Daring Bakers Strike Again!!!

And this time it was a Lemon Meringue Pie... Now, you'd think this was an easy pie to make... It's not difficult, but it's not easy either... Steven has always made the pie crust, usually Whole Wheat for his Apple Crostinis... But this was MY first attempt... I took a clue from the Daring Bakers blog and tried grating the chilled butter, but we didn't have a grater, so i used a Microplane...

I am buying a grater... or a food processor...

Anyway, when all was said and done, the crust came together just fine by hand... Steven prepared the crust for the pre-baking and when we removed the pie weights about 2/3 of the ay through, I was concerned because the bottom of the crust looked soggy with butter... But in the end, it came out really flaky!!!

I'm pretty well-versed in working with Lemon Curd at this point (mainly for our AMAZING Lemon Flip Cake) so the filling wasn't too difficult to make, but cooking the cornstarch base was kinda gross...

Once the filling went in, all that was left was to make the meringue topping...

This was another job for Steven... And he did magnificently, piling it up and spiking it so that it would color up nicely in the oven... We thought about maybe piping the meringue, but thought a free-form would look much better just mounded and mounded on top...


So, our second challenge is complete... And of course, we HAD to have a slice and let me just say, and I know Steven will agree, when it comes to Lemon Meringue pie, from scratch tastes infinitely better than from a box...

Steven took the rest to work on Sunday, and the consensus was that the pie was "magical", and "heaven on a plate" ...

I'm putting this on our menu...

YUM!!!

A Return to The Sweet Life

Hello, folks - Steven here, finally getting back into the swing of things after a much needed break in Florida, visiting mom, and enjoying temperatures above 40 degrees!

Today Joey is baking, but I can't tell you what, exactly, as it's a secret and will be revealed when he blogs about it (come back on monday for results)...but I can tell you that it is something I can't wait to taste, and I am sure many of you will feel the same.

On our trip, we checked out Hyde Park Florida (a sub-division of the Tampa area) and we are really considering opening a bakery there within a few years. It is lovely - old homes with a bit of a Key West feel to them - wrap around porches, Banyan trees with roots and branches spreading as far as you can see, and of course, those beautiful Gulf Coast sunsets...nothing compares to that view. To gear up for that, we will, of course, be coming up with all kinds of citrus inspired goodies, because those are the kinds of things that sell well in that area - but fear not, we will always carry our signature chocolate delights, including, but not limited to: Joelts espresso brownies, Chocolate toffee bread puddings, Sour cream chocolate cake and the many wonderful cheesecakes you've grown to love and dream about (Peanut butter and Chocolate, Creme de Menthe, Tropical Paradise, Cappuccino...well -you name it and we most likely make it, or will in the near future.)

Just a reminder - Valentines Day is right around the corner, so don't forget to pre-order a flavorful and romantic Red Velvet cake, cupcakes, Chocolate toffee brownies, or any of our other signature desserts to tempt and tease your honey's palatte as a prelude to...well... whatever other romantic persuits you may have in mind for that particular evening. (wicked grin in place!)

Ciao for now -

Steven

Heads Up and Happy New Year!!

We wanted to extend a special thank you to all of you wonderful people who felt the urge to support us (and your sweets habit!) as we started our small but fastly growing business in 2007. That last few months of the year were filled with orders galore, new recipes, and the wonderful Daring Bakers Challenge, which we are so happy to be a part of. You folks kept us on our toes, and kept our kitchen smelling fantastic. Thank you so much!

We extend to you our wishes for a wonderful, and prosperous New Year, and we hope that you will continue to try our delicious baked goods, and always keep those suggestons coming...we love hearing from you and finding out what floats your boat.

And now a quick commercial message from Joey Biscotti: Due to a combination of the cold weather, Steven's mother's 81st birthday, and the fact that we haven't had a vacation in a year, we are hanging the "gone fishing" sign on the door for 10 days - from January 11th to January 20th, 2008, and will be unable to fill your orders for that week, but rest assured, we'll be back and raring to go after a brief pause for the cause. Know that you will be thought of warmly (well, we hope it will be warm in Florida!)

Happy New Year again - and we look forward to hearing from you all in 2008.

Ciao for now -

'Da boys.

Yule Log Challenge

Happy Holidays, all... Joey here, announcing our membership in the Daring Bakers group!!! We received our logo yesterday (as you can see on the left) and are very excited about our Yule log, which is our first challenge as members of the group... Steven began yesterday by making mushrooms from meringue... See?









Don't they look real?

