Just when you thought there was a recession going on and that conspicuous consumption was out, Neiman Marcus brings you its annual Christmas Book, with their limited-edition Jaguars selling out in record time.
One of this year's offerings from the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book.
And offers this: a cupcake car. At $25,000 a pop.
Who is buying these? Can I be you?
I tried Red Velvet (the lime and red velvet flavors) when they first opened and remember being indifferent. They seem to have stepped up their game a bit since then. Pretty impressive presentation, right?
We liked the chocolate ganache better than the red velvet, but both were good. If chocolate ganache is your thing, I still recommend the Gianduja cupcake from Hello Cupcake over this though. Sorry, Red Velvet. That Italian hazelnut paste in the Gianduja edged you out.
However, Red Velvet recently did have a limited-time flavor that we thought was pretty amazing: honey fig. We bought the very last one of the day. I had to mentally will the woman in front of me not to buy it. The honey buttercream, paired with the cooked fig center and flavorful cake was heaven. Although not exactly ecofriendly, I appreciate how the individual box kept the cupcake intact on the journey home. (Some places give you individual cupcakes in a bag, so half the frosting winds up stuck to the bag).
I’m also really happy that they partner with Tangysweet. The Tangysweet in Penn Quarter is right next door to Red Velvet. Plus, the Dupont Circle Tangysweet location actually carries 4-5 flavors of Red Velvet’s cupcakes on any given day, so you can get your froyo and your cupcake on–at the same time!
The New York Times had an article today on this. Cake Wrecks has been the hub for cakes with terrible spelling/grammatical errors (“I LAVE YOU”), cakes that look like they survived Katrina and cakes that are just odd. Example below.
Photo: cakewrecks.com/Andrews McMeel Publishing
Read this article here: http://bit.ly/k02QN
Buy the book here: http://bit.ly/Ed4d
Related post: http://pievcake.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/please-proofread-your-cakes/
Yet again I victimize my wallet by going shopping hungry. Well, I must’ve been ravenously hungry, because pineapple cake isn’t something I usually go for. I believe this was $3.99 for a mini cake. It’s not bad, but not crave-worthy. After 4 days, half of it is sitting in my fridge.
DailyCandy featured this line today, Purely Elizabeth, whose muffin and pancake mixes are free of dairy, wheat, gluten and sugar. It’s a line started by a holistic nutrition counselor, available online and in health foods stores.
Incidentally, I was reading this morning about the new Alicia Silverstone lifestyle book that, like Skinny Bitch, encourages a vegan diet. Silverstone insists that you don’t have to give up on flavor by going vegan. Hopefully this muffin mix proves that to be true. Sometimes it seems the bar is so low for vegan treats that my vegan friends end up gushing about any halfway-decent goodie, simply grateful for its existence. So I feel for them.
Meamwhile, don’t mind me while I keep on scarfing down my unhealthy buttery, sugary, egg-based baked goods.
Frozen yogurt and cupcakes. In a mall, no less. Not a bad combination to bring to the masses. Also, it seems like a pretty sound business model. Since frozen yogurt sales suffer during the colder months, the cupcakes can pick up the slack, like at Red Velvet-TangySweet. (TangySweet rolled out a gourmet hot chocolate last winter before it began offering cupcakes). Meanwhile, Sweet Green’s Sweetflow Mobile is going to keep rolling this winter, but still figuring out how it’s going to diversify its products for the cold-weather months.
Anyway, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the opening of Yocake (see related post) and went this past weekend to try it out.
http://pievcake.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/yogurt-cake-yocake/
The storefront looked like a cross between a cupcakery, with its platters of cupcakes, and Iceberry, with its TV screens.
Yogurt: It reminded us of the frozen yogurt at Sweet Green (true to the flavor of vanilla yogurt that you’d pick up in the dairy case) minus the sour tang. We liked it but missed the tartness.
Hazelnut-praline-ganache cupcake: The ganache was everything you want a ganache to be. Rich, creamy and slightly bitter. The cake had a cinnamon-type swirl with pecan pieces throughout. I liked it; Mr X-sXe found it a little dry. We both wished there was more icing, but it’s probably hard to layer it with a ganache of that consistency.
Would we go back? We probably wouldn’t drive out of our way, but if we were at the mall and needed a snack, definitely.
Bruno (who unsuccessfully tried to get Eminem to teabag him at the MTV Movie Awards) argued that a mutual love of hummous might be the answer to peace in the Middle East.
Turns out cupcakes are a likelier contender.
