Your mom likes cake.

Just because

Written on February 6, 2012 by Laura in new york

This happened on Friday.

Best of Chicago

Written on January 30, 2012 by Laura in chicago, drinks, restaurants

So I haven’t talked about this much here, but I ~~am moving~~ moved to New York. Before you give me that face, that “oh BROOKLYN, WELL LA-DEE-DA, New York is SOOO overrated and I’m so tired of everyone wanting to move there” face, let me say that leaving Chicago kinda breaks my heart, but I have a great opportunity I can’t pass up. So I ~~am packing~~ packed everything (again) and ~~preparing to rent~~ rented a truck (again) and ~~schlepping~~ schlepped my stuff 800 miles away (again).

Naturally before I left I had to go a lot of places and do eat a lot of things. I thought you guys might like to see my list, in case you visit Chicago or maybe you live here and haven’t tried some of these things, or maybe one of your friends is about to move here, or whatever. This list is heavily skewed towards the near north side/Logan Square, but that’s the best place to hang out anyway (this is objective truth, I wouldn’t lie to you guys). These are all places that I have tried, loved, and take people to when they come visit.

The Cakejam Guide to Hanging in Chi-town

I want to eat something delicious but I’m sort of poor

Big Star Tacos and whiskey
1531 N. Damen Ave.
It’s always crowded and it can be oppressively hipster-y, but ahhh! Guhhhh! The tacos! Website

Sultan’s Middle eastern
2057 W. North Ave.
I always get the spicy falafel pita with jerusalem salad. I have never tried anything else and do not intend to. Website

Sol del Sur Mexican
3268 W. Fullerton Ave
I suggest a veggie burrito as big as your head, or perhaps a taco salad as big as your head, or maybe a couple tacos with a mound of cilantro as big as your head.

Boiler Room Pizza
2210 N. California Ave.
Get the PB&J, which is a tallboy PBR, a slice, and a shot of Jameson for $7.50. Also, if you use their ATM, they will reimburse you for the fee by giving you a shot of whiskey. But you have to save the receipt; they will not take pity on you and give you the shot anyway. Website

Xoco Fancy Mexican
449 N. Clark St.
This place isn’t CHEAP exactly, but it’s a relatively inexpensive way to try some of Rick Bayless’s food. Lunch will run you about $12-15. The tortas, churros and coffee are all amazing. Website

I want to eat something delicious and I have some money to spend

Blackbird New American/fine dining
619 W. Randolph St.
Yes. Yesssss. I did my externship in the pastry kitchen here – I’m not sure whether that should make me more or less likely to recommend it, but the food and the service and the drinks are all fantastic, despite the fact that they let someone like me make the components for the desserts. Reservations recommended, obvs. Website

Longman & Eagle Regional American/gastropub
2657 N. Kedzie Blvd.
I had my last dinner in Chicago here. Of all the restaurants with ampersands in the name that employ lots of people with beards, this one is by far my favorite. Don’t go here if: you mind waiting for a table, you are freaked out by things like marrow and pickled ramps, or you’re a picky vegetarian (they do have a good vegetarian menu, but it’s small). The rest of us will see you later. Website

Lula Cafe (Regional American/farm-to-table)
2537 N. Kedzie Blvd.
I loved this place before I even moved to Chicago. The food is amazing but not too fussy, they do brunch every day, and there’s a great patio in the warmer months. The menu changes often – I never get the same thing twice. Website

Frontera Grill Fancy Mexican
445 N. Clark St.
This one time, I was in Frontera, and I saw Rick Bayless…ahem. Anyway. Be prepared for a crowd because the guy is famous, it’s downtown, and the food is really good. Try an off-peak time so you don’t gnaw your arm off before you get a table. Website

I want to have some cheap beers in a fun neighborhood bar

The Whirlaway
3224 W. Fullerton Ave.
I might have cried a little when I said goodbye to this bar. Good place to watch the Bears, Bulls or Blackhawks, or just play board games. Say hi to Maria and play 6501 on the jukebox. Or 6105. Something like that. Website

Cole’s
2338 N. Milwaukee Ave.
If you’re a bartender, it’s part of your job to flirt with me. They understand that here. Also – good beer selection, cheap drinks, pool table, and regular live music and comedy nights. But most importantly the flirting thing. Website

I want to drink some fancy beers but still in a fun neighborhood bar

Small Bar
2049 W. Division, 1415 W. Fullerton Ave., 2956 N. Albany
My favorite for beer geeks. Huge bottle selection and a selection of drafts that changes often, plus really great food. Also if you’re into soccer this is your place. I am not into soccer until the World Cup, when I jump all over that bandwagon and use it as an excuse to get drunk at weird times of the day. Website

Revolution Brewing
2323 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Logan Square’s very own brewery. Another place with an extensive beer list and really great food. Get the mussels. Website

