It’s nearly October, but it’s still hot and muggy as ever in Brooklyn. The last of our CSA corn is at odds with our anxiousness to break out the nutmeg. OR IS IT?! A new creation:

Sweet corn and brown butter cake, with salted caramel buttercream and homemade spiced caramel corn.

With some candied peanuts thrown in, we’ll be ready for postseason baseball viewing.

I recently had the chance to bake for some folks who were working in New York, away from their homes in Atlanta and San Francisco. I used to have a job that required constant travel, and no matter how cool the city, it’s tough to stave off homesickness. (I also know some survival tips for lost baggage and living out of a mini fridge, but that is another thing). So I tried to stuff some SF and ATL love into cupcake form. Here’s what we came up with:

San Francisco:

Chocolate cake made with Anchor Steam Porter and Ghirardelli cocoa; Peet’s espresso buttercream, chocolate-covered espresso beans

Atlanta:

Fresh peach cake with spiced bourbon buttercream; homemade peach preserves and a cobbler biscuit

In the spirit of wedding season, here’s a sample of a decorating technique called brushed embroidery. I did this one in royal icing on fondant for a cake, but floral patterns in this style are great on cupcakes and cookies as well. It’s not all booze and buttercream around here, despite our best efforts.

Hope you’re all seeing (and eating) some beautiful wedding cakes this summer!

Heart of Brooklyn’s offices are tucked between a Greek diner and daycare center on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights. From the street, you can’t even see the folks working upstairs in support of some of New York’s leading cultural institutions.

The places they represent are not so easy to miss. Heart of Brooklyn is a partnership of Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum, the Prospect Park Zoo, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and the Brooklyn Public Library. The big guns.

This winter marked HOB’s 10th anniversary, and we got to make cookies for the folks at their Grand Army Plaza birthday party. Chocolate and ginger cookies, with royal icing in HOB’s signature red:

Their logo is a 6-petal flower, representing their 6 member institutions. Our cookies weren’t nearly as cute as these PS 9 glee club kids in their Heart of Brooklyn beanies. They sang “Empire State of Mind.” COME ON, the best.

(photo by Samantha June Sutcliffe)

Let’s all agree it’s been a gross winter. Record-breaking levels of dirty snow and face-burning wind and I’m pretty sure we’re only getting 3 hours of sunlight a day at this point. All of New York City is like that part of “Groundhog Day” where Bill Murray is doomed to step ankle-deep in a pool of slush water, over and over. 

Valentine’s Day is always a dorky and divisive holiday. And it’s in particular trouble when it falls on a Monday in the middle of a winter like this.

Luckily, Mike and I spent our Valentine’s Day date* in the kitchen, making dozens of these conversation heart cookies. We made them as cheerful and dorky as possible.

* We actually delivered these cookies and then treated ourselves to “Never Say Never,” the 3D experience. Bieber 4 life.

Positive: A Superbowl party this weekend gave us an excuse to cook with a new kind of booze. America! Football! Cupcakes!

Negative: We couldn’t find a single can of Iron City in this godforsaken borough, so Mike had to go without the beer of his hometown (black and yellow black and yellow). Maybe every bodega and bar in Brooklyn was still salty about the Jets.

Positive: When life gives you lemons, make sidecars. A sidecar is a cocktail made with brandy, lemon juice, triple sec, and sugar. Tastes like summer, keeps you warm in the winter. A+.

Negative: The game did not go very well, despite Mike furiously waving his Terrible Towel.

Positive:

Lemon Cake with orange zest, Brandy Buttercream, and Candied Orange Slices. These guys found a good home, enjoyed during the kitten halftime show.

Frosting in progress for untitled sweet potato experiment. This is how we do Thanksgiving, folks.

These things looked so fresh we had to take a picture: ginger cakes with sweet plum and raspberry frosting, topped with fresh raspberries. It’s like the candy aisle and the farmer’s market all mushed together in one. Except maybe the candy aisle is getting a little more representation than the farmer’s market, let’s be real.

Things have been a little crazy the past few weeks— we moved to a bigger, badder kitchen with a way better sound system. Life is good.

But before the move, we had the chance to be part of the Pride Week party at StoryCorps, a non-profit oral history project in Brooklyn. StoryCorps records conversations between everyday people and archives them at the Library of Congress— it’s the largest collection of its kind, and it is awesome. You may have seen their recording booth in downtown Manhattan, or heard their broadcasts Friday mornings on NPR. If you haven’t, spend a little time here: storycorps.org/listen.

To help raise awareness for StoryCorps OutLoud, an initiative to record and preserve LGBT histories across the country, they threw a wicked garden party and invited us to make the cupcakes. We brought over red velvet with vanilla buttercream and candied pecans, and chocolate with salted caramel.

Thanks to StoryCorps for letting us party with them for such a good cause. If you live in New York, bring a friend or family member to their booth and record your own story.

Not that you could ever be as cool as our buddy Leo, showing the correct approach to a carrot cake cupcake at his great-grandma’s birthday party.

Lessons from the master: stay inside, wear a hat, and keep your cupcakes air-conditioned.