Something Sweet

A new lovely, homey bakery has opened up right across from the best pizza in D.C. (2 Amys, obviously). The bakery is pink, green, and endlessly cute. Their treats taste homemade and very good. The menus and even the store hours sign are hand-written. The staff are actually helpful and seem happy to have you there.

Something Sweet has several sweet things that they will put into handy-dandy single serving containers for takeaway: frozen treats, cookies, tarts, brownies and 6 or 7 flavors of cupcakes.

This shop is doing big flavors and plenty of sugar. All the usual cupcakes are reminiscent of old favorites that your mom made. The vanilla cake was a bit wet, and the M&Ms on top of the chocolate frosting were a little cutesy, but the chocolate buttercream itself was wonderful. The chocolate cake is very chocolate-y, and the vanilla buttercream while slightly gritty is a meringue-like fluff of vanilla goodness. I haven't been there while they've had an orange flavored cupcake, but a friend of mine assures me it is like biting into a sweet and juicy orange that just happens to have the texture of cake and buttercream.

So grab a friend, have some pizza, buy a cupcake, and eat it on a bench on the beautiful National Cathedral grounds. It's a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Heather's Pick: Red Velvet
This is the real deal! The red velvet cake is dense and tangy and the cream cheese frosting is extraordinarily creamy and sweeter than I usually go for, but not unpleasantly so. I meant to leave half the red velvet for my husband, truly I did.

Get to Georgetown Quick!

There are just two days left in August, and that means there are just two more days to get a coconut-key lime cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake. Sure, you've had their coconut with cream cheese frosting which is very good and you've had their key lime which is also really delicious, but trust me, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That cupcake is freaking a-mazing! Go, go, go!

Passion Fruit Custard Cakes

I love custard. I love souffles. This is a wonderful something in between. The top is a fluffy, moist cake and the bottom is a creamy liquid custard.

Custard cakes are the latest delight I've discovered in my quest to create the perfect passion fruit dessert. I whipped these up on a Sunday for a barbecue. I didn't have enough granulated sugar so I used powdered and adjusted the amounts accordingly. The light and pucker-up tart results were a huge hit with my family. I will say that the other couple and their children who tried them were not super enthusiastic. Even with a generous topping of whipped cream, the cakes are very tart and intensely passion fruit flavored--probably not the best thing to serve in strictly chocoholic circles. Fruity dessert lovers take notice: my husband, my sister and I had a near brawl over the extra ramekin. YUM!


3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/4 cup all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1 1/3 cups whole milk
3 large eggs, separated
1/3 cup thawed passion fruit concentrate or passion fruit pulp
1 tablespoons finely grated lime zest

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter eight 3/4-cup ramekins or custard cups. Whisk 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, flour, and pinch of salt in medium bowl to blend. Combine milk, egg yolks, passion fruit concentrate and lime zest in large bowl; whisk until blended. Add flour mixture to yolk mixture and whisk custard until blended. Using electric mixer, beat egg whites in another large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar to whites and beat until stiff but not dry. Fold 1/4 of whites into custard. Fold remaining whites into custard in 2 additions (custard will be slightly runny).

Divide custard equally among prepared ramekins. Place ramekins in large roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into pan to come halfway up sides of ramekins. Bake custard cakes until golden brown and set on top (custard cakes will be slightly soft in center), about 27 minutes. Chill custard cakes uncovered until cold, at least 4 hours, then cover and keep refrigerated. Custard cakes can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled. Serve with whipped cream.

Lemon Chiffon Pie with Gingersnap Crust

I needed to make a lemon pie for the next installment of the Anne of Green Gables book club and settled on this recipe. From the descriptions in the book, I picture Anne's lemon pie as a pate brisee filled with lemon curd and topped with whipped cream, but I didn't feel like doing pate brisee because I am lazy. This pie from epicurious looked intriguing, so I gave it a shot. To make them uniform, the gingersnap cookies had to be processed until they were extremely fine crumbs. The resulting crust was quite hard--no shocker since gingersnaps are so hard themselves. If I made it again, I would use half gingersnaps and half graham crackers so I'm making that alteration in the recipe below. I wasn't crazy about the texture of the pie. I don't love the texture the gelatin creates.

Keys to success: Be sure to strain your custard before adding the cream. Give yourself plenty of time to cool the crust, plenty of time to cool the filling all the way down to 60 degrees and plenty of time to let the pie set. I also chilled the bowl and whisk with the cream before whipping it. The filling immediately started to set up and was easy to mound in the middle.

This was a simple, if time consuming pie which people seemed to really enjoy.

Crust

3/4 cup finely ground gingersnap cookie crumbs (about 12 cookies ground in processor)
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon minced crystallized ginger
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling

2 cups ice cubes

1/4 cup water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup strained fresh lemon juice
4 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/4 cups chilled whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar

For crust:
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Spray bottom and sides of spring form pan with baking spray. Mix gingersnap cookie crumbs, sugar, and ginger in medium bowl. Add melted butter and stir until mixture is evenly moistened. Transfer crumb mixture to spring-form pan; press crumbs firmly and evenly onto bottom of pan. Bake until crust is firm and slightly darker in color, about 8 minutes. Cool crust completely.
For filling:
Pour enough cold water into medium bowl to come halfway up sides; add 2 cups ice cubes and set aside.
Pour 1/4 cup water into small bowl; sprinkle gelatin over. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 15 minutes.
Whisk 3/4 cup sugar, lemon juice, egg yolks, grated lemon peel, and salt in heavy medium saucepan to blend. Whisk constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens very slightly (mixture will coat spoon but will not be thick like curd) and thermometer inserted into mixture registers 160°F, about 8 minutes (do not boil). Add gelatin mixture; whisk until gelatin dissolves and mixture is smooth, about 1 minute. Place saucepan in bowl with ice water until lemon filling is cool to touch (appox. 60 degrees), whisking occasionally, about 12 minutes. Transfer lemon filling to large bowl.
Using electric mixer, beat whipping cream with powdered sugar in another medium bowl until peaks form. Fold 1/4 of whipped cream into lemon filling until incorporated. Fold in remaining whipped cream in 3 additions. Transfer filling to cool crust, mounding slightly in center. Refrigerate pie until filling is set, about 4 hours. Serve with additional whipped cream and fresh raspberries.