tin. If you so choose, add in a cherry piece before sticking in the oven.

Minimal effort, braided appearance on top

Now set you cupcakes aside (covered) to let them rise a little longer (~45 minutes). While they’re rising, pre-heat your oven to 375. Drop them in and pull them out when they start to turn golden brown on top. This should take about 15 minutes (but ovens do vary wildly). As they are cooling, make the glaze per the same directions (but cut all amounts in half). When cool, glaze and decorate.

King cake cupcakes, your decorating results may (hopefully) vary

For more pictures of the king cake cupcake process, check here.

What’s Cooking: Bacon Jam

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You read that right, bacon JAM!  I eyed this recipe for a while before I took the leap (with an eager nudge from my bacon loving sister-in-law) and decided to try it out around Thanksgiving.  There was no doubt in my mind that $1.25′s sister would love it, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that everyone else in our family loved it too.  But really, what’s not to love about this sweet, savory, spreadable bacon??

Not only is bacon jam delicious, but it is also very easy to make.  It takes about 4 hours in the slow cooker so make sure you give it some time.  The bacon jam also keeps really well in the fridge for at least a month…if you can pace yourself that long!

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 lbs good quality bacon, cut into small pieces

2 sweet yellow onions, roughly chopped

3 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed and/or roughly chopped

3/4 cup fresh coffee

1/2 apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

And here’s what you do:

Cook the bacon in a frying pan over a medium-high heat.  (Quick tip: I found that a serrated knife works better than a chef’s knife for slicing the raw bacon.)  Then, pull the bacon out of the pan with a slotted spoon and allow it to drain on some paper towels.  Reserve about 1 tablespoon of the bacon drippings and pour off the excess.  Then saute the onions and garlic in the reserved drippings until the onions are translucent.  Add in the remaining ingredients and allow it to come to a boil.  Combine the onion mixture and the bacon in the slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours.  It will be much thicker and sticky when it’s done.

Transfer the mixture to a food processor (in batches if necessary) and pulse until coarsely chopped (don’t overdo it!!).  Let the jam cool and refrigerate in airtight containers….or just dive right in!  The bacon jam is AWESOME on biscuits and it also makes a really unique appetizer on some crackers or baguettes.  As I type this, $1.25 is testing a crazy off-the-wall recipe using the bacon jam, so be on the lookout for the big reveal of his super secret bacon jam project. (Want a hint? It’s got purple, green and gold sprinkles on top.)  In theory it sounds amazing, but it also has the potential to go oh so wrong…sorry, husband, but it’s true.

Around Town: NOLA Brewing Pub Crawl and Krewe du Vieux

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As you’re certainly aware, it is carnival time once again! That means king cake, doubloons, and beads are all returning to the local consciousness. While Mardi Gras has officially started, for most it really kicks off this Saturday, February 4, with the irreverent parade of Krewe du Vieux. NOLA Brewing has also chosen this Saturday to kick-off the release of their Mardi Gras themed Spring seasonal Flambeau Red Ale with a pre-Krewe du Vieux pub crawl. I’m excited because I like the Flambeau Red and I love pub crawls. Best of all, the NOLA Brewing folks have orchestrated the crawl to get you in perfect position to catch Krewe du Vieux. Here’s the line up:

Be on the look out for Flambeau Red's distinctive Mardi Gras themed label

1:00 pm — R-Bar (1431 Royal St)
2:30 pm — Balcony Music Club (1331 Decatur St)
3:45 pm — Turtle Bay (1119 Decatur St)
5:00 pm — Molly’s at the Market (1107 Decatur St)

Each bar will be serving the Flambeau Red for $3.00 a pint while the crawl is there (~1 hour). The Krewe du Vieux Parade starts at 6:30 and will stroll right by Molly’s, so you’ll be in prime viewing territory. One word of advice, unlike most everything else in town, I’ve been informed that this party will run on time. So don’t be late.

