Category Archives: Uncategorized

Póg mo Thóin Irish Coffee Brownies

17 Monday Mar 2014

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poison2Luscious has been taking a lot of those online quizzes lately, because it’s important to know which city we should live in, or which 80’s pop star we should be, or which communicable disease we should contract. It’s mostly been a miserable experience. Apparently all the people we know on Facebook are either Emma Stone or Jennifer Lawrence, but we are Tara Reid. Everybody else is Sonic Youth and The Decemberists and we’re Poison. That’s so unfair– big hair and age-inappropriate use of eyeliner does not put a person on par with Brett Michaels.

And we have no idea which particular combination of answers earned us Monster Truck Racing for Which Winter Olympic Sport Are You?.  We were insulted — we KNOW monster trucks are not part of the winter Olympics. That’s a summer Olympics thing.

At first the Luscious girls planned to drive the TransAm up to the Buzzfeed office in New York City and bitchslap the person who created the quiz entitled Which Exotic Vacation Would You Be? Because Shreveport, Louisiana shouldn’t even be a possible result for that quiz.  But when they couldn’t find enough change under the couch cushions for gas money, Anne-Charlotte and Jennifer decided that mature, refined women of the world like themselves should simply boycott internet quizzes.

Okay, JUST ONE MORE. And apparently, if you take the quiz Which is Your Holiday, the answers “whiskey-soaked”, “bar fight” and “Kiss Me, I’m White Trash” will surprisingly result in St. Patrick’s Day. Hmmm, Luscious can live with that.  You can be St. Patrick’s Day, too, all you need are these slightly drunken brownies:

Irish Coffee Brownies

Irish coffee brownie

Brownies:
2 tsp instant coffee
2 tablespoons Irish whiskey
6 oz bittersweet chocolate
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 oz semisweet chocolate (or ¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips)
2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons butter
2 ¼ cups sugar
1 ½ tsp sea salt
6 eggs
2 ¼ cups flour
1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips

SONY DSCPre-heat over to 350º. Line an 11 x 17 inch baking dish with parchment paper, and butter the paper and sides of dish. Dissolve the instant coffee into the whiskey. Insert your own joke here about pouring a little whiskey to enjoy while baking. Maybe it’s not a joke. Finely chop chocolates, cut butter into 1 tablespoon pieces, and combine in a saucepan over low heat.  Stir constantly until chocolate and butter until melted and smooth. Seriously, do not walk away to watch a few minutes of the Jerry Springer show unless you love the taste of burnt chocolate.  Remove from heat and let cool for 2-3 minutes.  Stir in sugar, salt, and the coffee-whiskey mixture. Then thoroughly mix in the eggs a couple at a time.  Lastly, fold in the chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. When done, the edges should start to crack a little and the center should be slightly yielding to the touch (but not gooey.) Allow brownies to cool while you make the ganache. Use a knife to release the brownies from the sides and use the parchment to help lift the brownies from the pan. Remove to serving platter or cutting board.

Ganache frosting
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
6 oz heavy cream
2 tablespoons to ¼ cup Irish whiskey
1 tsp instant coffee
pinch of salt

SONY DSCPut the chopped chocolate in a glass bowl. Boil the cream over medium heat (this is another “don’t walk away” scenario) and pour over the chocolate. Stir like crazy until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. If the chocolate is not completely melted before the mixture cools, pop it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds, then continue to stir. Stir in whiskey and coffee.  If the whiskey taste is too subtle for you, you can splash in a bit more. If the whiskey taste is still too subtle, maybe you should just have a shot of whiskey. Spread ganache evenly over brownies.

SONY DSCCinnamon Whipped Cream
Whip 8 oz very cold heavy cream with 2 tsp cinnamon until thick.

Slice brownies into squares. Serve at room temperature or slightly warm, topped with the whipped cream.

