Frosting a cake seems easy enough, but anyone who’s tried knows just how difficult it is to create a clean and smooth surface.

Pastry chef and cake artist Marina Sousa of JustCake.com creates exquisite party cakes (check out the portfolio on the website). She shares this trick of the trade: simple steps to a seamlessly iced cake:

1. BE DILIGENT. “It really starts in the oven,” says Sousa. “Baking the cake to the right consistency is essential for it to stay together.” So, don’t underbake, overbake or take creative license with the recipe!

2. COOL THE CAKE. Next, it’s important to let a cake properly cool before icing it. If the cake is still warm, the icing not adhere well.

3. START WITH A CRUMB COAT. Once it’s cooled, ice the cake with a thin layer of the frosting, which is called the “crumb coat.” Spreading this thin layer on and letting it dry will seal in all the little crumbs so they can’t mess up your final layer.

Your cakes may not be this fancy, but your frosting can be just as smooth. Photo courtesy JustCakes.com.  

4. ADD THE FINAL FROST. After about 15 minutes, it’s time for a second and final frost. Start with a thick layer on the sides, working from the top toward the bottom, always wiping off your spatula before putting it back in the icing bowl. Finally, spoon a mound of frosting in the center of the top of the cake and spread it out toward the edges. Take long strokes, all in the same direction, until you have a smooth, crumbless finish.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ICING & FROSTING

The difference between frosting and icing is in the sugar:

Icing is made with confectioners’ sugar (also called icing sugar), frosting is made with granulated sugar (table sugar). The two words are often used interchangeably, but that doesn’t make it correct!
 
Find our favorite cakes and cake recipes in our Gourmet Cakes Section.

No, this isn’t the cake, but one of the
creative appetizers at E&E Grill House:
smoky grilled bacon slabs on a salad of
Savoy cabbage dressed with aïoli and cider
vinegar. The cake is below. Photo courtesy
E&E Grill House.  

We recently were a guest at a relatively new steakhouse in New York City’s Theatre District. E&E Grill House is a lovely change of pace, with a much more modern vibe than the typical steakhouse, including sleek white walls with occasional splashes of color (like a red wall dominated by a colorful Alexander Calder print). With all respect to classic steakhouse decor—dark paneling, damask and leather banquettes—we prefer E&E’s style.

Chef Eric Simeon’s menu has creative flourishes, such as Peekytoe Crab Fritters With Thai Basil-Chili Sauce; Smoked Baby Beets With Goat Cheese, Fennel and Pistachio; and Tuscan Kale Salad with shaved watermelon radishes, pecorino cheese and bread crumbs in a honey-and-whole-grain-mustard vinaigrette. For vegetarians, there’s Smoked & Grilled Tofu with grilled broccolini and yuzu-ginger sauce. Here’s a photo gallery of the food).

Your choice of beef cut can be garnished with one of eight sauces, including Benedict, Blue Cheese Brulee, Caramelized Shallots, Cultured Bone Marrow Butter, Bearnaise, Roasted Garlic-Mustard, Salt-Cured Foie Gras and Telicherry Peppercorn. The service is great.

AND THEN THERE’S THE CAKE

As much as we enjoyed our beef dishes, we left dreaming of a dessert called Birthday Cake: velvet chocolate cake (deep chocolate, not red velvet) with cream cheese frosting and a side of confetti ice cream—a ball of vanilla rolled in rainbow sprinkles.

It was so good, we couldn’t wait for our next trip to the neighborhood—just for the Birthday Cake.

Not your birthday? That’s OK: It’s your un-birthday. Or, as the Mad Hatter, March Hare and White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland so memorably sing:

“Now statistics prove that you’ve one birthday
Imagine, just one birthday every year
Ah, but there are 364 unbirthdays
Precisely why we’re gathered here to cheer.”

Want a weekend cooking project? Bake this cake! It may be just the thing to bake for Father’s Day, too.

Thanks to E&E pastry chef Christopher Peneiro for sharing his delectable Birthday Cake recipe with us.

A cranberry-lemonade mocktail. Photo by
Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.  

Mixologists invent new cocktails all the time. They look at the ingredients around them, and start combining.

You can do the same with mocktails, mixed drinks without alcohol. One of the most historic is shandy, a 50:50 combination of beer mixed with a carbonated beverage: cider, citrus soda (like 7-UP), ginger beer, ginger ale or lemonade.

The shandy is also called a half-and-half. And then there’s the Arnold Palmer, a non-alcoholic shandy made of half lemonade and half iced tea.

So today’s tip is: Create your own signature mocktail.

Start with a half-and-half recipe of your favorite ingredients. Make a small test recipe—a half cup or so.