This morning I made the genoise...









the sugar and eggs










heating the sugar and eggs










whisking the heated sugar and eggs to triple the volume and cool them, too










I missed the opportunity to photograph the batter going in to the pan, but this is the result when it comes out of the oven about 10 minutes later... There was a bit of a bubble, but that's okay










spreading the orange-flavored buttercream, and then (drum roll)...










the big roll and chill!!!!


And now that the roll is chilled, and the buttercream is finished, we start building our log...









So, the texturing begins, too...





Steven adds snow...






...and the meringue mushrooms...










And it's finished!!! Complete with little forest resident!!!











This was really fun!!!! This ended up being the plain genoise, with a buttercream filling flavored with Grand Marnier, and bittersweet chocolate buttercream for the bark... We will be tasting this Monday night in South Orange, NJ for Christmas Eve... more photos when we return to the big city!

Tis the Season to eat cheesecake...

Boy, oh boy, have we been busy. The orders have been rolling in and we have had to arrange our schedules accordingly. Friday evening, my niece and her beau were en route from Boston to Florida, and stopped for a few hours to have dinner with their favorite redheaded uncle in NYC. I spent all day baking biscotti and cookies for them to take back to the family (hey, save shipping costs whenever possible, ya know?!). I made peanut butter biscotti dipped in semi-sweet chocolate (oy vey), Mistletoe Surprise cookies made with the seasonal Hershey's kiss flavors of Chocolate Marshmallow, Cherry cordial, and Candy Cane - Dayum, where they yumilicious. Also made a batch of our wonderfully decadent Maple sandwich cookies, so labor intensive and yet so wonderful on the tongue.

Saturday we had to provide the desserts for a co-worker's holiday party and we made 4 mini (5-1/2") cheesecakes in the following flavors: Caramel Apple, Creme de Menthe, Peanut Butter/Chocolate, and Pumpkin. They were so cute, and I am waiting to hear back from Shannon as to the reviews of her guests. Then Joey made a Lemon Flip (formerly Lemon Lemon Lemon cake) that was so tall, it gave the Empire State building a creamy, lemon curd and cream cheese filled run for it's money!

We finished off the order with a batch of our now-famous Joeltz, and fell alseep with the oven still cooling (its been cold here, so having the oven on all day is actually a plus).

Tonight Joey is baking Pumpkin Pecan Biscotti, which will be added to gift bags containing one each of Almond, Almond Anise, Tuscan Spice, Apple Cinnamon, Lemon Poppyseed, Butterscotch, and Cranberry Orange (don't you just envy the people receiving those gift bags, courtesy of Joey Biscotti?)

This Holiday weekend we have several orders for cheesecakes and cakes, and on top of all of that, we are taking on our first challange from the Daring Bakers, which must be kept in utter secrecy until the day it is blogged about - either Saturday the 22nd or Sunday the 23rd, complete with photos - mark your calenders for that one, folks!

We plan to have a new poll up for you by the first of the year - if you have some great suggestions for what to poll on next - let us know by emailing joeybiscotti@hotmail.com....you can order there also!

All you'll want for Christmas - or any other occasion...

Howdy folks, Steven here with some news for you New Yorkers that I am sure you will enjoy hearing (or reading, as it were): We now offer gift certificates! At this time, we're offering what we like to refer to as Dessert Dollars, or a Ticket to Paradise. One certificate is valued at $40.00 and is good for one (1) Cake or Cheesecake from our ever-widening menu. Unfortunately, since we are as yet not set up for shipping these items, we can only offer them to people living in the New York City vicinity who are available to pick-up or deliver to.

In the future, we hope to offer them in other increments as well, but that all hinges upon having enough demand for smaller batches and/or quantities of our wonderful cookies, biscotti, and mini bites - such as Joeltz (espresso brownies) or our newest addistion, Pumpkin cream cheese mini muffins.(can I get a YUM! please?)

Feel free to drop us a line to joeybiscotti@hotmail.com or call 212-842-5426 and leave us a message as to what you'd like to order, and we will happily and promptly reply to any and all inquiries. - So don't miss out on your chance to serve up some scrumptious dessert which will quickly become a new holiday household tradition. (oh heck - why wait for a holiday - make it a weekly tradition!)

There's still time to order for Christmas and New Years, not to mention any and all birthdays, anniversaries, engagement parties or any other special occasion you can imagine.

Ciao for now, friends -
Steven

Its awfully hard to lick a whisk

And now that I've caught your attention with THAT leading line...Joey just finished making the ganache for our Sour Cream Chocolate cake, which has been ordered for a birthday tomorrow, and, of course, I HAD to lick the whisk, because you just can't let something like that get away from you!

Today I made a batch of mini Pumpkin Cream Cheese Streusel muffins and BOY were they good...I'm gonna put those on the menu right now! And Joey is behind me in the kitchen perfecting a new Banana cheesecake that was a special request, but will surely become a favorite of the masses.