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Marathon Day Ham & Jalapeño Bread Pudding

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in entrees, Uncategorized

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It’s gettin’ to be marathon time in fit and healthy Austin, Texas. The area in which Jennifer and Anne-Charlotte reside is a major section of the Austin marathon, so pretty much the whole damn neighborhood gets shut down and cut off from the rest of the world for a few hours on a Sunday. This is a drag if you’re completely out of food or need to go to the hospital because you’ve sliced off your thumb (just put a band-aid on it until afternoon) but awesome if you like to look at masochistic people running by your house. In fact, watching parties abound on the blocks along the racecourse.

collapsed runner

This is Luscious after running two miles.

Luscious Pastry holds a deep, abiding admiration and respect for these marathon athletes, because they provide us with an excuse to start drinking before 9am. The party continues until well after noon, when the close to death but brave stragglers drag past. These persevering souls tend to receive the most uninhibited, if somewhat slurred, cheering of the day.

We attend a yearly marathon-watching soiree at a friend’s house, and Luscious never shows up empty-handed. After all, marathon watchers need a hearty breakfast to help them meet the physically demanding, grueling challenge of drinking bloody marys all morning while shouting and waving at total strangers. This crazy delicious breakfast casserole is the perfect padding for all that vodka, and is also super easy to make the night before. It’s not low-fat or healthy, but anybody who’s really worried about that is probably running sprints right now, not reading the Luscious Pastry blog. Some slightly white trash store-bought rolls are the foundation of the dish and speed preparation. Time is of the essence when you have to get up early the next day to  stand along the marathon route holding a sign that says “DON’T YOU THINK YOU’VE ALREADY RUN FAR ENOUGH?”

Ham & Jalapeño Bread Pudding

18 King’s Hawaiian Rolls. Yeah, we know, real classy. (But all that sugar or corn syrup or whatever it is in the rolls balances beautifully with the salty ham.)
2 ½ cups grated sharp cheddar
6 oz good ham, chopped. (The better the ham, the better this will be, so we’re not talkin’ lunch meat here)
5 large eggs
1 cup milk and ¾ cup cream.
1 tsp onion powder
salt and pepper
2 large fresh jalapeños, seeds removed, sliced.
2 Tbsp butter, in pieces

use good eggs and ham, SamIam

use good eggs and ham, SamIam

This is so fast… on your mark, get set, go!  Butter a 9 x 13 pan. Tear the rolls into roughly 2” pieces. Place half the bread pieces in the bottom of the pan, cover with the chopped ham and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese. Cover with remaining bread pieces. Beat the eggs with the milk, cream, onion powder, salt and pepper, and pour over the bread mixture. Top with an additional ½ cup cheese and jalapeño slices. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing down on the casserole so the eggs mixture permeates the bread, and the wrap touches the top of the casserole. Refrigerate overnight–– or for at least 6 hours. Even if you get home from the honytonk at 2am, you should still be good.

The next morning, preheat oven to 360º. Remove plastic wrap and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 25 minutes, then uncover. Top with butter pieces and remaining cheese, and place under broiler for 3-4 minutes more.  Pin a paper number to your shirt and give yourself a medal, it’s bloody mary time.

jalapeno and ham breading pudding

(Y’all we can’t talk about marathons without our thoughts turning to last year’s tragedy in Boston. We were shocked and saddened for the victims, and incredibly impressed by the spirt of the city of Boston.)

Sweet Potato Pineapple Bundt Cake

14 Thursday Nov 2013

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bill clinton loves LusciousOh Thanksgiving, back again, are you?  It’s no secret that Luscious has some issues with the holidays. Well, Luscious just has a lot of issues with a lot of things, so Thanksgiving can just get in line behind Wiccans and the federal deficit.  (Ask us about our deficit bake sale idea! Bill Clinton is totally on board.)

