Copenhagen

Last Thanksgiving, I sat around with friends and we all talked about our plans for 2019. I piously declared to my friends that I couldn’t plan any trips for 2019. No, it was going to be light on travel, while I paid off student loans and saved my pennies.

Lol.

When I found out I was being sent to London for a week in February for work, all my frugal plans went out the window. If work was sending me to Europe and paying for it, how could I not take advantage? I mean, did you know you can fly between cities in Europe for less money than it costs to buy lunch in downtown San Francisco? You can either be enraged by that or you can start mapping out the city hopping you will do once in Europe. Obviously I did the second thing.

My first planned stop was Copenhagen, because I figured such an expensive destination would be as cheap as possible and less crowded in winter, yet March was late enough that I would have more hours of daylight for exploring.  Plus, going to Copenhagen first meant that it would be easy to then go to Berlin and then Prague, two other cities high on my list. 

I sent out an invite to join me to my friends, but in the end, I wound up on my own for the time in Copenhagen. Coming on the heels of a week alone in London, those two days were a test of my positive attitude towards traveling solo. I was more than ready for company! Most Danes speak English, and everyone was very friendly, but I’m not very good at meeting people while traveling, so I was still on my own for now. 

So, I decided to make the best of it and try a different style of travel. I was staying in a nice hotel instead of an apartment rental, so I took full advantage. I went out and explored during the day, but I came back to the hotel each night for the free wine o’clock in the evenings. I ate dinner the first night in the bar next door, and treated myself to a fancy dinner in the hotel restaurant on the second night. I didn’t beat myself up over turning in early, since it was dark outside anyway, and whether the nightlife was safe or not, it’s not really that fun to go bar hopping solo. Turns out, letting myself enjoy the hotel part of traveling was actually pretty relaxing!

I didn’t completely hole up in the hotel, though. The weather was a bit rainy and chilly at times, but I decided to be like the locals and venture out regardless, if only on foot instead of by bike. I walked all over the city, exploring palaces, the Danish museum, Freetown Christiania, and the Kastellet. I peeked at the greenhouses at Noma, tried the Netflix-famous tacos at Hija de Sanchez, and ate cute breakfasts in tiny cafes. I oohed at the candy-colored buildings lining the Nyhavn canal, and walked up and down the length of it too many times, hoping for a blue sky to turn the colors even more brilliant. 

I never got the blue sky, but I still got hit by the charm of Copenhagen. Its multi-colored streets seem like something out of a dollhouse version of a city, with cobblestone paths and manicured parks to complete the design. There’s vast water and sleepy canals moored with boats, and homey, comforting food that helps explain why northern Europe is so synonymous with the word “cozy”. Despite the weather and my loneliness it was cozy, and sometimes that’s all you really want out of a vacation.

Black Sesame Cookie & Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches with Miso Caramel

So, remember that dinner I mentioned in my London post, when, post-Prague, I relished in the veggie-forward fare at Scully St. James but then finished it off with a decadent miso caramel and black sesame dessert?

Yeah, me too! I can’t stop remembering it, actually. I knew as soon as I tried it in the restaurant that I wanted to recreate it at home in some way.

The more I thought about it though, the more I wasn’t sure how. The original dish was a bay leaf ice cream smoothed into a wide ramekin, topped with a layer of miso caramel and then lidded with a crispy black sesame cookie decoratively dusted with matcha and edible flowers.

So, yes, that’s delicious, but I don’t know, that felt like kind of a silly thing to make at home. I’d have to spend a lot of time and effort making either one of those or a lot of them, and 1) that’s a lot of work for one ice cream dessert, or 2) a big storage ask for my freezer if I were to make several.

But I realized the solution when I had a few friends over for dinner a few weeks ago. I knew I wanted to take the opportunity to make a batch of miso caramel (you know, with other people to help me eat it), and I thought I would just pair it with black sesame ice cream. But I didn’t have the time to make a batch of ice cream, and as it turns out, you can’t just walk into most grocery stores and find a commercially available option for that flavor. So, I simplified. I bought a pint of vanilla ice cream, and served that with the miso caramel drizzled on top and garnished with toasted black sesame seeds.