Think you can hang all day and all night? You may want to check out the Krewe du Vieux Doo after party. Just be sure to get tickets in advance, because they won’t be available at the door.

Around Town: Mixing Up Some Magic

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One of the greatest things about this town that we highlight constantly is the ability to eat and drink amazing things all in the name of charity. Mixing Up Some Magic is one of these events. A four-course meal, complete with pre-dinner cocktails, from Commander’s Palace. Sounds good, right? How about doing that all in the name of charity? Even better! Mixing Up Some Magic is a partnership between Commander’s Palace and Liberty’s Kitchen to help support Liberty’s Kitchen’s programs.

Liberty’s Kitchen “provides at-risk youth, ages 16-22, with the opportunity to build a better future by increasing their ability to change their situation and engage in a supportive community where they learn life, social and employability skills in a culinary setting. The intensive training program combines hands-on food-service training with classroom instruction, individual case management, education programs and job placement services and/or a return to an educational setting.” To put this in more perspective of recent events in the city, Liberty’s Kitchen provides some of the most vulnerable youth in our community the tools to become productive and successful members of society rather than a statistic or news report. This is a cause we can all get behind.

Now that we’ve gotten the who, what and why out of the way, it is time to get to the Where, When and How:

Mixing Up Some Magic
Sunday, January 29
6:00 pm
Individual tickets are $95 per person ($25 is tax-deductible)
Tickets available here.

Spot at the Bar: Bénédictine D.O.M.

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The distinctive bottle of Benedictine (image from Crown Wine and Spirits)

A bottle of Bénédictine D.O.M. proved to be a little more difficult to obtain than you’d think. I figured walk into any liquor store and you could score a bottle easily. Not the case here in New Orleans. You’ll certainly find Bénédictine in just about every liquor store, only you’ll be getting it in the form of B&B, Bénédictine and Brandy. After I was able to finally score a bottle from Vieux Carre Wine and Spirits, the tasting was on.

Bénédictine is, at least superficially, reminiscent of Chartreuse: It was initially created by French monks, uses a ton of herbs, and said monks ran into a heap of trouble along the way. But that is about where the similarities stop. Bénédictine blends a mere 27 herbs to Chartreuse’s 132, which I found noticeable in the complexity on a head to head tasting. The Benedictine monks had their monastery destroyed in the French Revolution and their property plundered, while the Carthusian monks got expelled and their property seized.

Although not quite as complex as Chartreuse, Bénédictine is still a complex liqueur with a strong herbal smell and flavor. It is also rather viscous. This thickness and the pronounced flavor make Bénédictine a likely companion to mix with “stronger” liquors, Scotch, Brandy, etc. Bénédictine is a popular ingredient in many a classic cocktail, such as the Vieux Carre, the original Singapore Sling, Bobby Burns, etc.

I’ve found that a Bénédictine on the rocks isn’t bad, but it certainly takes a little getting used to. Of course, I’d recommend sticking to mixing this spirit.

Since the traditional Bénédictine cocktail recipes are pretty easy to find, here’s one I’ve created which I call Last Rites.

Simply add equal parts Luxardo, Gin, Bénédictine and lime juice (sounds pretty familiar? It is a Last Word subbing the Chartreuse with the Bénédictine)

Luxardo, Bénédictine and Death's Door Gin

Normally, I’d have made this with fresh lime juice, but Cupcake needed the limes we had on hand for dinner. Which means it was time to improvise: enter a bottle of Nellie and Joe’s Key West Lime Juice. While a nice fix in a pinch, I find that fresh lime juice makes this a better drink.

No limes? No major problem

Nellie and Joe’s is a great back up system to always have on hand. It will stay fresh in the fridge for about a month and provides you some great versatility. No time to juice limes or simply no limes at all? Break out the bottle, but when you can go with the fresh squeezed stuff. When making drinks for people, I find it is important to be flexible and always have a backup plan!