But anyway, yeah. Thanksgiving. Our congressman has still not introduced that bill we suggested whereby people who had happy childhoods have Thanksgiving, and the rest of us get to spend the 4th Thursday in November riding all the rides at Six Flags for free. Until that happens, we’ll continue to hide a flask in our purse before heading over to the family get-together,  and we’ll bring a kickass dessert. This year, it’s cake.

sweet potatoesWe know, Thanksgiving makes you think pie. But this rich, moist cake features a classic classic Thanksgiving staple, sweet potatoes, or yams if that’s what you like to call them. The sweet potatoes’ naturally sweet and fruity flavor gets a boost from crushed pineapple. Pineapple, of course, is also a great holiday ingredient, since it’s available canned all year. But this year let’s have it in cake and not jello salad, okay?  A rich rum glaze tops it off, because rum is a perfect counterpoint to the pineapple and sweet potato flavors, and makes you a little less likely to punch your brother-in-law at the table.

cake batterFor the cake:
1 large sweet potato
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp cardamom (optional)
2 sticks softened butter
1 ¾ cups packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups plain or vanilla yogurt
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained

For the glaze:
3 oz room temperature cream cheese
1 stick softened butter
½ cup powdered sugar
½ cup dark rum
½ cup crushed pineapple, drained

Preheat oven to 350º. Butter and flour a 10 cup bundt pan.

Make the cake.
Steam or microwave the sweet potato until cooked through and soft. Scoop the flesh out into a bowl and mash. It doesn’t have to totally smooth, some very small chunks will look pretty when the cake is sliced, and make for a more interest texture. Measure out 1¼ cups of mashed sweet potato and set aside.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

SONY DSCIn a separate bowl, use a handmixer to mix the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Mix in eggs and vanilla until well incorporated, then stir in yogurt. Fold in the 1 ¼ cups mashed sweet potato. Then gradually ad the flour mixture using the handmixer set on low.  Fold in the pineapple, and pour batter into prepared bundt pan, and bake for 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack. Invert cooled cake on to a cake plate.

Make the glaze.
Using a handmixer, mix together cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Mix in the cream cheese and then the rum. Stir in crushed pineapple.  If glaze seems too thin, mix in a bit more powdered sugar; if it’s too thick , thin it with a little more rum or some milk. We say go with the rum.

Pour your yummy rum pineapple glaze over your yummy cake. Serve immediately, or refrigerate and bring to room temperature before servings.

Sweet Potato Pineapple Bundt CakeSweet Potato Pineapple Bundt Cake

Peanut Butter Pretzel Granola Bars

02 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in Luscious snacks, Uncategorized

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SONY DSC Even Luscious Pastry sometimes puts on a pair of jeans and turns around to look to at its backside in the mirror and says “Oh, dear. Too much cake.”  Time to think thin, Luscious. The upshot of that was the misguided purchase of an extremely large box of Weetabix cereal. It looks so healthy and wholesome and British in the picture on the box. In a bowl with milk, however, it looks like… eww.  So mushy and tasteless.  Still looks British, though. “Gruel” is one of those things you read about in Dickens novels, but never actually see, unless you buy some Weetabix and add milk.

Anne-Charlotte and Jennifer can’t stand to waste food, but what to do with the other 29 Weeta-biscuits still in the box? We know, crush them up and sprinkle them on yogurt! It was very upsetting to throw out that yogurt. Next idea: feed the dry biscuits to the Luscious children as snacks ! That went something like this:

Luscious: Do you like it?
Offspring: <munch, munch>  Mwuchmpgf  sdmucht.
Luscious: What?
Offspring: Tastes like a <munch> mufthsnsuhs.
Luscious: What? Tastes like muffins?
Offsrping: <mmfumph> Tastes like  <crunch crunch> a moth’s nest.

Yum.

9530398-standardAt this point, Anne-Charlotte was penning an angry letter to the British royal family while Jennifer was resourcefully looking up Weetabix recipes on the internet. There were several, almost all from the UK. How does Weetabix Vegetable Bake sound? Or “Marshmallow Slice”? Not vague enough for you? Then how about something called Nancy Slice?  After reading the recipe four times, we’re still not sure what “slice” is, but we think it’s the reason England lost all of its colonies.

