angostura bitters pineapple upside down cake

If you like pop music, I am utterly convinced that you would, like me, find Hanson’s 2010 release Shout it Out to be the penultimate pop record. I would like to preface by stating that if you don’t like Hanson, you are either a guy, or are someone who must not actually like pop music. Or both.

Between them, the brothers Hanson have about 35 kids, and yet they are still able to devote time to crafting perfect pop music. With each record they’ve released, their sound has remained essentially the same (due to Taylor’s charismatically identifiable vocals), and yet their songs have become richer, deeper, and – I believe – respectable to the point of being labeled as perfect pop songs. If all you know of them is MMMBop, then to be honest, you don’t know jack.

Their new one. And it is amazeballs!

The Hanson of present-day seem to be a well-kept secret, closeted amongst women who spend their days reminiscing of the 1990s, clutching their dog-eared copies of Baby-sitters Club and Saddle Club novels, wearing their faded ☆NSYNC t-shirts, and occasionally re-watching Spice World while staring at those impossible platform boots and remembering how damn much they wanted that one pair with flames down the sides available from the dELIA*s catalog that one time. Err, right. So I’m just describing myself, but that’s only because I haven’t yet met any other fans of Hanson’s recent discography.

The above enamored discourse is coincidentally well-timed. While I had planned to just write paragraph upon paragraph on why listening to the 3-year old Shout it Out while baking made for the best-tasting pineapple upside-down cake ever, I found whilst doing my bimonthly “where are they now?” search that [sound the bugles!] Hanson have a new single being released tomorrow, on April 9th (SQQQQQQQUUUUUEEEEEEE!!) with a full album and world tour to follow in June. From my strategically-placed location in the middle of nowhere (get it?!???), I could make it to like four stops of the tour. Ohmygosh.

Anyway, the guy in my life much prefers pineapple upside-down cake to Hanson. I try to make it for him a few times every year, although I’ve never made it the same way twice. That might change now that I’ve baked up what you see here.

The juicy sweetness of the canned pineapple and maraschino cherries is fancifully paired with Angostura bitters – that same mysterious mixture of herbs and spices commonly used as an additive to cocktails. Given that my drink of choice is an Old Fashioned (Sweet), garnished with orange and maraschino cherry and flavored with bitters, finding myself in the kitchen liberally dousing pineapple cake batter with Angostura isn’t such a stretch.

Angostura Bitters Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

{recipe inspiration here}

2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pan
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
3-4 dashes Angostura bitters
6 pineapple rings (canned, juice reserved)
Maraschino cherries

Heat oven to 350F. Butter an 8″ square pan, line with a square of parchment paper, and butter the parchment. Cream butter, brown sugar, and bitters in a small bowl. Spread mixture into the prepared pan – I find that five or six seconds in the microwave helps to give this mixture sufficiently easy spreadage. Place pineapple rings and Maraschino cherries as desired on top of the butter mixture. I was able to fit five rings, plus a sixth that had been cut into quarters.

10 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 c. granulated sugar
1 1/2 c. flour
heaping 1/2 tsp salt
heaping 1/4 tsp baking soda
heaping 1/4 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 c. Greek yogurt (I used peach-flavored)
4 tsp pineapple juice (reserved from can)
5-10 dashes Angostura bitters

In the bowl of a stand mixer (using the paddle attachment), or by hand if you’d like a brief workout, beat the 10 tbsp butter with granulated sugar for several minutes, until light, fluffy and fully mixed. Meanwhile, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a medium bowl.

When the butter mixture is fully incorporated, add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture in two parts, alternating with the Greek yogurt, pineapple juice, and bitters.

Pour batter into pan over fruit, spreading evenly with a spatula, pushing batter into the corners and along the pan’s edges.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, rotating once, until cake is caramelized and golden brown on the edges, and cooked through. Remove from oven, and set on a cooling rack for 30-45 minutes. When cool, turn out onto a plate, remove parchment paper, and serve.

Pineapple upside-down cake: making cats jealous since always.

i come from brooklyn cause that’s where i’m from: mast brothers chocolate

Four and three and two and one (What up!)
And when I’m on the mic the suckers run (Word!)

[The New Style]

It’s fair to say that my obsession with Beastie Boys music has come close to dominating my (musical) life over the past few years. This obsession began at age 14, upon receiving a mix tape from a friend containing the seminal Beasties track Shake Your Rump. Obsession over the song went nowhere fast for the next nine or so years, for although I purchased Paul’s Boutique and Ill Communication, I didn’t do much real listening.