My friends loved it! The combo of the sweet, vanilla flavor with salty caramel and crunchy, nutty sesame really won everyone over, and it was a good reminder to me that sometimes, simple is better. I could have called that a win right there and stopped trying to recreate the original dessert, but I really, really wanted to get the cookie part in there too somehow.

So I thought about it more, and I decided on ice cream sandwiches! Who doesn’t love those? And, they are pretty easy, especially if you already have a batch of miso caramel hanging out in your fridge! If you don’t, the caramel is a dump and stir situation that takes no time at all, so that’s not really an obstacle.

The obstacle, as it turned out, was the cookies. Shockingly, considering the rise of black sesame in the last few years, I could not find a reputable recipe for black sesame cookies on the internet or in any of my cookbooks! There are a ton of recipes for black sesame ice cream, or black sesame cake, but no cookies. So I did what I had to, and mashed together my own version of an existing recipe. I mean, isn’t that the basis of food blogging anyway??

I settled on an idea of a brown sugar base cookie, and of studding the dough with as many toasted sesame seeds as I thought would be reasonable without overpowering everything. I wanted the sesame flavor to come through without compromising the texture of the final cookie. My first batch was delicious, but not suitable for the ice cream sandwiches I imagined. The cookies puffed into half domes in the oven, looking more like little buns than cookies, and all I could think was that adding ice cream would turn them into softball-sized sandwiches. I tried again with a base recipe from the master herself, Stella Parks, and nailed what I wanted on the first try.

I managed to stop myself from eating enough dough so that I ended up with 22 flat, rounded cookies with crisp edges, but centers soft enough not to mush the ice cream out the sides. And adding just enough sesame seeds meant that their nutty flavor comes through to play nicely when sandwiched around the vanilla ice cream and umami-rich caramel. A decadent but grown-up combination, for sure!

In the end I decided to embrace the simple approach and skip the matcha garnish, and you really don’t need it outside of the restaurant setting. Who wants to be getting powdered green tea all over their hands, anyway?

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Black Sesame Cookie & Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches with Miso Caramel

These cookies are not difficult to create, despite having three separate components. Do yourself a favor and buy a couple quarts of good quality vanilla ice cream, and the miso caramel and cookies can both be made ahead, though the beauty of the cookie dough is that you do not need to make it ahead of time and chill. It can be mixed up and baked ASAP.

For the Miso Caramel: Adapted from Food & Wine

• 3/4 cup heavy cream

• 3 tbs unsalted butter

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 1/6 cup light corn syrup

• 2 tbs water

• 1/4 cup white miso

• splash of vanilla extract

For the Black Sesame Cookies: Dough base adapted from Bravetart

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 packed cup light brown sugar

• 2 tsp kosher salt

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1 tbs vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

• 1 pinch grated nutmeg

• 1 egg

• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

• 1/4 cup black sesame seeds, toasted and cooled

For the Ice Cream Sandwiches:

• 1 recipe cookie dough

• 12 tbs miso caramel (you’ll probably have extra, not a bad thing)

• 2 qts vanilla ice cream

1. Make the miso caramel. In a small pot, combine the cream and butter over medium heat and bring to a low simmer. In another medium size pot, stir together sugar, corn syrup, and water until everything is moistened. Cook over medium-high heat, without stirring, until the sugar dissolves, and then cook about 5 minutes more, until the mixture turns a deep amber color, swirling the pan every once in a while.

2. When the caramel is the desired color, immediately remove from the heat (do not let it burn!) and carefully whisk in the hot cream and butter mixture. It will bubble up violently so be careful! When everything calms down and the caramel is whisked together, carefully pour into a heat-proof blender, and add the miso. Blend until miso is completely combined, then pour into a sealable container and let cool. Once cool, whisk in the vanilla. At this point, the caramel can be set aside until ready to assemble sandwiches or stored in the fridge for a couple weeks.