The Last Rites--The Nellie and Joe's tints the color a bit more than fresh lime juice

It certainly gives you a different flavor profile than a Last Word would and, in my opinion, isn’t as nicely balanced (due to Bénédictine’s strong presence). But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a tasty drink.

Opening Today: City Greens

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Now that football season is (pretty much) over and there is a slight lag before Mardi Gras kicks in, many people around town will try to get to those resolutions to eat healthier and lose weight they made a few weeks ago. Today, City Greens in the 909 Poydras building (the First Bank and Trust Building), joining a bevy of recent restaurant openings in the area and makes meeting those goals a bit easier. According to the press release:

Most of the lettuce served at City Greens comes from a hydroponics farm located in Florida, which is owned and operated by Kazenmaier [one of the co-owners].
“By growing our own lettuce, we’re offering a higher quality of organic greens to customers,” says Kazenmaier, Co-Founder. “We’re able to maintain a consistent high standard of product throughout the year instead of the ups and downs related to seasonal growing conditions. City Greens only serves the freshest ingredients. If there are products that do not meet our standard of freshness then they will not be served to customers.”

If City Greens can stick to their promise to provide nothing but the freshest greens, I think it will be a welcome addition to downtown dining. City Greens derives its name not just from the salads they serve, but also their approach to eco-friendly operations.

City Greens uses Eco-products, which makes serving containers, utensils and cups made of recycled materials. All salads, soups and wraps are served in these eco-friendly to-go containers. “We made a conscious decision to supply eco-friendly products in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint,” Birtel [the other co-owner] says. “Not only do we want to create better lifestyles for New Orleanians, we want to encourage a healthier environment as well.”

To really capitalize on the eco-movement and helping New Orleans, I’d love to see them move that hydroponic farm into the metro area and outside of Florida.

City Greens is open Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. and will offer light breakfast to go with the salad/soup menu.

If anyone gets a chance to check it out before we do, please let us know what you think in the comments

What’s Happening

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Usually we save our these kinds of posts for Fridays to give you slackers some ideas for the weekend, but thanks to insane work issues we don’t have much else to talk about right now. So here is a run down of what looks interesting to us:

1. The opening of Manning’s–January 19. Manning’s is the Harrah’s/Archie joint venture that’s been going up by Ernst Cafe. I think Celeste over at Bouillie has this adequately covered for us (here). Here’s the menu.

2. Prospect 2–Through January 29. Some of you may remember Prospect 1 from two years ago and Prospect 1.5 from last year. Well this weekend is your second to last weekend to go see some cool contemporary art at Prospect 2. Prospect is the premier biennial of international contemporary art. What’s that mean exactly? It means every two years a bunch of world-renowned contemporary artists descend upon New Orleans to bring together a collection of contemporary art that is likely unrivaled by anything in the world. The history of biennials is pretty cool. In 1895 a bunch of people in Venice didn’t quite think they had enough great art to look at in Italy, so they invited artists from around the globe to display their works at the world’s first international art exhibit, the Venice Biennale. That Prospect hit the ground running and almost instantly established itself as the US’s premier contemporary art biennial makes this just another kick ass thing in New Orleans that is underappreciated. So, do yourself a favor and check out some art this weekend or next before its gone. Ticket info is here.

3. Dat NOLA Race–January 21 at 3:00pm. When you live some place, you’re often going to put off doing and seeing some of the coolest stuff the city has to offer. I saw this frequently during my time in the nation’s capital. Inevitably when a friend was moving to a new city, they would spend their final week or so rushing through every museum and every monument in DC that they had never bothered to go see. To help combat that problem, the folks at Dat NOLA Race have created what is “part adventure race, part scavenger hunt, and all FUN. Use your wit to solve clues, your charm to get help from the locals, and your speed to overcome your competition and conquer the course in the least amount of time” With the average course covering between 2 and 4 miles, this is a good way to see more of the city and stay true to your resolution to exercise more.

4. Hogs For the Cause. While Hogs for the Cause isn’t until March 24, they’re releasing the important information on Friday. When I get my hand on it, I’ll put it up here.