Which was foolish, because if my obsession had begun earlier, there is a good chance that I could have seen the Beastie Boys perform live. Over the past couple of years, when my manic need to listen to made-for-angsty-40-oz-chugging-white-boys’ rap music has been at an all-time high, I probably could have seen them perform, somewhere.

And I could have swooned over that once-angsty-then-aged-Buddhist-male belonging to my favorite voice of the three Beasties: MCA. Unfortunately, Adam Yauch lost a three-year battle to throat cancer earlier this month, at a severely-unfair young age. How frighteningly prophetic it seems that, when I asked my boyfriend last year to guess which Beastie’s voice I enjoyed the most, he without pause queried, “The one who sounds like he’s dying?”

So from one faceless fan who relates to his music through his artistic flow, memorable voice, and well-played lyrics, your genius is sorely missed, MCA. And your memory will live on, in such great quotes as…

It’s good to have the turn to be the king for a day
Or for a week or for a year or for a year in a day
Come what may

[Year And A Day]

or

Gotta keep it going, keep it going full steam
Too sweet to be sour, too nice to be mean

[Intergalactic]

or even

What the ponytail, I don’t eat snail
I’ll steal your keys and then I’ll check your mail

[Oh Word?]

I spent a recent weekend in Brooklyn, the bustling New York City borough that MCA was proud to call home. And I of course made a pilgrimage to the hip mecca of craft chocolate production: Mast Brothers.

Going from unpopulated northern Maine to a place overrun with people who move fast and never seem to sleep was a bit like having a heart attack… but in a good way. I loved my weekend away, and would return for another day and half in a heartbeat, despite the additional 24 hours that we spent traveling there and back.

Mast Brothers is a company that is incredibly with-it. Memorable packaging and logo? Check. Fetchingly vague website? Check. Affable and charismatic figurehead chocolate makers embodying the dream of the 1890s? Check. A wide-open chocolate shop and factory in a city where space may be the most prized possession? Check.

But the Mast Brothers seem to stand for more than just an it company. They sell large tablet pieces of chocolate, as well as oversized (and in my opinion, whimsical) chocolate bars, which I can’t imagine appeal to the typical customers who walk through their door. They connect with their surrounding community by bringing musical events into the shop. They have a pastry chef.

And they use some of the wealth that it company status must have afforded them in fascinating ways, such as when they chartered a ship in 2011 to the Dominican Republic to pick up a nearly 20-ton shipment of cacao beans, in an effort to mitigate their oil dependence.

There was an abundance of chocolate samples on-site, of which I found myself most enjoying the Moho River, with cacao from southern Belize. My friend Linnea tried a brownie, which she found to be good-but-not-great. I have little interest in brownies, so I went straight for my raison d’être: chocolate bars.

I’ve sampled most of the Mast Brothers bars, but I left Williamsburg with three that I have not previously tasted: the aforementioned Moho River, the Black Truffle, and the Vanilla & Smoke.

What follows is a review of the Vanilla & Smoke bar.

Despite the packaging, there’s no zig zag smoke (like Doggy Dog is all about) in this bar. A bit misleading of a name, I originally thought the Vanilla & Smoke bar with 71% cacao of Papua New Guinea origin might contain some sort of tobacco essence. Rather, their Papua New Guinea cacao beans were smoked after fermentation, before being combined with bourbon vanilla, stone-ground, and aged.

The result is really quite interesting. The bar has an intensely crisp snap, and an aroma that reminds me of fudge, earthiness, and smoked meat all at once. The smoky flavor develops slowly on the palate, becoming fully formed and somewhat spicy after a good fifteen to twenty seconds. At the back of the palate were pronounced acidic and fruity notes, which I believe detracted from the added vanilla. I would be curious to try the ‘plain’ Papua New Guinea bar, which also features smoked cacao, to see how much the contribution of bourbon vanilla adds to this bar.

My one complaint was that the bar was poured into the mold unevenly. Upon opening the packaging, I thought of how much thinner this bar was from previous Mast Brothers bars. In looking at the chocolate in profile, however, I found that the opposite end of the bar was much too thick. While this wouldn’t ordinarily bother me too much, I have been reading lately about growing inconsistencies that others have found in Mast Brothers’ products.

I hope that the Mast Brothers can address the concerns that have recently been lobbied against their chocolate, and regain the reputation that recognized them as leaders in the artisan chocolate movement. I echo Candice‘s suggestion of reduced acidity and astringency in these chocolate bars: if a chocolate bar’s predominant notes are bitter and sour, something is wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the taste of this Vanilla & Smoke bar, but would like to see the finished product ameliorated by more thoroughly bringing out the cacao’s flavor profile.

Mast Brothers Chocolate

111 N 3rd St
Brooklyn, NY 11249

Hours
Open daily, 12h00-19h00