3. Make the cookies: Heat oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment paper. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine all ingredients except the egg, flour and sesame seeds. Mix on low speed until starting to combine a bit, then increase speed to medium and mix for 5 minutes, until fluffy and light. Add in the egg and mix until fully combined, then lower speed and add in the flour a bit at a time until fully combined. Lastly, stir in the sesame seeds until well-distributed.

4. Measure out dough into 2 tbs size portions and form into balls. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. You will have to bake in batches depending on the size of your baking sheets; the most I could fit on one without risk of smooshing was 9 cookies. Bake until puffed up and crackled on top and deep golden around the edges, 10-12 minutes.

5. Cool cookies on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

6. Assemble the ice cream sandwiches: On a large baking sheet, pair up your cookies and transfer to the freezer to chill for 30 minutes. This will help the ice cream not immediately melt. Once chilled, separate the cookies, and spread a tablespoon of caramel on one half of the cookies, and a scoop of ice cream on the other half. Sandwich them together, then transfer back to the freezer to chill. Overnight is best to really make sure they are solid, but a couple hours should do, too. Ice cream sandwiches can be wrapped in plastic and stored in the freezer.

Notes:

1. For soft, chewable cookies that won’t squeeze the ice cream out when you bite into them, start checking for doneness at 10 minutes. I baked the full 12 for my cookies, and they softened a bit after sitting in the freezer with the ice cream sandwiched between, but I could have baked them for less time and been happy.

2. I got 23 cookies from the recipe, you can probably get a full two dozen if you go a little lighter on the dough snacking than I did.

Oxford & London

Oh hey! I went to London! I actually went a lot of other places too, because it’s been, oh, 3 months since my last post. Oops. I’m not sure I want that to be the new normal here, but I’m not forcing a different schedule. It feels great!

Since that last festive check in with cake in December, I’ve been to Boston and back and to Boston again, then off on a planned trip to London for work, followed by a whirlwind vacation to Copenhagen, Berlin, and Prague. That was already going to be A LOT, and then while I was in Boston the second time, another week got added to the front of the trip when I would now be in Oxford. I basically came home for two days to get my passport and then I was off again. 2019 so far has brought a new joy into my life of stress-induced insomnia, and I am tired!

But, hello! London!

Right, so it wasn’t all bad. I was not sleeping very well, but I wasn’t sleeping well abroad, so you know, silver lining and all that. And, apart from the work stress of it all, I was actually so ready to finally be going back to London after a spring break trip there in 2006 (please don’t do that math).

And then, when I found out I was going to Oxford too? The history nerd in me was beyond thrilled. There is a castle there! And really old pubs! And really old universities! My inner supernatural romance fan was thrilled too, although, there was a moment when my coworker insisted to me that I was standing in front of the Bodleian Library and I vehemently insisted otherwise, but I definitely did not admit that my certainty came from having just binged A Discovery of Witches, both TV and book versions. I knew exactly where Matthew Goode had been standing and intensely staring, but no need to mention that. Gotta keep it professional, you know?

Not unexpectedly, I found myself completely charmed by Oxford. I can’t say the love extends to cask ales, but I really fell for the city’s beautiful streets, village atmosphere, and cozy pubs, in which I got to drink with not only my fun coworkers but also C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and the Queen Mother, at least in spirit. And two of the pubs claimed origins from the 12th century, which will never not be astounding to me! Nothing like a 900 year old drinking establishment to remind you that Europe is old.

The food in Oxford was, fine, if not particularly memorable, but every restaurant we went to was tasty and for the most part friendly, and as it was February, often less than crowded. My ideal, honestly, and the complete opposite of everywhere I tried to go in London.