Map Room
1949 N. Hoyne Ave.
Ridiculously ridiculous beer selection and a good crowd. Website

Bangers & Lace
1670 W. Division St.
Of the four this is probably my least favorite, but it’s a great pick if you’re in this neighborhood. One of the few places I’ve seen the particular kind of sweet Faro that I like. Website

I want to have some fancy cocktails

Gilt Bar
230 W. Kinzie St.
Whenever I work in the loop I like to try to stop here for a cocktail once in a while. The upstairs bar is a good sit-by-yourself and chat with strangers bar – the bartenders are really friendly and there’s a steady stream of people just off work and business travelers waiting for tables. If you’re with a group, hit the downstairs bar in the basement, which is cash-only but way cooler. Website

Longman & Eagle
2657 N. Kedzie Blvd.
It’s hard to get a seat at the bar during peak hours, especially dinnertime, but man they have good drinks here. I highly recommend getting drunk on a Sunday afternoon on the patio in the summer. Website

The Whistler
2421 N. Milwaukee Ave.
I like this place because you’ll get cocktails just as good or better than you would at someplace like Violet Hour, but they’re $8-10 instead of $12-15 and the crowd is better. Sometimes on the weekends you will be subjected to some weird live ambient electronic noise fuzz but them’s the perils of going out in Logan Square. Website

It’s 2am and I’m not ready to go home yet

These are the 4am bars I’ve been to, in ascending order of likelihood that you’ll see someone get cracked over the head with a pool cue before last call:

The Owl
2421 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Nice enough that people actually hang out here before 2am. Website

Bonnie’s
2417 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Usually less waiting in line and more dancing than The Owl.

Alice’s
3556 W. Belmont Ave.
Karaoke. That’s probably all I have to say.

I want some deep dish pizza/Chicago dogs/well-known Chicago food

Burt’s Place (Deep dish)
8541 Ferris Ave., Morton Grove, IL
This is the place that was on the Chicago episode of No Reservations. It’s in the suburbs, but totally worth the drive. When we went, we didn’t make a reservation, showed up less than an hour before closing, and didn’t bring cash. They were super nice about it, but don’t be dicks like us.

Kuma’s Corner (Burgers)
2900 W. Belmont Ave.
This isn’t exactly “Chicago food,” I guess, but Kuma’s is sort of an institution. Fantastic burgers in a metal-themed place. You’ll wait a long time for a table but it’s worth it. Website

Hot Doug’s (Encased meats)
3324 N. California Ave.
I have to be honest – I only went here once and I had such a bad food coma afterward that I felt drugged for twelve hours. But it was delicious, and if you’re in Chicago it’s kind of a must-do. I personally don’t think the duck fat fries are particularly special, but they do them on the weekends if you’re determined to get them. Go when it’s warm because the line will be around the block. Website

I want to see some downtown Chicago shit while I’m eating/drinking

Signature Lounge
875 N. Michigan Ave.
Great place to take visitors. Go up to the bar on the 95th floor for a drink – it will be an expensive drink, but it’s cheaper than doing dinner or the observatory and you’ll get the same amazing view of the city. Website

Purple Pig
500 N. Michigan Ave.
Really great food if you end up stuck on Michigan Avenue and hungry. Small plates, communal tables, cheese, wine, pork-y things. Website

I want brunch

Lula Cafe (Regional American/farm-to-table)
2537 N. Kedzie Blvd.
See above. #1 brunch choice. Website

Longman & Eagle
2657 N. Kedzie Blvd.
#2 brunch choice. Website

The Bedford
1612 W. Division St.
I had a duck confit gravy over grits here that cured the worst hangover I can remember since my college years. Really awesome space, built in an old bank. They kept the vault and a lot of the other details. Also the ladies’ room is bigger than my apartment. Also ALSO the bloody marys have kimchee in them. Website

The Bristol
2152 N. Damen Ave.
Hangover breakfast! Also their pastry chef is quite good so order whatever breakfast pastries they’re selling. Website

I need some coffee/a place to hang out and check my email

Star Coffee Lounge
2521 W. Chicago Ave.
My favorite coffee shop in the city. They roast their own special blend of coffee upstairs, and the place is staffed with a bunch of cute, friendly coffee geeks. Website

New Wave Coffee
2557 N. Milwaukee Ave. / 3103 W Logan Blvd.
Their drip coffee is not my favorite, but the baristas are good. If you like sweet drinks the Hail Mary (chai with two shots of espresso) is the way to go. Lots of space, good for working on your laptop and loitering. Website

PS: You should go to __________ for the ____________.

Dunlay’s – Bloody Mary
3137 W. Logan Blvd.
It comes with a snack and a High Life pony. Website

The Handlebar – Peanut butter and jelly handpies
2311 W North Ave
Fried dough filled with warm pb&j. Website

Ipsento Coffee – Ipsento latte
2035 N. Western Ave.
A spicy latte with coconut milk, cayenne, and honey.

