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[FOOD] Now Baking | Beyond Red Velvet Cake

John von Pamer   
Azuki Linzer cookies with a red bean, yuzu and white chocolate center.

Lately, some of the best sweets have been the color of love — and vegetables. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, these comforting red confections made from ingredients not usually associated with homey desserts gave me an idea: a new trademark treat for the holiday. I craved something in a Valentine-worthy hue that was easy to make, easy to love, but not so easy to recognize. There’d be an element of playful surprise — a beet, perhaps, or some beans.


John von Pamer
Beet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.
 
It started a few months ago while lunching at The Breslin. A dessert called “Best Cake” caught my eye. Actually, it was called Beet Cake. A cross between a red velvet and carrot cake, this two-tiered wonder was slathered in a thick, tangy, cream-cheese frosting and sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts. The base had a maroon tinge, not to mention more flavor than red velvet and less of the carrot’s vegetal, single-note impact. It was love at first bite.



Soon after, I experienced another coup de foudre at the newest Birdbath depot in SoHo, which sells a better-than-it-sounds muffin made with rice milk and studded with crystallized ginger. A ribbon runs through it; a jammy streak of ruby-red azuki-bean paste. I asked Maury Rubin, the eco-conscious founder of Birdbath, if he’d consider jarring that red-bean confiture so I could spread it around. I had big plans for it. Rubin said he’d have to get back to me; he was all tied up with hot chocolate.

I didn’t have time.


First order of business: Procuring a recipe from Kathryn Guy-Hamilton, the pastry chef at The Breslin. This was easy, because Katzie (her preferred nickname) couldn’t have been more amenable. The “best” dessert had been taken off the menu and brought over to the hotel’s Stumptown outpost next door in cupcake form — which, if you think about it, means more frosting per square inch of cake. It’s an excellent innovation. True, the cupcake invasion has gotten out of control, but as a valentine offering, the portion aspect is ideal.

I like having options, and love the Japanese red bean and its myriad applications. In traditional tea sweets, the azuki, once sugared up a touch, takes on the attributes of a yam. It has a starchy texture and straddles the saline/saccharine line. How would this work in a Western-style pastry? The linzer cookie seemed like a good place to start: classic and easily formed into a heart. I didn’t want to be a bully, though, so when I got in touch with Michael Berle, co-owner of Kyotofu and asked if chef Michelle Park might consider inventing a newfangled azuki goody, I merely invoked the linzer as inspiration. Must be kismet: Park makes this very shortbread sandwich as a valentine special, except hers has a strawberry-yuzu center. She was happy to try it with red bean instead, and used white chocolate as a binder. The yuzu remains, and provides this subtle, pink-toned, Oreo-cream-like filling with a gentle burst of citrus. The cookie dough has hazelnuts in it, which plays off of the azuki’s earthiness.


http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/now-baking-beyond-red-velvet-cake/?ref=dining

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