Fondant Follies

Our friends at Walzwerk, a wonderful East German restaurant, recently celebrated their 10 year anniversary, and I was asked to make 100 cupcakes to commemorate the occasion. An exciting challenge!

I wanted to make something very special with the "W" logo, which as you can see from the awning is a very industrial, straight-sided logo that also looks like smokestacks. I went to the store and bought a tub of fondant (also known as gum paste), and had fun playing with it. It's so easy - you just roll it out like cookie dough, cut it, and stick it on. It has the consistency of play dough, so it's easy to use but will dry out if you leave it out too long.

I bought a set of mini cookie cutters in the alphabet, so that all of the letters would look uniform. The "W" didn't look right though, but I found that when I used the "M" upside down, it had more of that straight-sided look.

To emulate the look of the smoke stacks, I used a toothpick dipped in vanilla bean paste and made pinpricks and lines at the top of each one (hopefully this helped them not look so much like upside down M's as well). It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed figuring out the process. The cupcakes were dark chocolate, with chocolate fudge frosting - next time I might not use the star tip, but something that would give them a little bit less height - that frosting is so thick it will not lay down for anything. Nevertheless, I was pleased with them.

It's great to be able to participate in your friends' milestone events, and contribute to the celebration in a personal way.

Summer of My German Sandwich

It was an exciting week for our friends Christiane and David, who opened Schmidt's Deli on Wednesday, on the corner of Folsom and 20th Street in the Mission. We were invited to a special tasting lunch for friends and family on Tuesday, and were so delighted with the experience! The restaurant is only open for lunch now, to be followed with a limited dinner menu of sausages and beer, and then brunch.


Their other restaurant, Walzwerk, has been a longtime favorite of ours. The atmosphere there is wonderfully dark and moody, a place where you want to meet to receive secret instructions to carry out a worldwide plan. Schmidt's, on the other hand, is light and bright, but with the same straightforward, simple attitude, and rooted in East German cuisine. They are printing paper menus now (above) but will eventually do away with them and just print the day's offerings on the large corkboards.


The food was great - and although the menu was small, it had something for everyone. I brought my friend Sean, who is a vegetarian, and there were just as many dishes for him to choose from as there were for carnivores, and I think he was pleasantly surprised.

We started with an assortment of organic German sodas, similar in taste to ginger ale.


Then we shared an amazing salad - Mache with Raw Asparagus, Pistachios, and shaved Ementhaler cheese. What great flavor.


We also shared the Herbed Spatzle, which is one of my favorite dishes at Walzwerk. It is the ultimate comfort food, and has the taste of a dumpling with the texture of a fried noodle. So so good.


Sean enjoyed the Rudabaga/Kohlrabi Gratin, which I was able to taste - it was rich, cheesy, and delicious.


My husband and I both had the Veal Schnitzel Sandwich with a fried egg on top - perfectly cooked, crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside, and hell, a fried egg makes even the best thing even better.


Believe it or not, we also had room for dessert, which we gobbled up so fast that I didn't even have time to photograph it. Silky chocolate pudding and a nice piece of apple strudel - a great ending.

I am so proud of our friends and can tell that they have a success on their hands. The place has been a long time coming, so it's great to see the result of all of their hard work. The fact that they do this full time along with the other restaurant, David's furniture business, and a beautiful baby girl to take care of is simply inspiring. I wish them the best and look forward to many long, sun-filled lunches at Schmidt's.