Manhattan & The Chocolate Show

Highlights from NYC & The Chocolate Show (in no particular order)---


*Firecracker Truffle & Demo by Michael Antonorsi from Chuao: Casual, informative, great demo - Chef Michael was personable & fun to watch. Firecrack Truffle contains Popping Candy and Chile Powder - wake up Tastebuds!



*New Tcho Chocolate: SF Company - not flavored, but described by words such as “fruity” - well composed


*Lunch @ david burke & donatella : Super fancy & delicious - especially the Pretzel Crusted Crab Cake - great service



*Dulce de Leche Cake Doughnut @ Doughnut Plant: Buttery, rich & flavorful - amazing behemouth cranberry yeast doughnut too - great industrial-ish space - blasting Madonna's 1st album in kitchen



*Candy Demo @ Papabubble: Attractive, minimalist space - kitchen right there for you to see people working - pulling red & white sugar into spiraled, star-shaped lollipops


*Lunch on a rainy day @ Peanut Butter & Co.:Adult version of 4th grade lunch - PB & Banana on whole wheat with chips & carrots - cozy & comforting - we love the PB Monkey!



*Front Row seats @ Boeing Boeing: Fun, kitchy play - bachelor has 3 air hostesses all thinking they are engaged to him - flights get delayed, hilarity ensues - leave your cynicism @ home.



*Annie getting a pair of Fluevog Shoes: Spreading the Fluevog gospel - love the Operettas! Annie got the Malibran, cousin to my Bartolis. Staff @ NYC & LA stores are fabulous.

Back to Work...

Well, Annie & her sister & I ate our way through every bakery & candy shop that we could dash to in our few days in NYC. New York is such a food centered culture. Everywhere you turn there are wacky, super-focused businesses like a rice-pudding only place called "Rice to Riches", a pulled sugar shop called "Papabubble" & even a super fun peanut butter store called "Peanut Butter & Co".

Trying to extrapolate influences & information gleaned there and apply it to the OC scene is the challenging part. And trying to figure out where we fit in to all that is even more daunting.

It seems like the most successful places - MarieBelle, Vosges Chocolate, Doughnut Plant, Dylan's Candy Bar, Amy's Bread, Little Pie Co, etc. - all seem to focus on just one thing or at least a limited assortment. My problem is that I get bored and want to do a little of this & a little of that. I wonder in a way if the Farmers Markets are like a crutch, encouraging us to be diverse, while maybe holding us back from having the time to develop our singular item. Who knows?

New products and packaging are certainly in the works, but in the meantime, it's all about getting back up to speed and getting orders out. In the next few days, I'll post all of our great food pictures & comments. And start to sift through all the samples I brought back! Is there ever too much chocolate???

Something Old, Somethings New

Now that October has slunk away, with its unpredictable weather and bad bad news, let’s look ahead to the holidays. All we can do at this point is try to get through 2008 with our sanity intact. To hopefully smooth the way a bit, I’m including a fabulous old recipe for an easy, dare I say effortless, holiday favorite. This toffee recipe originally came from school, but we’ve tweaked it a little bit to make it more Blackmarket. We will also be making this recipe (& others) in our upcoming Holiday Gift Class. Try it and spread the buttery wealth!

Pistachio Butter Toffee
Chopped dark chocolate 8 oz
Water ¼ C
Corn Syrup 1 t
Butter 8 oz
Sugar 1 C
Sea Salt ½ t
Pistachios (chopped, toasted) ½ C