I was sad to leave the foggy, quaint streets and my hotel that was in an actual castle jail, not to mention the company. But it was off to London for me, and almost two weeks of solo travel. Yay? Even as an experienced and sometimes purposely solo traveler, I was not looking forward to that second part. But after the drive from Oxford, London’s drunk skyline, palaces, and Ottolenghi were beckoning, so I determined to make the best of it.

I arrived in London just in time for a weekend of marathon sightseeing, walking myself a combined total of 22 miles over two days. I criss-crossed the river on my way to revisit Westminster Abbey, took myself by the familiar sights of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and the Globe, and then walked through new-to-me St. James and Hyde Parks, by Kensington Palace, and up Portobello Road. I discovered Neal’s Yard in the rabbit warren of Soho and sampled St. John Bakery’s famous donuts, took a stroll through Covent Garden and a turn on the London Eye. 

I took the bus to Hackney and Violet Bakery, where I spent a happy breakfast in the sun-drenched room upstairs munching on a cinnamon bun and drinking a pot of strong, black tea. I then took all the trains on what seemed like every rail system in London out to Hampton Court. There, I marveled at Henry VIII’s kitchen(s) and William and Mary’s bedrooms, and forgot to tour the costume exhibit for The Favourite. I walked the gardens and successfully escaped the famous maze before heading back to the city, where I discovered a bar tent among food stalls on the South Bank. So, I sat and had a beer on the Thames, reveling in England’s refreshingly lax attitude towards public drinking. The curb outside may as well be a bar stool when rugby’s on at the pub, something my Boston-trained mind cannot fathom!

Once the work week started, my adventures were limited to which restaurant I was going to try to get into each evening. My success rate was not great. Turns out, in London, many restaurants actually take reservations for the bar, or not at all in many cases, which meant that I lost my usual advantage of being a solo diner. But my single status did get me quickly(ish) into Padella, where I shamelessly ordered myself two plates of pasta and a lemon tart, and it was helpful for my last breakfast at Dishoom, where the decision to put me at a four-top was perplexing, but at least I got my spicy eggs faster than the group behind me. Being alone allowed me only a 45-minute wait at The Barbary, but unfortunately was never useful in getting me a seat at The Palomar, where the quoted wait was longer every time I tried to go. 

Leaving Soho seemed to be key to grabbing a seat in any restaurant, and my crowning achievement may have been waltzing into Ottolenghi in Notting Hill and snagging the last seat out of only ten(!) like it was waiting just for me. That this happened after I first tripped through the front door and nearly fell on my face in front of the tower of desserts was only a minor detriment to the experience.

I left London at the end of the week for the planned vacation part of my trip, but then returned for a quick 24 hours on my way back to SF, this time with my Mom in tow. We traced a lot of the same route as we tried to cram in as much sight seeing for her as possible, even squeezing in a couple of hours at the Tower of London before our flights home. We capped off the trip with an amazing dinner at Scully St. James, where every dish seemed more creative and delicious than the last, or maybe it was just the reintroduction of vegetables after two days in Prague eating goulash and potato dumplings?

She asked me which of the cities I’d been to had been my favorite. Maybe it was that the weather was the warmest out of all the cities, or that I could use my credit card as an Underground ticket, or it was all the donuts, or maybe it was the diversity of the food. In alleyways in Soho full of food vendors, I had Egyptian falafel for the first time since I went to Egypt, gnocchi in braised beef ragu (raclette optional). Add those all together, and hands down, I think it was London I enjoyed the most. 

But I’ll still take my beer colder than room temp and slightly effervescent, please.

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Good Eats

St. John (Neal’s Yard Bakery) I’d had their donuts in the back of my mind for years, since first reading about them here, and when I realized they had an outpost 10 minutes from my hotel I made a beeline for a pre-breakfast appetizer of lemon cream filled, fried pastry goodness. I went back once more for the vanilla custard version. They were incredible, just minus points to the place for not serving tea. What country is it even??