You can turn it into a family or friends activity by inviting others to join you as co-mixologists. If you enjoy the exercise, you can make it a party activity, with a prize for the best recipe.

What should you mix?

Start with fruit sodas (cherry, cranberry, lemon-lime, raspberry, etc.), club soda and fruit juices (apple juice, lemonade, pomegranate juice, etc.). Add bitters if you enjoy them (we love them!), and top off your creation with a squeeze of lemon or lime.

To start you off, here’s a mocktail combination from Whole Foods Market, an enhancement of the raspberry-lime Rickeys of our youth:

 
For more lime flavor, juice a lime and add a teaspoon per eight-ounce serving.

Herb-laced gnudi. Photo © Comugnero
Silvana | Fotolia.  

Do you like gnocchi, ravioli and tortellini, but not the carbs? Get to know gnudi: It’s the filling without the pasta or the potatoes. Essentially, gnudi are a low-carb way to enjoy pasta.

Chef Johnny Gnall shares an easy gnudi recipe. If you have questions or suggestions for tips, email Chef Johnny.

GNOCCHI VERSUS GNUDI

Gnocchi, Italian for dumplings (pronounced NYOH-kee) are chewy pillows that are shaped into little balls or ovals. They are most often made with white or sweet potatoes, then boiled, baked or fried. They can be flavored: basil, spinach, tomato and saffron are popular. They’re served with butter and grated Parmesan cheese or a sauce.

Gnudi (pronounced NYOO-dee) means nude in Italian. Gnudi consist of pasta filling—what you find inside tortellini or ravioli—shaped into small, flattened balls without any dough. A common recipe includes ricotta, spinach and Parmesan cheese. The gnudi are then sautéed or baked.

Gnudi can be served with marinara sauce, mushroom ragoût, pan-sautéed cherry tomatoes, fresh peas, crispy pancetta or whatever inspires you. You can cook them in herb butter, or in plain butter with a sprinkle of fresh herbs atop the gnudi. I like the traditional brown butter-sage sauce.

Gnudi are referred to as “cousins” of gnocchi because both are dumpling-like, but gnocchi are typically chewy and heavy from the potato, and potato-less gnudi are delicate pillows bound with egg and cheese.

The recipe below calls for spinach, but you can substitute any hearty green—I also enjoy it with chard or kale. Basic gnudi with just egg, cheese, and a little flour, but the greens help bind and give the gnudi a nice color.

Take your time when first making gnudi: Like any dough, especially one with such low flour content, it takes a while to get a feel for the process. The small amount of flour, however, helps to keep your dough from getting quickly overworked and tough.

I like gnudi with a sage and brown butter sauce, but they work well with any number of sauces. Even something as simple as some melted butter and fresh grated Parmesan will make them absolutely delicious!

Don’t let asparagus season pass you by! The delicious vegetable is in season for only another month or so.

Watch Alton Brown demonstrate how easy it is to steam asparagus in the microwave. (In the video, is he hanging upside down, or is that trick photography?)

Steamed fresh asparagus don’t even need butter: A sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon or lime makes a delectable, low-calorie dish. When we’re cutting back on cholesterol, we use fat-free Greek yogurt with lemon zest and a bit of garlic salt as a side dip.

Find more of our favorite vegetable recipes.

We love skate, a group of cartilaginous fishes belonging to the family Rajidae, the rays. The firm white flesh, which comes from the “wings” of the ray, is sweet, succulent and distinctively delicious.

We always order skate when we see it on a menu—invariably at a French or seafood restaurant. Often, it is served in brown butter with capers; but however it is prepared, it is always a treat.

Because skate isn’t the easiest fish to find at the market, we never cooked it at home—until this super-easy recipe sent us on a skate wing hunt. The recipe is from Brooklyn Wok Shop, a New York restaurant that has reinterpreted Cantonese cuisine using classic French techniques.

Chef Edric Har worked at some of New York City’s great restaurants (Le Bernardin, Veritas, Cru) and his wife, Melissa, grew up in her family’s Chinese restaurants in Orlando. They call their concept Chinese Food 2.0.

Skate has a delicious white flesh that is distinctly different from other fish. Photo courtesy Brooklyn Wok Shop.  

We enjoyed the recipe so much, we’ve made skate our tip Of The Day. It may not be easy to find, so call around to your local fish stores.

Skate with Ginger and Scallions

Serves 2-3 with a side of rice.

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Cut each skate wing in half to create two palm sized pieces.

2. In a pot large enough to fit all the fillets, fill with water about 5 inches deep and bring to a boil. Note: The skate will curl as it cooks, so allow enough water to cover.

3. Once the water is boiling, season with salt and add the skate. Turn off the heat and cover with a tight fitting lid. Cook 3-4 minutes, depending on the thickness of the skate.