Need: Saucepan, candy thermometer, pastry brush, 9” x 11” pan, heatproof spatula

Directions:
1. Place chocolate in a bowl & set aside (do not melt).
2. Combine water, corn syrup, butter, sugar & salt in a heavy-duty saucepan with a candy thermometer. Brush down the sides of the pan to make sure no sugar crystals are clinging. Do not stir at the beginning.
3. Once the mixture is dissolved and starts to get color, start to stir with a heatproof spatula. Heat the mixture over high until the temperature reads 300 F. Watch out because the toffee is very hot & sticky at this stage!
4. Pour the toffee into a greased, parchment-lined 9” x 11” pan. Do not scrape the extra candy out of the pan as this portion may have gotten too hot. Let cool for 2 minutes. Sprinkle on the chocolate chunks. As they melt, use an offset spatula to spread out the melted chocolate.
5. Now sprinkle on the chopped nuts. You may want to sprinkle on a little extra coarse sea salt before the chocolate cools. Let the toffee cool. Refrigerate if you can’t wait so long. Break the toffee apart (it is too hard to cut).

For the new, Annie & I are heading to NYC tomorrow to attend the Chocolate Show. Having been in OC pretty much non-stop for the past 4 years, I am slightly stunned to be traveling anywhere… and feeling very guilty that my trip revolves around eating delicious morsels – chocolate, baked goods, bread, chocolate, candy – for 3 days solid. We will be documenting our purchases & samplings here in the future. What’s that saying about Nero fiddling while Rome burned? What bad economic news? Pass me another Green Tea truffle….

Brittle Recipe & Cracked Hands

This dry weather is bad for skin - especially when you have to wash your hands as much as us ladies in the kitchen do - but it's good for brittle. Sugar absorbs moisture in the air, so when it's super humid, our brittle starts to get gummy after a week, even if it's well sealed. So, to celebrate the dry hot weather, here's a fall brittle recipe. All you need is a candy thermometer and a silicon mat and you are all set.

Just remember, hot sugar is not only hot but also super sticky. Keep a bowl full of cold water beside your work station so that if you get some molten sugary goodness on your hand, finger, arm... you will be able to plunge the affected body part right into the cold water. For some reason, my natural tendency is to put the burning finger in my mouth - bad idea. So stay safe and make some brittle...

Hazelnut Brittle

Water 6 oz

Glucose or Corn Syrup 8 oz

Sugar 14 oz

Hazelnuts 7 oz

Whole Almonds 6 oz

Cocoa Nibs 2 oz

Salt ½ oz (1 t)

Butter 1 oz (2 T)

Baking Soda 1/8 oz (1/4 t)

Need:

Saucepan, Candy Thermometer, Heat-proof Spatula, Sheet pan, Silpat Mat

Directions:

1. Combine sugar, water & glucose in a heavy saucepan fitted with a candy thermometer and bring to a boil. Do not stir at this point.

2. Continue to cook to 240F. Add the hazelnuts, cocoa nibs & salt. Begin stirring over high heat until the mixture reaches 290F (hard crack).

3. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter. Once incorporated, add the baking soda. Stir until the mixture looks whitish.

4. Immediately pour the brittle onto a silpat-lined sheet pan & allow to start cooling. When the edges are cool enough to handle, start pulling the brittle. Work around the mass & break off pieces as they harden. Continue pulling until all the brittle is cool.

Help Wanted

The gals at team Blackmarket are looking for a new intrepid member of our crew. We have been collecting resumes for quite a while but the right person has not yet come along. To join our merrymaking band, you must have culinary (baking) experience, preferably with some time at a culinary school, plus you need to embrace or at least tolerate sass, wit and sarcasm. We seem to draw those with a slightly off-center sense of humor.

As for the details of the position... Each week our new team member will spend 2 days in our kitchen on baking and production. For 3 days he/she will travel out to various farmers markets in OC, cheerfully selling our baked goods and generally educating the public about the Blackmarket Bakery mission. Baking can be the slam dunk - the hard part is finding a hearty soul who can sustain energy for the selling side of the business. Selling at markets is not hard, but when things get slow, it can be tough. So, if you or someone you know is interested, please email us a resume to rachel@blackmarketbakery.com. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

On a Lighter Note... Sassy Tarts

We have been offering a "Sassy Tart" class at the bakery since we started holding classes over 3 years ago. The recipes keep rotating and evolving, based on the season and the outcome. So, last night we had Sassy Spring Tarts and I must say that every recipe came out wonderfully. The tarts under our scrutiny last night were Mango Tart Tatin (deconstructed), Apricot Frangipan Tart, Banana Chocolate Tart Bruleed, Tropical Fruit Tart with Coconut, Blackberry Clafouti Tart and Lemon Souffle Tart.

