Let's make a party cake

Celebrate being… alive?

This week, we get addicted to coffee, and make a party cake. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.

Coffee with whole milk at my breakfast table

You can get Peet’s coffee, ground, at most NYC groceries.

I started drinking coffee in the mornings again, lol. Can I be honest with you? Despite the fact that I determined a few years ago that both caffeine and milk wreck me, that morning cup, fragrant and creamy with whole milk, is the thing I look forward to the most when I fall asleep at night. And during these dark times, a little morning ritual has never been more important. Here’s how I do mine: Raise a pot of filtered water to a rolling boil (about 200°F). Meanwhile, take a Melitta paper filter, wet it, and put it in your drip cone. I’ve been using the Clever Coffee Dripper, which looks like a plastic drip cone, but has a little valve so the grounds brew more in an immersion style, à la French press, minus the grit and annoying cleaning process. I use a blend of two tablespoons of Major Dickason’s Decaf and one tablespoon of Kona coffee (a travel souvenir), then pour the hot boiling water to the brim, and let it steep for four minutes, before releasing the valve in my thermos cup (this makes 16oz of coffee). I top it off with UHT (ultra-pasteurized, lactose-free) whole milk, and then I’m ready to start my day… in place. 

Party trick peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting at home

Recipe adapted from Molly Yeh

I ate two chonks of this peanut butter cake, warm out of the oven and frosted with gobs of chocolate ganache, and I got so sugar high I almost remembered what life felt like when I didn’t need two cups of coffee and 12 hours of sleep just to get out of bed in the morning. This party-trick cake really lives up to its name — it’s one of my most reliable recipes. It comes together in just two bowls, no creaming or stand mixer required, with ingredients you already have on hand. It has one of my favorite textures of all the cakes I’ve ever baked — super moist, and somehow soft and refined for such a rich star ingredient. “It’s so fluffy!” my taste-tester exclaimed when he took his first bite. For extra party, I frosted it with a simple ganache of ½ cup of warm half and half and 1 cup of chocolate chips, and ate it warm out of the oven, frosting smeared on with a knife. But the cake is so rich, it doesn’t need any extra decoration.

Blistered shishito peppers with lemon and chili salt at home

Recipe made up on the fly.

Not only are shishito peppers delicious, grassy and peppery while barely being spicy, they’re really fun to make. The skins on the mini peppers blister and pop like popcorn, and you can make them similarly easily and fast on the stove. Just take a big skillet and warm it up over a high flame. Add a glug of olive oil, and a bowlful of washed and thoroughly dried (otherwise they won’t blister!) peppers. Throw in a big pinch of salt and a little pinch of chili flakes, and stir. Let them cook until the skins are blistered and crackling, stirring just a few times so it doesn’t burn. Transfer to a plate with a squeeze of lemon. The chili flakes will fry in the oil with the peppers, making your own chili oil. Enjoy with a cold glass of very cheap box white wine, in true pandemic style. 

Roasted broccoli with tahini sauce at home

Recipe from NYT Cooking, but you don’t really need one

To make sure my diet is not solely composed of coffee, box wine and buttered carbs, I try to make a big pan of roasted veggies every three weeks or so. I usually go for broccoli. You don’t really need a recipe, although this one from NYT Cooking is pretty good. Just crank your oven up super hot (400-450F), wash and thoroughly dry your broccoli, and cut it into florets. Drizzle it with lots of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast in a single layer on a baking sheet for 30 minutes or so, give or take 10 minutes (I’m real bad at following directions, if you haven’t noticed). If you dried your broccoli thoroughly it should almost taste fried. Meanwhile, make a tahini sauce — throw a clove of smashed garlic, two big spoonfuls of tahini, a squeeze of lemon and plenty of salt into a small bowl and mix thoroughly. Add water to thin out to a sauce-like consistency. Drown the roasted broccoli in plenty of sauce for a super-filling side dish (or main meal).

A short ode to Pegu Club

I drank here once, long ago.

Pegu Club is closing. In a time where there is so much to mourn, it seems silly— maybe excessive— to care about a fancy cocktail bar’s closure. But I’ll never forget the time I went there for my friend’s 21st birthday. How exciting it was to get real fancy cocktails for the first time (especially exciting as half of us were 20), all of us sugar high on ice cream cones we got from the (also long gone) Emack and Bolio’s downstairs while waiting for a table. The night that started at Pegu Club ended at the Morton Williams on Bleecker street (with many bouncer rejections in between), where we bought steaks and flamed them with birthday whiskey on my friend’s tiny, dingy apartment stovetop. Then we stayed up till the sun rose watching Kill Bill. Maybe there’s something not so silly at all in mourning a fancy cocktail bar after all, and a vibrant memory of the city one loves.

Stay safe,

Soph