Not to be defeated (like England in the War of 1812, ha ha), Luscious decided to make up our own damn recipe. It turns out homemade granola bars are the perfect place to hide a bunch of Weetabix.  Plus, the weetabix doesn’t get all mushy here. PLUS granola bars are sound healthy, and Luscious was trying to be health-conscious when we bought that damn Weetabix to begin with.  DOUBLE PLUS these are EASY to make and freakin’ delicious. Crunchy, sweet-salty, peanut butter & jelly-y-y. Seriously, best granola bars you ever done ate. Make a batch and send a few to Parliament, just to remind them that we do it Luscious-style in the States.

SONY DSCPeanut Butter Pretzel Granola Bars Recipe

1 cup old fashioned oats
3 Weetabix biscuits, crushed OR 1 ½ cups crushed cornflakes or rice chex or other crushable cereal- whatever you got around.
½ cup pretzels broken up or crushed into small pieces
¼ tsp sea salt, plus more for sprinkling
4 tbs melted butter or coconut oil. Or canola oil, if you’re that type.
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 TBS molasses
2 TBS honey
1 egg, well-beaten
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup dried cranberries

photo 3photo 2Grease a 7 x10 glass baking dish, preheat oven to 350º.  Spread oats evenly on a baking sheet and toast for 10 minutes in your preheating oven.  In a large mixing bowl, combine toasted oats, the f&#@!g Weetabix, pretzel pieces, and salt. Stir in melted butter, brown sugar, molasses, and  honey. Mix in the beaten egg, blending well. Next, add the peanut butter, likewise mixing until well incorporated. Lastly, fold in cranberries. Was that easy, or what?

Spread mixture into the prepared baking dish, and sprinkle lightly with additional sea salt. Bake at 350º for about 15 minutes, until the granola starts to look a little toasty around the edges. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours until set, and cut into bars.

(p.s. these do a better job of sticking together if you keep them in the fridge. They’re not glued together with corn syrup like the grocery store kind, yo.)

(p.p.s. We really like Kate Middleton, so none of this is directed at her personally.)

Breakfast Crepes with Sweet Ricotta Filling and Orange Ginger Syrup

02 Monday Sep 2013

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Is that Lilo eating a Peanut Butter Bad Girl Bar??

Is that Lilo eating a Peanut Butter Bad Girl Bar??

Well, okay, so Luscious even turns breakfast into dessert. We know we have problem.  We should probably do something about the sugar addiction, but we’ve decided to wait for someone to pull an intervention on us. Maybe we’ll finally get to be on a reality show that way. Omigosh, we hope Lindsay Lohan is on the same episode!! Seems pretty likely…

While you wait for us to enter rehab, make these lovely crepes. These would be so nice for a leisurely family weekend breakfast with a fruit plate, or you could double the recipe and take a whole dish of crepes to a brunch potluck. Plus you can do some prep the night before).

And yes, okay, they would make a really elegant dessert: splash a little orange liqueur over them at the end and flame ‘em up: FANCY! Just be sure to use a long-handled match, not the regular ol’ bic lighter you usually use to light your Virginia Slims. Somebody at Luscious learned that one the hard way.

Crepes with Sweet Ricotta Filling and Orange Ginger Syrup
(makes eight 6” inch filled crepes)

SONY DSCFor the Crepes
2 eggs (eggs are a major ingredient here, use the freshest eggs you can, even if you must resort to stealing from the neighbor’s chicken coop. Most urban chicken farmers don’t own shotguns, so we think you’ll be safe if you live in Austin or Portland.)

2 tablespoons melted butter, plus more butter for cooking the crepes
½ cup flour
½ cup milk
¼ cup slightly warm orange juice, water, or low fat milk
1 tablespoon orange zest

Put all ingredients in a blender, and mix until smooth. Put the blender pitcher of crepe batter in the fridge for at least 30 minutes so the batter can rest and the gluten can do it’s thing with the liquids. You can also make the batter the night before.