The mango tart was incredible. I found the recipe in a tart book by Eric Kayser - a famous French baker & pastry chef who has a place called BreadBar in LA. His instructions called for us to caramelize the sugar in a saute pan then add butter and then add the sliced mango. The mango cooked in the caramel along with some ground and candied ginger. This part all went fine. But the recipe wanted us to place our dough on top of the mango in the saute pan and put this all in the oven. In the past, I've had my butt kicked by tatin recipes. Either the fruit is done and the dough is not or vice versa. So instead, we blind baked the tart shells and finished off the mango in the saute pan on the heat. Then the mango was artfully arranged in the tart shells and topped with more of the ginger-mango caramel. Jealous?

My other favorite was the Tropical Fruit Tart from Pierre Herme's book. The batter consists of ground almonds, butter, rum, coconut, eggs and that gets baked in the tart shells lined with our classic pate sucre. The filling bakes up nice and flavorful - buttery yet delicate. Then the tarts are topped off with sliced kiwi, mango and papaya. If only we could make these for the farmer's markets!

Micro vs. Macro Economics

Not that I actually know anything about economics - only the ups and downs that I see in the bank account. When I was an undergrad at UCI back in the 90's, I signed up for an economics class but dropped after the first week - too busy I thought. As if working 20 hours per week & taking 4 classes per quarter added up to busy - now that would seem like a cake walk.

Note to self: someday take a basic business economics class! It would be so damn helpful. That being said, we've made it as a small startup for over 3 years now - without siphoning much money out of the pockets of well-meaning relatives. It's called the art of boot-strapping, but it doesn't leave much left over for normal business expenses like website design, advertising, marketing, PR.

The only reason I bring up the economy at all is that the news just keeps getting worse. Everywhere you turn, a headline screams about how the economy is tanking. I wonder how much of this is really happening in a structural way and how much of this is just over-reaction to all of the bad news. Housing prices are down, people are foreclosing, no one is spending money - at least that's what the news leads us to believe. So as a small business owner, how do I forecast and plan for this year? People still have to eat, right? People still celebrate birthdays with cake, right? An article in the Register this morning said that restaurants are down compared to 2 years ago. Maybe I should just stop reading the paper because all this bad news makes me feel paranoid and helpless.

Those of us old enough to remember the dot.com bubble burst have seen this before... Good news, great news, stocks up then the big psychological crash, then bad news and more bad news. Maybe I'll use the ostrich approach and put my head in the sand, confident that this will pass...

And in the meantime, we still get to make cake, croissants, bread pudding and marshmallows and keep my fingers crossed.

Blackmarket Bakery-mobile...

Newport Signs in Irvine did an amazing job on the graphics! Many thanks.

Moving along...

Today went well. Market was up - highest so far this year - cake were done on time - lots of wacky kids hung around - all went well. Tomorrow there is a big elaborate cake due, so we'll be here late tonight assembling, sculpting, planning, etc. D will come here straight from work to help in the AM. If it looks fabulous it will go on the website.
I wonder what the rules are about copyright infringement? We've had lots of people ask for already existing images to be reproduced on cakes - hello kitty, cinderella, larry boy, sponge bob, etc. I tell people that we can make the cake as a landscape for the characters but that we aren't supposed to make the characters too. But is even that infringing because we're using another part of the imagery from the movie, TV show, etc? We're so off-the-radar that maybe it's not a big deal. I just wonder. I would rather recreate a character out of fondant & cake than to have a plastic figurine get stuck on our creation. The cake below is a perfect example. I've been reticent to put it on the website for the same reason...


