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Pasta & Pinatas.

To end the week, snapshots from two recent culinary experiments - one failed, the other fruitful. 

In the first, the lovely Lily and I attempted to bake this magical-looking pinata cake featured recently on A Subtle Revelry for a friend's birthday. If you click through, you'll see that Victoria's cake is perfectly spherical and delightfully tender-crumbed. Our version, however, collapsed immediately, its texture resembling something closer to wet sand than soft pastry. ("It's an art piece," we decided.) Luckily, our birthday girl loved it unconditionally.


In the second experiment, a group of friends (the same ones mentioned here) and I decided to try our hand at making pasta from scratch. Equipped with a pasta roller, a drying rack meant for clothing, and a couple of pounds of expensive sausage, we set to work, churning out a batch each of linguine, fusilli, and orecchiette.  To our amazement, everything was delicious. The prep time totaled several hours, but hey. It was worth it.


Success! We plan on making ravioli next, and then I'd love to try tagliatelle - this could end up being a summer of many pastas. I'm certainly game.

In the meantime, wishing you all a wonderful weekend! Any interesting plans?

20 comments:

  1. I made homemade pasta for the other night for the first time, too! Delicious. I made tagliatelle and topped it with goat cheese, lemon juice and zest, and fresh basil.

    Oh. Em. Gee. So good.

    Summer of pasta! I'm in.

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  2. oh my god shoko, you are a dream!

    ps: that cake is mad awesome :)

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  3. LOOKS DELICIOUS!!!

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  4. You ladies look so lovely!
    I would love to try making pasta from scratch too! YUM!

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  5. Sooo jealous! I have always wanted to try to make pasta! I don't have a pasta roller, or a fancy cutter, but I'm still going to try making fettuccine with a rolling pin and a knife.

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  6. Summer of pasta sounds like a brilliant idea.

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  7. Christa, that sounds delicious - I'm inspired!

    Ethaney, thank you so much - what a lovely thing to say :)

    Tara, go for it! And post pictures!

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  8. How did Victoria ever get that cake so perfect??

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  9. How fun! Two of my favorite things, birthday cake and pasta!

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  10. 1. YUM. Adding pasta making to summer activities list!
    2. Have a great weekend!

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  11. Anon, trust me, I wonder the same thing. She's a wiz!

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  12. Ha - when I saw the pinata cake originally, I thought to myself "mine would surely collapse and be a total disaster"... I love that you dubbed yours an "art piece". It's perfect.

    Also - FRESH PASTA! i'm both impressed and inspired... (and hungry).

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  13. The cake looks like a celebration in itself. Way to go. I'm sure the birthday girl loved the effort you guys went to to make her a cake. And you were probably your worse critic.

    The pasta party sounds like it was a blast! A delicious blast, that is.

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  14. I am so inspired by your pasta adventure!!! Been meaning to try this for ages on my own--I made gnocci in a cooking class once and it was so cool. :)

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  15. I have a recipe for vegan eggless pasta: http://madebyjulianne.com/?p=405

    I've been getting the urge to make pasta for the past few weeks, and your post just might send me over the edge. I love that you made it a party!

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  16. Joey, gnocchi would be awesome! Adding that to the list :)

    Julianne, thank you so much for sharing that! Bookmarking!

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  17. So fun! I'm glad your baking disaster was still edible and enjoyed by the birthday girl. I've always wanted to make pasta! It seems like a fun (albeit time consuming) project!

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  18. The picture of you guys with your creation is so cute. Kudos for trying!!!

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  19. cool! we are moving back to park slope for a year or two (nadav's film work).. would love to see you + try some gluten-free pasta making. xo

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  20. Zivar, yes!! I would love that!

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