We just came back from Hershey Park, where we celebrated the cold with our four-year-old "niece". It was a wonderful chance to stock up on chocolate, and we found some great seasonal specials, which inspired us to try to come up with some interesting and tasty new treats. We'll be updating you with any and all chocolate related treats in the near future - so keep your eyes and ears open (and noses, I mean, you can't deny the lovely olfactory pleasures wafting from our kitchen!)

Stay tuned, fellow chocolate lovers...you won't believe some of the things we've got in mind...

Steven

My new hero (and I'm not talking sandwich)

Well, folks, Steven here and I've gotta tell you all about KitchenNYC and Tricia Rago. She owns a really wonderfully designed and maintained commercial kitchen in New York (I've blogged about the space in the past), which she rents on a daily basis to people from all walks of life; from professional chefs who need extra space, to up-and-coming entreprenuers like Joey and I.

We had the great pleasure of getting to spend a day working with her this week, to prepare the orders we'd taken for Thanksgiving. It was such a joy to finally have some countertop space (!) and two perfectly calibrated ovens and large refrigerators to work with. We accomplished so much in one day - made quite a few cheesecakes, Joeltz! (espresso brownies), pumpkin/cream cheese muffins, and I finally had a chance to make my individual serving-sized Chocolate/Toffee bread pudding, (which I have to brag about a bit and say that it was heaven on a spoon).

We encourage anyone who is interested in following a culinary career path to check out Trica Rago, owner and operator of KitchenNYC. She is such a kind and giving person, with a great knowledge of chef wizardry that she's happy to share. She is a firm believer in spreading the wealth and encouraging anyone and everyone to follow their passions. Just talk to her for ten minutes and you'll know that I mean. We are truly blessed to have stumbled upon Tricia and her wonderful space, and we hope to work with her often in the future.

Enjoy your Holiday, folks, and remember to get those orders in for Christmas (not to mention birthdays, bar mitzvahs, retirement parties, graduations,... well, the list goes on and on). We look forward to hearing from you all, and to helping you satisfy your sweet cravings.

Thankfully yours,

Steven and Joey

What about Joey? Does HE have a favorite???

Joey, here... and, yes, actually I DO have a favorite... Two, actually... Seasonally, I love my Cinnamon Streusel-topped Pumpkin Pie... For all-year round taste, I love the Torta Baciata Sole, in all it's sweet, orange glory...

Today was a baking day... well yesterday, too, since i made a batch of Joey's Mutts, which are Chocolate Chocolate cookies with every kind of chip imaginable in them... Okay, there are only 6 different kinds, but really, how many more could I fit in them???

Okay, back to today, I started by attempting a Lemon cake, which will be different from the Lightly Lemon cake we currently have on our menu... This is a four layer cake, soaked in a sweet lemon syrup, filled with a whipped cream/lemon curd tanginess, and frosted with a Lemon Buttercream... It will be joining it's cousin on our menu in the next few weeks...

Also, hopefully added to our menu will be an Amaretto Chocolate Cheesecake, an amaretto-flavored filling swirled with chocolate on a chocolate crust... I haven't decided what I'd like the topping to be, but I am thinking a whipped chocolate might be nice...

We are going into production for our Thanksgiving holiday orders on Saturday November 17th, so if you haven't ordered, have a look here, and then e-mail us no later than Thursday, November 15th, at joeybiscotti@hotmail.com so we can add your choices to production!!!

Hope to hear from you soon!!!

More news as events warrant...

Do I have a personal favorite?

...I was wondering that this morning, as I contemplated all of our wonderful items to date. After a moment, I realized that, no, even though I've always loved peanut butter and chocolate (combined in our latest winning creation pictured in 5" size, which is enough for 4-6 slices, the PB&C cheesecake!)..I still seem to love whatever current recipe we happen to be working on. One day I'm reveling in lightly lemon cake with lemon curd filling, and then the next, I'm basking in the glow of our incredibly scrumptious Creme de Menthe cheesecake. I simply can't be forced to choose. And, fortunately, living with the creator, I can have whatever I want, whenever I want it! So can you - by ordering from our menu (with 48 hours' notice, of course.)

And folks, don't forget to keep checking back to vote on our polls. Knowing what you want helps us to give it to you!

Ciao for now -
Steven

Drunk with dessert

Steven, again - Joey's been so busy in the kitchen lately, fulfilling patron's desires, that he hasn't had a moment to post his thoughts, so you're stuck with me for today.