For the syrup:
¾ cup fresh orange juice
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup orange liqueur (we like Paula’s Texas Orange)
½” piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated

Stir together all ingredients in a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Cook  and stir until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat to medium and allow syrup to simmer so that it reduces slightly. Keep warm until ready to serve. Or make ahead and refrigerate, then warm over the stove or in microwave when ready to serve.

ricotta cheese with orange zest

ricotta cheese with orange zest

For the filling:
15 oz package of ricotta cheese
½ cup sugar
¼ cup fresh orange juice
1 tsp orange zest

Mix together all filling ingredients.  Keep refrigerated if not serving crepes immediately, can be made ahead the day before.

crepe batter

Pour crepe batter directly from the blender.

Time to make the crepes! One supposes the proper equipment for this is a crepe pan, because we all have one those, right? Luscious like to use a small non-stick pan, even knowing that it makes French people made at us. We’ve heard that Teflon is a carcinogen, so we don’t recommend eating the pan. Using medium heat, melt enough butter in the pan to coat. Keep the butter on hand to re-oil the pan as need. Pour a small amount of batter into the pan, tilting the pan to coat. The crepe should be very thin, a bit thinner than the average thin corn tortilla. (You can make thicker crepes, but then you run out of crepe batter really fast.)  After the top starts to bubble and the crepe seems set on the bottom, flip using a broad spatula and your fingers. Cook the 2nd side for a few seconds, then place on a sheet of wax paper on a plate. Keep crepes warm in the oven between pieces of wax paper until ready to assemble and serve.

Image

What’s French for damn good?

To assemble crepes, put 3 or 4 tablespoons of filling down the center of a crepe and fold in the sides enchilada-style. Spoon warm syrup over crepes and garnish with thin orange slices. Hello breakfast!

Chai Me Up Strawberry Smoothie

26 Monday Aug 2013

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weather forecast

Only 88º today? Feels like Christmas!

It’s late August in Austin, Texas, and our summer high temperatures have only been reaching into the gentle 90’s. This is what we refer to as “spring-like weather” here.  Usually, by this time of year, we’re suffering through heat that puts Aquanet users at serious risk of having their hair-do combust upon leaving the house.

But on days when Austinites suffer through the sensation that a giant blowdryer is trained directly on our city, we’re at least comforted by the hope our notoriously brutal heat has surely prevented at least one person from moving here that day. It’s not that we don’t like new people– we do, we really do. We’re just not sure where we’ll put all of you, and it wouldn’t surprise Luscious if Austin has to build some sort of intake center for refugee hipsters. American Apparel can pass out goodie bags at the entrance and Fader magazine can put up a big tent and…  oh, wait, we already have that, it’s called South By Southwest.

Anyway, all we’re trying to say is, okay, we acknowledge that sometimes it’s too hot to drink Luscious Chai. To drink it HOT that is.  Here’s a chai-licious take on the classic strawberry-banana smooth, refreshing and cold like a snowy  day in Austin. Well, actually it only snows, like, once every six years here, but if it snowed chai-spiced strawberries, it would be just like this cold and delicious concoction:

strawberry smoothie

Strawberry Chai Smoothie

1 cup halved strawberries, fresh or lightly defrosted frozen
1 sliced frozen banana
1 cup cold sweetened vanilla almond milk
1-2 tablespoons Luscious Chai mix
1 tablespoons honey

Put it in a blender, mix her up. Trust us on the strawberry-chai spice combo: sweet, fruity, a little spicy, creamy, and caffeine-y.   Like any hipster worth his summertime knit cap, you’ll want to get some Luscious Chai before we “make it big”.  You can order here: http://www.coteriemarket.com/luscious-chai/
or email us directly at yummy@lusciouspastry.com.