Doughnut Vault – Old fashioned
400 N. Franklin St.
Any of the doughnuts, really. Website

Edzo’s Burgers – Burger, fries and Speculoos shake
1571 Sherman Avenue, Evanston, IL
Mostly the Speculoos shake. Website

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Peppermint Marshmallows

Written on December 24, 2011 by Laura in candy, gift ideas, holidays

Oh, hey there ya’ll. It’s Christmas Eve. Did you wake up hungover this morning from drinking Sazeracs and $1 High Lifes with your college friends while watching A Christmas Story on a giant projector? Nope, nope, me neither.

Here’s a good recipe, though, if you were busy this week throwing amazing parties and buying incredible gifts and wrapping them in homemade paper and you really meant to bake something special for everyone but now you’re short on time, because your life is so fabulous.

These marshmallows are easy and quick, they travel well, and they can be dipped or drizzled with tempered chocolate if you want something fancier. Boom.

Peppermint marshmallows

2 8×8 aluminum tins

Sugar 454g
Corn syrup 16g
Water 175g

Gelatin 30g (if you’re using powdered gelatin – for sheet gelatin, use 40g)
Cold water 150g

Peppermint flavor

Egg whites 60g (room temp)

Powdered sugar
Cornstarch

Hydrate the gelatin in the cold water.
Spray the two tins with oil and dust with a 50/50 mix of the powdered sugar and cornstarch.
Combine the sugar, corn syrup and first quantity of water in a pot and bring to a boil while you begin whipping the egg whites.
When the syrup reaches 126 degrees Celsius (258 F), whisk in the gelatin. It will foam up a little, don’t be skeered. Your egg whites should be frothy and light at this point, still foamy but with no liquid in the bowl.
Begin pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl in a slow steady stream while you continue to whip the whites.
Once all the syrup is incorporated, add about a capful of the peppermint flavor (depending on how strong yours is) and continue whipping until the mix is a thick, milkshake-like consistency.
Pour the marshmallow into the prepared tins and let cool slightly.
Dust with a mix of cornstarch and powdered sugar and let set for an hour or two, til it feels firm.
Wrap the tins up and let them continue to firm up overnight.
In the morning, turn them out of the tins, cut into squares, and toss the marshmallows in a mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch.

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Saturday Saturday Saturday!

Written on December 9, 2011 by Laura in chicago, design, gift ideas, holidays

If ye be in Chicago this weekend, come to the Firebelly Design Pop-Up Shop on Saturday from 11-5. There will be some awesome handmade work there (including a few letterpress prints from me and my AIGA buds) and all kinds of local food. Plus 50% of the proceeds go to Reason to Give.

More info here!

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“Cake vernacular”

Written on November 28, 2011 by Laura in cakes, creativity, design

Remember that giant cake I worked on? Well the finished video is up! See it here or on TODA’s site.

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Things you can buy me for Christmas, part 1

Written on November 28, 2011 by Laura in gift ideas

I know you have all been racking your brains trying to come up with the perfect Christmas gift for me, so I thought I would help you out:

Check out these lovely egg tempera paintings of doughnuts, tarts, and random British foods (Jelly rabbit, anyone?) by designer Joël Penkman. Joël also sells prints of many of them in his Etsy shop, in case you can’t afford to spend £875 on a painting of dessert.

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Success

Written on November 26, 2011 by Laura in chicago, holidays

Thanksgiving was wonderful. I hope yours was too.

My oven is an asshole and tried to ruin my pies, but I prevailed. Behold, vanilla pear and almond tart:

And of course, pumpkin pie (two of them, actually). They were insane. Keep this recipe bookmarked for next year. Best I’ve ever tried.

Enjoy the rest of your holiday and I’ll see you next week, ya’ll.

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What I’m Making for Thanksgiving

Written on November 22, 2011 by Laura in holidays

Deb’s Pumpkin Pie

Pear and almond tart, with these pears

Saveur’s Honey and Herb Biscuits

Deviled eggs (Mom’s recipe, plenty of relish and no paprika, thank you very much)

Possibly some gougères. Can you freeze pâte à choux batter? I’m about to find out.

I have made none of these recipes before, save the deviled eggs and the tart dough I’m using, but I trust Smitten Kitchen more than most cookbooks. And luckily by the time everyone gets to dessert they’re already drunk and they won’t notice if anything didn’t come out perfectly. See what I did there?

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Coconut cake, revisited

Written on November 15, 2011 by Laura in cakes

Like a good southern girl, my friend Katie loves coconut cake. So for her birthday I pulled out my favorite coconut cake recipe from Sky High.

