Michelle, bein’ all outdoorsy.

The newest member of the Liddabit Sweets caramel family actually has a long and rich history with the company. The banana is already a favorite ingredient; it’s used in our King bar when it’s pureed and mixed with white chocolate and a little heavy cream to make a delightful ganache. Its sweet fruitiness plays perfectly with the fatty saltiness of the peanut butter nougat (if you haven’t had one yet, a) WHAT?! and b) TRY IT).

But, the problem with bananas is that they become overripe quite quickly. In the early days, you see, even before I started working here, there was always a looming issue of what in the world some pastry chefs could do with some bananas that were, well, brown. The obvious conclusion: make banana bread! In fact, there were several now-fabled Liddabit banana bread cook-offs that occurred. Everybody brought in their favorite recipe, and the brown slimy ‘naners happily lent their still delightful flavor to some kick-ass banana bread. And snacks were had for daaaaaaays.

And so the tradition continued: whenever there were some half bunches in the fridge that were on their last legs, we just mooshed ‘em up, added some walnuts, or pecans or whatever we had on hand in the kitchen, and magically, breakfast was supplied for the weary pastry chefs for the week. Pretty good deal, and pretty economical of us too, if I do say so myself.

Then, one day this past fall, we were approached by the coolest bar around, PDT, to make a caramel for a drink garnish for one of their amazing super special cocktails.  We lurve working with the folks over there, so Jen and Liz went to check out the new drink, and the idea of doing a banana caramel was born.  Kinda makes a lot of sense- banana and caramel separately are already a winning combo (bananas foster, anyone?!), so putting the two together in a bite size chew was a challenge happily accepted.  We came up with a few different prototypes: some with cinnamon, some without, some with nuts, some without, etc etc.

While taste testing the batches, my personal FAVORITE part of the job, we all came to the same conclusion that ‘OHMIGOD batch number 2 tastes EXACTLY like banana bread and I wanna eat it all day every day’.

Welp, PDT chose another caramel to go with their drink, and we came to the pretty much unanimous conclusion that the banana bread caramel, with the pecans and all, must become a new item to sell to the masses. We just couldn’t keep a secret that was this  damn delicious.

And so, without further ado, the Banana Nut Caramel.  Eat it, and taste a little bit of what makes us Liddabit workers happy.

hearts,

Michelle

Jonathan (left, in cool glasses) with Jen (right, also in cool glasses).

I have always been fascinated with wedding cakes, which is odd since I’m not really a “bride” sorta gal. But I do really, really love wedding cakes. As it happens, I am getting married in the fall; and, alas, my fiancé Jonathan doesn’t really like cake (which has turned out to be a blessing because I can choose which flavor the wedding cake will be!). But it made me a little sad, not having something he really loved on the dessert table.

Giant Mallocake, pre-chocolating.

A few weeks ago, I had just made a batch of our chocomallow cookies (think homemade Mallomars), and Jonathan had such a grin on his face as he ate one; it got me thinking that it would be cool to have some at the wedding, so he could have some kind of groom’s cake. So I started to look around the kitchen, and happened upon a 10″ cake ring. A light bulb went on in my head – I realized I could do a giant chocomallow!

It worked beautifully – once it set, the big mallow-cake slid right out of the ring, and it just needed to be coated in chocolate. [Check out photos of the chocolate coating process on our Facebook page!]

I got really excited after that; I worked and played around a little more, and decided it would be super cute if we made mini cakes. I grabbed some flexi molds, baked off some smaller cookies, and made more marshmallow – then went through the whole process again for each mold. When I popped them out of the molds, Michelle and Jessie were all squeals and laughs – they were adorable. I dipped them in chocolate, added a white chocolate “L,” and we all just stared at them for a while, thinking: we have a winner!

…She makes it sound so easy, doesn’t she? Check out more photos of the Tally-Ho process on our Facebook page. Thanks for stopping by!  And again, you can buy these babies online right now. I highly recommend it.-Liz

Good Housekeeping, December 2012 [link to URL]

Oprah.com, November 29, 2012

The Los Angeles Times, Nov. 26, 2012

New York Daily News – October 14, 2012

Photo: localbozo.com

Soooo, we wrote this cookbook?  And then someone published it?  And then it was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public?  And then we had a party?  And it was super fun?

Many many many thanks again to those who came out to celebrate with us — and to those who couldn’t, no worries!  You can check out some coverage here and here.  We also leave for our book tour on Wednesday, so hopefully we can catch you somewheres in or near your hometown.