Violet Ok, so yes, they made the royal wedding cake. But I promise this place was on my radar before that! Ever since Claire Ptak’s book came out in 2015, it’s been sitting in my Amazon cart, waiting for me to decide I need yet another baking book. But every time I stop in my local book shop and flip through the pages, the gorgeous pastries remind me to put this place on my “to eat” list for London, so I took the bus to the Northeastern edge of London to try them for myself. You should too, if you get the chance.

Padella I came to this tiny pasta restaurant after a long day of sightseeing and walking, and after 20 minutes of waiting in line on tired legs, the host walked over and changed the sign to read “This is the line to put your name on the wait list.” I almost despaired and gave up. But I’m so glad I didn’t, because 20 minutes later, when I finally reached the head of the line, I got seated immediately. And yes, that seat was right by the door, which kept constantly being opened, and a freezing wind was coming through. But I didn’t care, because I ordered wine and ate a pici pasta that was like a chewy spatzle stirred in a creamy cacio e pepe sauce and followed that with a crab linguini dish, and finished that off with a bracingly tart lemon dessert that seemed tailor made to follow rich pastas. Go to there! Don’t take your friends, they won’t fit and you won’t want to share.

Ottolenghi Like I mentioned up top, I almost acted out my own take on Carrie’s “I fell in Dior!” moment, and at my own personal version of Dior no less, but I recovered and managed to snag the last open seat at the Notting Hill location. Once seated, I savagely inhaled a plate of cold beef, roasted squash and cauliflower salads, finishing with a pot of tea and pistachio rose semolina cake. Everything was excellent and I was just sad my hotel didn’t have a great storage option for all the pastries I wanted to take home with me.

The Barbary I got in to eat here on my second attempt, and it was one of the best meals I had in London. You do probably have to wait no matter what, as the seating consists only of a horseshoe shaped bar around the kitchen, but if your experience is like mine, they will bring you wine and falafel while you wait. When you are finally seated, the naan will be blanket-sized, the harissa will taste like your own homemade version (giving you massive ego) and your lamb chops will come out garnished with a blazing sage bonfire.

Gunpowder One of the other best meals I had in London, and a nice change in location from Soho. On my way there, I got off at the wrong Tube station and walked through an entire neighborhood of curry spots in Whitechapel, and the smells wafting out of them were tempting, believe me, but this elevated Indian restaurant near Tower Bridge was fantastic, and I’m glad I didn’t let myself be diverted. I squeezed into a seat at the counter where I tried an impeccable mustard-marinated fish steamed in a banana leaf and a charred broccoli dish I plan to replicate. If I ever go back I will bring friends and try the rest of the menu.

Duck & Waffle This place is known for exactly what the name suggests, a waffle topped with a confit duck leg and a fried duck egg, all drizzled with a mustard-maple syrup. That was worth trying, but so were the ox cheek stuffed donut with apricot sauce that i’m still thinking about, and the fried pig’s ears we had for a snack with drinks while waiting for a table. Oh, and this place is perched at the top of one of London’s skyscrapers, so the view is pretty okay too!

Dishoom This small chain serves dinner, but breakfast at Dishoom is special and shouldn’t be missed. They are known for their bacon naan breakfast sandwich, a creation of soft, pliable naan filled with a schmear of cream cheese, spicy tomato sauce, herbs and several strips of crispy bacon. They have other versions of naan sandwich , but I tried the bacon and I think it is famous for a reason. I don’t usually repeat dining spots when I travel, but I also went back and tried the omelet with grilled bread and masala baked beans for an Indian take on the traditional English breakfast, and was only sad not to make it back for a third time with my mom for the bun maska. Next trip!

Scully St. James I didn’t make it to Nopi on my trip, but this kitchen is run by a Nopi alum, and the focus on veggies feels similar to the Ottolenghi ethos. Every dish we tried was inventive and so fresh tasting, and light enough (or at least not so heavy) that we had room to try two desserts. The pineapple brulee tart was excellent, sure, but my dessert of ice cream, black sesame cookie, and miso caramel blew me away.