4. Remove fish to a plate with a slotted spoon and top with scallions and ginger.

5. Heat canola oil until just smoking and pour over the ginger and scallions. Drizzle soy sauce over the fish and season with white pepper. Serve with rice and a side of your favorite greens (broccoli rabe or conventional broccoli go nicely).

 
Find more of our favorite fish and seafood recipes.

A turkey burger Caribbean-style, topped with
a grilled pineapple slice. Photo courtesy
Kikkoman.  

America is burger crazy: Burgers are our most popular food. And those burgers are usually beef.

But there are other burgers, equally delicious: bison, grain (usually sprouted), lamb, legume (black beans, lentils), turkey and veggie burgers.

The next time you cook burgers, try a “burger bar” with an assortment of proteins. We’ve become converts to lamb burgers—plain, curried or topped with feta cheese. Lamb lovers will find them so much tastier than beef.

With so many burgers consumed, there’s lots of room for creativity. Check out:

Do you know the history of the hamburger?

If you love food, you may love learning more about it. Museums mount enlightening exhibits that put the history of our mainstay foods in perspective.

Take beer. The New York Historical Society has just opened an exhibit called Beer Here, Brewing New York’s History. Chock full of artifacts, the exhibit runs through September 2, 2012.

At the conclusion of the exhibit, you step into a “tavern” to taste some outstanding craft beers from New York brewers. The selection varies daily. We happened to catch the new Small Batch IPA from Heartland Brewery, a brewpub with seven Manhattan locations. The IPA’s complex layering of herbal and floral flavors and aromas is simply thrilling.

But you don’t have to be in Manhattan to find an exhibit on beer, hot dogs, tacos and other favorite foods. Check with your local museums, historical societies and academic institutions to see what they may be cooking up.

Engraving of a 16th century brewery. Image courtesy Wikimedia.  

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEER IN CITIES

As cities grew and local water supplies became polluted, microbes in the water caused disease in the population. People could not safely consume water that had not been boiled.

But beer making boils the water and kills the pathogens. Plus, in the 19th centuries it was discovered that the hops used to flavor beer had antipathogenic and preservative properties (and were even made into medicines).

Beer was one of the most common beverages in the Middle Ages, consumed daily by all social classes in the northern and eastern parts of Europe. Beer also provided a considerable amount of the daily calorie intake. Until clean municipal water supplies were developed in the 19th century, even young children drank beer.

In addition to serving as a vital source of nourishment, beer was a steady source of tax revenue.

If you’ve never made delicious grilled portabella mushrooms, firing up the grill on Memorial Day weekend is an opportunity to cook these fab fungi.

Small, brown cremini mushrooms, the size of white button mushrooms, grow up into more complex-flavored portabellas. Meaty in both taste and appearance, they grow from three inches to an enormous 10 inches in diameter, with firm flesh. Like meat, they even release juices when cooked.

Scrumptious on their own, portabellas are also a food of choice for dieters, vegans, vegetarians and those watching their cholesterol. They can be grilled in lieu of beef, and they make wonderful grilled vegetable sandwiches.

Served them whole or sliced, stuffed or as “burgers.” For a simple yet elegant starter, serve sliced grilled portobellas drizzled with a balsamic reduction (recipe below), with some greens on the side (we love a feisty arugula-fennel-watercress combination with a few grape tomatoes).

Portabella mushroom caps on the grill. Photo courtesy BongCookbook.com.  

Originally available wild from December to March, portabellas are now cultivated year round.

Get the recipe for a portabella Philly Cheese “Steak” (photo below) and this beautiful portabella recipe, stuffed with a salad of microgreens and sprinkled with goat cheese.

When we think of the good old scouting days, making S’mores in the woods by toasting marshmallows on a peeled branch over a crackling campfire, we think:

Why didn’t Mom let us make S’mores in the backyard on the grill, sparing us the poison ivy and mosquito bites? The answer, most likely, is that she didn’t want us stripping the forsythia and pussy willow bushes. (Those were the days before the advent of metal marshmallow skewers.)

But no plant is denuded to make these delicious S’mores-on-the-grill.

This recipe suggestion comes from the folks at Tastefully Simple, who used their creamy caramel sauce to make S’mores even more festive.

S’MORES WITH CREAMY CARAMEL SAUCE

Makes 4 cookie sandwiches.

Turn this Girl Scout standard into a cookout favorite. Image courtesy Tastefully Simple, Inc. Used with permission.
 

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Roast marshmallows on a skewer over a grill or low flame, until browned and puffed.

2. Place a graham cracker square on a small plate; top with a square of chocolate and the hot marshmallow.

3. Top with second graham cracker square; drizzle with warmed caramel sauce.

MORE FUN WITH S’MORES