Ahhh you guys I forgot how good this cake is! Did you make it when I posted it before? No? You say you don’t like coconut? Nonsense. You just haven’t tried this cake. Seriously, try making it and leaving off the shredded coconut if you’re not a coconut person – the cake itself has a very light flavor and it’s amaaaazing with cream cheese icing. If you don’t like cream cheese icing, you are probably a cylon.

Southern coconut cake

adapted from Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes

5 egg whites
1/2 c. milk
2 t. vanilla extract
3 c. cake flour
2 1/3 c. sugar
4 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
2 sticks (8 oz.) unsalted butter
1 c. unsweetened coconut milk

Everything should be at room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the bottoms of 3 8″ round cake pans. Put a circle of parchment in the bottom and spray that, too. This cake sticks like crazy.
Whisk the egg whites, milk and vanilla together and set aside.
Combine the dry ingredients and mix with the paddle attachment for a bit to combine everything.
Add the soft butter and coconut milk. Once they’re combined, raise the speed a little and beat for a couple of minutes until the mix is very light and fluffy.
Add the egg white mixture in a couple of additions, mixing just long enough to incorporate.
Divide the batter among the 3 pans and bake for about 30 minutes. They’ll be pretty golden, will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a knife inserted in the center will come out clean.
Cool the cakes in their pans for about ten minutes and then turn them out to cool the rest of the way. If they stick, talk sweetly to them and slide a small offset spatula around the sides and underneath to loosen.

Cream Cheese Buttercream

This icing is delicious, but I recommend that you plan to cover most of the cake with shredded coconut if you use it, because it’s kind of a bitch to make look nice.

12 oz. cream cheese
7 oz. butter
1 c. confectioner’s sugar
2 t. vanilla extract
1 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. water
3 egg whites

Beat the cream cheese, butter and confectioner’s sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Set aside.
Cook the sugar and water to 238 degrees on a candy thermometer. Don’t stir the shit out of it, just let it cook.
While that’s cooking, start whipping the egg whites on medium speed with a little pinch of cream of tartar if you have it.
Ideally your eggs will be very soft peak, nice and foamy but with no liquid in the bottom, just as your sugar reaches the correct temperature.
We’re making italian meringue! Pour the sugar lava in a thin stream down the side of the bowl as the egg whites are whipping, taking care not to hit the beaters.
Raise the speed and whip until the meringue is stiff, shiny, and about body temperature.
Once your meringue is cool enough that it won’t melt your butter, lower the speed and add your butter/cream cheese mixture in small dollops until it’s all incorporated.
If it’s not nice and smooth, whip the crap out of it for a minute, that might help.
Frost the cake and cover with as much sweetened shredded coconut as your little heart desires.

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The time I ate within a few feet of Edward Norton

Written on November 7, 2011 by Laura in cakes, design, travel

I made another trip to New York recently, this time to do some work:

That, my friends, is a 4-foot by 2-foot cake. Well, not exactly – most of it is cardboard. But all of it is covered in buttercream. 11 pounds of buttercream, to be exact.

The lovely people at TODA hired me to help with a short video they wanted to make involving the aforementioned giant cake. It was a super fun day of work that didn’t feel like work at all. I can’t wait to see the finished product. Sneak peek:

As a bonus I had some extra time to do my usual New York activities, i.e. eat and drink way too much with my friend Melissa. I had plenty of pizza, another great brunch trip to Pies n Thighs, and we even went to that new grilled-cheese-and-whiskey bar in Williamsburg. But the stand out, by far, was Frankie’s Spuntino, where we went for dinner one night (at 17, the one in the East Village – there is also a location in Brooklyn and one in the West Village).

It’s been a while since I had a meal that was that consistently great from start to finish. We started with a cheese special, this amazing handmade mozzarella that was so soft they gave us spoons to pile it onto fresh bread. Then two salads – one of shaved brussel sprouts and one of fennel, celery root and parsley. The best entree was a house-made cavatelli with sausage and browned sage butter. And dessert was spiced stewed prunes in red wine sauce, over mascarpone. Layers and layers of flavor in everything. Most of the dinner conversation consisted of us grinning like fools and repeating, “this is SO GOOD,” over and over.

AND if that’s not enough of an endorsement, halfway through our meal Melissa looked up at a group of people on their way past our table and then said, “…was that Edward Norton??”

There was a minute of, “OH MY GOD WAS IT? He made sexy eyes at me! But why would Edward Norton make sexy eyes at me? Maybe it was a lookalike! But what if it was really him? He didn’t have facial hair, does he have facial hair right now? Is he even in New York? Oh my god get your phone out and google it!” And sure enough, one of the first google results was “Edward Norton training for NYC marathon” and then, this. Confirmed! EDWARD NORTON WAS CARBO-LOADING NEXT TO US.

If that’s not a good weekend, I don’t know what is.

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