Cupcakes in Seoul

One of the things I enjoy about Seoul are the food courts located in the department stores. Think more Harrods than the food court in a mall. Anyway, I needed a break and there were some cupcake stands so I decided to try a couple.

One was a chocolate mint cupcake, the other was banana.

One thing I've noticed right off the bat is that the sweets in Seoul are not as sweet as in the states. I think that's typical, but the cupcakes were not overly sweet.

The chocolate mint was okay. I wanted to like it more than I did. The cake was a little dry, but not too sweet. I really did like the frosting. It was smooth.

The best thing, though, about this cupcake was the name!

It gives a girl ideas. If nothing else, I knew it was my cupcake. I had wanted to ask for some stickers, but I didn't. Besides, my Korean probably wouldn't have been good enough for it.

Anyway, the banana cupcake was more moist, which was welcome after the mint chocolate cupcake. Again, nice job on the frosting. Not too sweet, smooth, and good banana flavor.

I didn't understand why it had mini-marshmellows on top, though. I understand the need for garnish, but it should have something to do with the flavor, right?

The Filling Station Doesn't Fall Short

As most people who know me or have read this or the running blog, I love burgers. I would go out of my way for a great burger place. And I did over the holidays - not much, but it was a drive.

My cousin, BC, had mentioned that he'd found this great burger place by his house called The Filing Station. So, when I was home over the holidays, I thought I'd try it out. I can see why this would be a great place in the summer. It's really about outdoor seating, since it's like an old curbside shack you would have found in the 1950s. For the winter, they did provide "indoor seating" but it was basically a nice, wooden tent over the shack. It was cute.

Anyway, I ordered a burger and a side of fries. What I really enjoyed about this place was they offered dipping sauces - truffle aioli, spicy ketchup, ancho chile mayo, tartar sauce, blue cheese dip and spicy honey mustard. The chef/order taker recommended the truffle aioli, so I got that.

Out came the burger, fries and dipping sauce. The fries were good, but the dipping sauce made them great! It was so flavorful and tasty. And you didn't need a lot of it. I had dipping sauce left over. As for the burger. It was also really good. It was the meat - I think it had a lot of flavor to it. The burger was also cooked to order. So I asked for medium and it came out medium. All in all, it was worth the drive to Palisades.

I went back with BC, CC and TK, on New Year's Day. I got one of the names burgers - the Texaco. It was good, but not as spicy as I would have thought. I also got the ancho chili mayo this time around. Also, quite yummy, although not as rich as the truffle aioli. But I think the Fill'r up burger will be my standard when I go back. And yes, I will go back! If only to get a beer with my burger next time around. They had a nice selection of New York State microbrews.

Making Sugar Cookies

As usual, I went on a holiday cookie binge this past December. I made peanut butter blossoms. I branched out into a couple of bar cookies - m&m bars. And, of course, I made sugar cookies. After years of trying out different recipes, I think I've found the one I like. It's based off of Alton Brown's Sugar Cookie recipe.

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon milk - (go a little shy on this (you'll see why at the in a bit)
• Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough
• 1/2-1 teaspoon of vanilla (this is my addition to the recipe

It's your typical cookie recipe: sift together the dry ingredients, cream sugar and butter, mix wet ingredients, gradually add dry ingredients into the wet ones. Put the dough into 2 equal disks and refrigerate. (I do this overnight, but you should do this at least for a couple of hours.)

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick and use your cookie cutters. Bake at 375 for 7-10 mins (depending on size and thickness).

Then you decorate!

I used a royal icing:

• 3 T of Meringue Powder
• 4 cups of confestioners' sugar
• warm water - at least 6 T, but really have more on hand

Mix the dry ingredients and then gradually add the warm water. Stir it in completely, stopping to check consistency as  you go along.   Once you get it to the consistency you want, divide the icing and add color gels to get different colored icing.

As you can see, I went a little overboard on colors and decorations this year.

I found that if it was smooth enough, you could do this lovely design that reminded my of venitian paper. Basically, you choose a a color as the base of the cookie, put another color frosting as stripes on top, and then, with a toothpick go back and forth. The icing has to be runny or it won't work well. The cookie gloves are a really good example. 

In the past,  I have invited friends over to help decorate. With the move, I wasn't really able to do that, but next year I hope to. It's more fun that way and decorating 2 dozen cookies can be taxing after awhile. Still, I want to get better. That means actually piping borders and using tips to decorate rather than a butter knife.

We'll see how spring sugar cookies come out.

Doughnut Plant Conclusion

After running around Seoul - figuratively, not literally - I did not find a Doughnut Plant. I found  alot of other U.S. chains from Burger King to Jamba Juice. But alas, no Doughnut Plant.