Read this piece about the Sugar Daddy’s Bakery chain in the Middle East. (BTW the Pink Velvet, made with pomegranate juice, sounds amazing.)
A teaser: “As a young student at the multinational Aramaco school in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Fadi Jaber, a son of Palestinian refugees, always preferred his American classmates’ cupcakes, brownies and chocolate chip cookies to his mother’s pastries: knafah, qatayef and baklawah. But when he tasted a vanilla-frosted vanilla cupcake from the Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village in 2004, it changed his life.”
(Notice there was no reference to Jaber coveting his American classmates’ pie slices.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/dining/23cake.html?_r=1&em
As the Sugar Daddy's site ingeniously points out, "stressed" is "desserts" spelled backwards.
Last night, Food Network’s “Unwrapped” featured a Cincinnati company that specializes in one thing: pizza cakes. Everything you see is sweet cake goodness. They even have a brownie version.
Mail order it at http://mypizzacake.com/
Are whoopie pies technically pies or cake? I feel like they’re basically a cupcake sandwich. This recipe’s from the Sunday magazine of The Washington Post from a local pastry chef, Karen Urie of the Town House restaurant in Chilhowie, VA. (http://www.townhouseva.com/index.html)
I figured since the recipe’s from a pastry chef, it’s gotta be good. And it is. I’ve had many a baking failure lately, so I was relieved that these turned out. Don’t be intimidated by the recipe. You probably have all the ingredients (except the buttermilk and white chocolate chips) in your fridge/pantry already. One thing to note was that it was a bit difficult to get the cookies to be perfectly round. An ice cream scoop might help.
Also, I took liberties with the filling, nearly doubling the amount of white chocolate so it would be less buttercreamy, more chocolatey. BTW, I used white chocolate chips from the Whole Foods 365 brand ($3+/bag) and melted them down in the microwave for 45 seconds. I waited till the melted chocolate was room temperature before adding to the butter mixture. You don’t need to buy a candy thermometer.
It’s a great party favor, plus you can make them ahead. They last 4 days in the fridge; 1 month in the freezer.
Karen’s Whoopie Pies
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recipes/2009/09/04/whoopie-pies/
MAKE AHEAD: When individually wrapped and stored in an airtight container, the whoopie pies may be frozen for 1 month.
Makes thirty-three 2 1/2-inch cookie sandwiches
For the cookies
For the filling
For the cookies: Position oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven; preheat to 350 degrees. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt on a large sheet of wax paper or parchment paper.
Combine the buttermilk, water and vanilla extract in a liquid measuring cup.
Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (preferably using a paddle attachment) or an electric hand-held mixer. Beat on medium speed for several minutes, until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed to low; add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, beating until incorporated between each addition, then alternate additions of the flour and buttermilk mixtures until well combined.
Portion the cookie dough in 2-tablespoon amounts on the prepared baking sheets, spaced 2 inches apart. Make about 66 mounds of equal size. Bake 2 sheets at a time (on the upper and lower oven racks) for about 6 minutes, then rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back; bake for 6 to 8 minutes, until the cookies are set, but springy to the touch. Ttransfer to wire racks to cool completely.
While the cookies are cooling, make the filling: Combine the butter, confectioners’ sugar, salt and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer (preferably with a paddle attachment) or an electric hand-held mixer. Beat on low, then medium-high speed until creamy and smooth. Stop to add the melted, slightly cooled chocolate; beat on low speed until just combined.
To assemble, place a tablespoon or two of the filling on the flat sides of half of the cooled cookies. Press the flat sides of the remaining cookies on top of the filling to make the cookie sandwiches.
Wrap each whoopie pie individually in plastic wrap, then transfer to an airtight container.
I would love to fine people who go around talking about how great NY is compared to DC. Don’t even get me started, carpetbaggers.
Having said that, I do get jealous of New Yorkers’ culinary options, especially in the food trucks department. New York magazine compiled a list of these, and I’ve noted the ones that serve sweets. If there’s any reason for me to take up running, it would be to chase after these.
1) Cupcake Stop: Cupcakes galore. (twitter.com/cupcakestop)
2) Treats Truck: Cookies, brownies and more. (Treatstruck.com)
3) Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream: Ice cream flavors that are off the beaten path. (twitter.com/VLAIC)
4) Wafels and Dinges: Just waffles. (twitter.com/waffletruck)
5) Big Gay Ice Cream Truck: This wins my award for best name and best toppings (caramelized bacon!). (twitter.com/biggayicecream)
6) Street Sweets: Brownies, scones and such. (twitter.com/streetsweets)