Car should be done by Tuesday, so we'll see how that looks...

Car & Pizza

Pictured above are the planned two sides of our new bakery-mobile. We are going for the outrageous & eye-catching as opposed to the clear & easily-understandable. On the hood will be our skull & crossed swords logo. So, now I'm heading over to the printers again to explain that "yes this is what we want", even though they advised us to go simple. We can always scrape the graphics off I suppose?

At the bakery last night we held our first Pizza class for adults. We will certainly do that again as all were smiles at their amazing pizza creations. Having 10 people was a whirlwind of activity, but luckily the students were all game and ready to dig in to the process. Because I'm a bit on the "off the cuff" wacky side, a few times we have had class attendees who feel like the kitchen process is too chaotic and not organized enough. It may be true, but I want the students to do everything themselves, instead of having all the ingredients measured out or items premade. At least that's more similar to working in one's own kitchen. And thanks to Todd for bringing the wine and to Mark for again being our amazing "oven master"!

Is there a Right Answer?

We have been thinking about & designing our graphics for the new Bakery-mobile since we bought the thing in late November. The vehicle in question is a new black Scion xB. Very distinctive shape - kind of wacky but really fun to drive. Anyway, our car design involves simple "pirate cake" logo on the front hood & back window then these kind of scenes on either side of the car.
The passenger side is supposed to have a warmer tone & slightly friendlier tone with tarts & a wacky topsy-turvy cake. The driver's side features the spaceship cakes, beaming people up inside a cone of light, amid an archetypal cityscape. Our graphics guy makes the point that the spaceship side doesn't communicate the idea of "yummy cake". And my designer says "who cares - it will get noticed & it's cool looking". So, now I'm supposed to decide whether to replicate the "kinder gentler" design on both sides or say to hell with it and go for the edgy driver's side design.
Anytime that there are multiple options, all of which seem acceptable to me, I just stop and don't make any decision at all. So, now I still have a black car with no graphics. Math is easier to understand - either your answer is right or wrong, no ambiguity (at least in the level of math I took).

So, what to do?
Nothing is not the answer, I guess...

New Cakes

Early in the week, I fritter away time (at least some people see it that way) by scanning in & editing whatever cakes "of note" we produced last week. The unique or outrageous ones end up on our website cake page and the rest just jam up more & more space on my computers. This past weekend we churned out some fun cakes - a 3 tier "mardi gras colored" topsy turvy...

A baby feet themed 2 tier...
And a wacky dinosaur landscape...

Then, once the orders go out, you just hope that the flavor, quality, execution, etc was as fabulous as you want it to be. We want the customers to be overjoyed! So, hopefully this weekend (and all the other cakes that I don't have pictured above) went to good homes with people who loved them - sounds like adoption.
This week the project to finish is our Easter menu. I'm such a procrastinator that if it is not started early (actually looking at the calender I realize that we're not even early) it will probably not get done. Just as my staff about our Valentine's Day menu... or lack of. Back to work!

Decisions, decisions...

When we rented our space, over 4 years ago, we really didn't know what the hell we were doing. I say that in the nicest possible way. I did know that I had some money - from selling the house in Napa Valley - and that I didn't want to work for someone else and that I wanted to start a bakery. What I didn't know was what we would sell, who we would sell it to, and how we would advertise. So, there were some big holes in my business plan, to say the least.

In 2005, after the 9 months of planning, purchasing and construction, we had the ability to bake things. Whoopie! But no one knew we existed. And 90% still don't even now. Being in an industrial park, our street visibility and general user-friendliness is pretty minimal. Back 4 years ago, we decided that we couldn't afford or take the risk of starting out in a more expensive, easily-findable location. So here we are, in the metropolitan center known as Sky Park Circle. I'm being sarcastic, but I must admit that I probably would have thrown in the towel years ago if our monthlies were higher. We've had time to kind of mush around and figure out what works and what doesn't. Lots of what doesn't.