Speaking of the book tour: we’re starting to get really excited, and also terrified.  What if we’re late to something?  What if our flights are delayed/canceled?  What if we accidentally swear on TV?  Well, we’re just trying to breathe deep and stay calm.  SERENITY NOW.  …See?  It’s already working.

image: openclipart

At any rate, I’m hoping to be blogging along the way; so I’ll do my best to keep the Twitter feed updated with our markets; which, from here on out, will be the DUMBO Smorgasburg Market and New Amsterdam Market, both on Sunday.  But here you’ll mostly be seeing photos and stories of our travels across the country.  Wish us luck, and hope to see you there!

Much love,

Liz and Jen

New AmsterdamMarket

Hello, kittens!  I missed you all this week.  It’s been a doozy, I tell you what.  Kitchen issues continue, money issues continue, and — well, basically, all small-business-related problems continue.  But hey – I’m not here to complain at you.  I’m here to tell you where the heck we are this weekend.  Because INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

Saturday we’re back at the Fort Greene Flea!  It might be our last appearance at that particular Flea for a while, and the weather is going to be bee-yoo-ti-full, so get while the gettin’s good.

And, of course, Sunday we’re at New Amsterdam Market, as usual from 11-4.  BUT there’s also another treat — extra festivities for the East River Moon Festival!  There’ll be a lion dance, dumplings, Moon Cake…what else could you want?  There’s a Lantern Lighting after the market from 6-8pm with free refreshments, and Jen’s making some butter mochi specially for the occasion.  If you don’t know what butter mochi is, you HAVE TO GO TRY SOME.  You’ll thank me later.

In other news — well, that’s about it for this weekend!  I have a newsletter going out next week, so be sure to sign up (scroll down to the bottom of this page).  And if you haven’t RSVPed for our book launch party on October 9th, you should go and do that too.

See you at the markets!

Heart,

Liz and the Liddabit crew

photo: stock.xchng

Hey y’all!  Bet you thought I’d forgotten about the blog again, right?  Well, we just started doing markets again, and have been working on getting finalized dates for the tour (still in progress), and planning our book party (TO WHICH YOU SHOULD TOTALLY COME), and looking at new kitchen space, and all kinds of other nutso stuff.  Hence, the not blogging for a couple of weeks.  Since there’s so much going on, I’ll do my best to keep it brief and to the point:

SATURDAY, 9/22, marks our triumphant return to the fantastic Brooklyn Local market!  This year it’s at Pier 1 at Brooklyn Bridge Park; right near the water, amazing views, superlative treats, and all for a good cause – it benefits City Harvest.

SUNDAY, 9/23, we continue our weekly gig at the New Amsterdam Market!  We’ll have some brand-new goodies (UPDATE: Apricot-Chile caramels are available now!) and possibly a special deal or two; so don’t miss out.  The weather is going to be glorious this weekend!

Our Locations page is constantly being updated too – if you haven’t checked it out in a while, there’s a neat map feature that helps you find the Liddabit retailer closest to you.  And you’ll see some new faces in the crowd; notably the Chelsea and Paramus locations of Whole Foods, and locations in Santa Barbara (!) and TORONTO (!!).  So what are you waiting for?

photo: Peter D./Yelp!

Finally, Jen and I will be doing a tasting tonight, 9/21, from 5-9pm at Cobble Hill’s delightful Sugar Shop.  Michelle will be taking the helm around 7:30 so that Jen and I can go be judges at the pastry final tonight at our alma mater, The International Culinary Center.  Ah, the memories…

OK, c’est tout.  Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you at the markets!

heart,

Liz and the Liddabit crew

image: wikipedia

Well, it’s the day you’ve been awaiting/dreading: the day we announce our full (as of right now) tour roster and finish with the discount codes for guessing and whatnot.  A hearty congratulations to Kate Hollis for knowing that Providence, RI is home to the world’s largest termite!  Well, it’s blue and made of steel and fiberglass, but still.  Another awesome thing about the big blue bug? Since 1990, the termite has been known as Nibbles Woodaway.  Best name ever.

Alrighty! Are you ready for the final clue?  Of course you are.  You were BORN ready.

On the eleventh day of tour stops my publicist gave to me,

The last stand of Davy Crockett

A 58-foot-long blue termite [Providence]

 A cyclorama depicting a Civil War battle [Atlanta]

800+ Art Deco buildings [Miami]

A system of climate-controlled skyways [Minneapolis]

70 bronze longhorn steers [Dallas]

1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats [Austin]

Four hundred and forty-six bridgessss! [Pittsburgh]

The first word spoken on the moon [Houston]

An original (American) Irish coffee [San Francisco]

A giant copper acorn [Raleigh]

And the country’s first revolving eateryyy! [Seattle]

Make it count!

Heart,

Liz