Sunday brought forth a lovely amaretto/almond cheesecake, with a thick chocolate topping, which had my co-workers simply intoxicated with sweetness yesterday. And can I just say, not to brag or anything, but my maple sandwich cookies were a huge success also (I was so surprised, because I felt I'd overbaked them, but everyone seemed to think they benefitted from being a bit brown and crunchy around the edges.). They are quite labor intensive, so I've got to practice getting them chilled and baked in a more timely fashion, so that we can price them reasonably and let the world in on the tasty maple-sugar goodness.

There's a new poll up this week (check out the information on the left-hand side of this page)..please take a moment to give us your opinion, so that we can tailor our specialties to your desires.

And don't forget to get those orders in for the holidays! We love you when you give us lots of advance notice (heck - we love you anyway!) because it gives us lots of time to make sure the quality is just the way you'd want it.

A brief, sweet interruption, if I may

Hey, its the redhead here, checking in to contemplate some changes to the recipe mentioned below (Taste of Paradise). The recipe calls for a strawberry topping of sorts, and when I mentioned this to my co-workers, Mark suggested pineapple instead...and then it hit me - why not add a layer of crushed pineapple between the crust and the actual cheesecake, and then top it with Strawberries and possibly kiwi? (Puhleeze comment on this - we love your feedback!) We will experiment with this and let you know the results as soon as we can. Today, Joey is making lemon, chocolate/raspberry, and anise almond biscotti, so that we can finally do a few trial runs on shipping them. Keep your fingers crossed (and those of you who know us, check those mailboxes frequently - you may be one of the randomly chosen human guinea pigs!). There will be a stamped, self-addressed post-card enclosed, with a brief survey of the taste and condition of the shipped goods, please PLEASE take a moment to fill these out and drop them in your mailbox. They provide the information we need to tweak the process and/or recipes. Thanks in advance, guinea pigs!

Last night, I (yes, me) made a White Chocolate/Strawberry cake with strawberry filling! We've yet to cut into it (thats for later this afternoon) but we will most surely inform you if we have another hit on our hands. I'm also trying my hand at some creme filled Maple sandwich cookies. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...just the idea has my mouth watering.

Manhattanites (and surrounding boroughs) make sure you get your Thanksgiving cheesecake (among other) orders in ASAP...time is closing in, and we can only accomodate so many requests.

Ciao for today!

Experiment in the Tropics

Joey, here... Long time, no blog for me, but here I is!!!

Yesterday, I contemplated a bottle of Malibu rum on the cabinet across the room and thought "what a great flavor for a cheesecake!!!" While it didn't turn out as I had hoped, it was far from bad, in fact it was quite delicious!!!

I started with a graham cracker crust with toasted coconut, and added a filling that included, on top of the Malibu, a cup of Coco Lopez cream of coconut.

And that was all it took for the yummies to begin... I'm going to do this one again this week and will post a photo of it to fatten up your eyes... Until you buy one!

More news as events warrant...

Autumn in Vermont...

Isn't that the way the old song goes? Well, speaking of Vermont, we've just created the most amazing Maple Pecan cheesecake (don't you think of Maple syrup on steaming hot pecan pancakes when you think of Vermont?). It was a resounding success at work yesterday, and I heard we'll be getting orders very soon for the holidays.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks - we need to sell enough of these luscious deserts so that I can quit my day job and live in the fashion to which I'd like to become accustomed! (which simply means that we'll be baking and decorating full time, so that everyone who comes in contact with us will have a sugar induced smile on their face!)

For the time being, we are only set up to supply the locals (Manhattan and surrounding boroughs), but for you out-of-town-ers, don't worry - you'll have your day filled with mouth-watering biscotti and more, before you know it!

Want a FREE cheesecake (or 12)?

We're busy guys, and, as artistic as the two of us are, we just haven't had time to come up with a great logo for the company. So we're asking for some help. If you are the creative type (you know, a "right brain" thinker) why not come up with a design to help represent our concept and product? We're looking for something with clean lines, modern and eye-catching, which whets the appetite, is fun, and easy to reproduce on tee-shirts, bakery boxes, labels, neon signs (for our eventual brick and mortar bakery), and which says something about our personalities. Let your imaginations run wild!

All we ask is that you email your design to joeybiscotti@hotmail.com, along with your contact information, (full name, email address, and phone number), and we will review each and every submission with equal enthusiasm. The winner of this contest will get one free 9" cheesecake from the selection on our ever-growing menu per month for a year, starting when we put the design into actual use.

As a disclaimer, we may not use any of the designs submitted. Hey, we are a bit particular, and that's one of the reasons our baked goods taste so darned yummy! But if we DO, the winner will have the satisfaction of knowing that he/she has contributed to a growing entrepreneurship, which has been nurtured with love and good taste. We'll also, of course, give credit whenever possible.