The master plan is to keep an eye out for a small but visible retail satellite location, to be supplied by our big Sky Park kitchen space. As D says "someday it would be nice to have a real bakery." That way we aren't paying rent on all those square feet of sinks, tables, ovens... And in the meantime, the space here helps pay for itself with classes. So, it sounds like we knew what we were doing, but we really didn't. I'm just trying to find our niche.

The question is: how to get from here to there?

Irvine Farmer's Market Blog

On Saturday, we met a gal who is keeping a blog solely on the wonder and glory that is the Irvine Farmer's Market. Here is her link: farmer's market mash-up.

Ode to Belisle's

While in my last year of college, I trained to be a DJ at KUCI, the on campus radio station. I started on the air solely as an "engineer" (fancy way of saying I played public service tapes), then later I applied for my own show. Seeing a hole in the grunge/rock format of the station, I proposed filling a gap with a 4 - 6am Blues Show. Not knowing much about blues artists & traditions didn't deter me - I wanted a show. So, I would stumble in to the station at quarter 'til 4, an unpleasant hour to be awake.
In response to this odd schedule, my boyfriend and I developed this ritual of driving up to Anaheim and parking ourselves at a comfy table at Belisle's Restaurant (open 24 hours) on Harbor, right down the street from Disneyland, for 2 - 3 hours before my radio show. It seemed much cooler to the college student me to stay up all night than to go to bed at a reasonable hour to make it in time for this volunteer radio gig. Belisle's became a refuge for us - from roommates, from Irvine, from normalcy, from keeping decent hours. The place was in ways more important that the food itself... almost.
But now let me tell you about the food. Typical diner cuisine. Very homemade and very American. But did I mention that the portions were huge? Now this was in the late 80's & early 90's before Claimjumper & others like it broadened and diluted this format. I remember being shocked and a bit embarrassed by the magnitude of the first meal I ordered - Turkey Dinner with Sage Dressing.
The other tradition we faithfully kept was that we always ordered dessert - sometimes only dessert. I mean, what meal would you order at 2am anyway? What is between dinner and breakfast, other than sleep? Dessert, of course. And I still hold to this mantra. Belisle's made you notice their wide array of sweet options - you practically got accosted by the rotating pie case making your way to your table! The pies and cakes were immense, of course, and not refined or European, but that was what you expected. In fact, a lovely Mousse Torte wouldn't do at 3am. Chocolate Cream Pie, Apple Pie a la Mode, Carrot Cake, Pecan Pie, Pecan Sticky Buns... we loved them all. Even with a bottomless cup of coffee and 3 hours, we still couldn't polish these beasts off. But we loved trying.

Valentine's Steak

We are not particularly romantic or sentimental people anyway, so Valentine's Day is usually barely observed in our house. D & I are like an old married couple - actually we are. So, last night our Valentine's consisted of an incredible steak dinner. 2" thick Filets, wrapped in bacon & grilled. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Being in the dessert industry, I think my sweet tastebuds (is there such a thing?) are burned out. In fact, I eat sweets all day long, so the big treat for me is really fabulous steak. I'm glad someone in my family actually knows how to cook!

Cakes & Such

This week is a slow one for cakes. Everyone assumes that Valentine's Day means sweets, hence, "baked goods". Since we have been in business, Valentine's is notoriously quiet for us. I think for most couples, celebrating involves dinner out, chocolates, flowers, jewelry... So this week we are focusing on getting ready for next week. Lots of cakes on Friday & Saturday!

Last weekend, the crew created a groovy castle cake for a long-time customer's daughter. It will be posted on our site soon. The challenge is first, to design a cake that matches the wishes of the customer while still being do-able with frosting, fondant, etc. Then the second challenge is to actually execute the design, in the time allotted, to match the proposal. The cake decorating crew is improving on that front, but we do have a distinctive style - not too fussy & symmetrical. I always worry that people expect that really tight, organized look - while our designs are more loose & gestural. Back to the kitchen...