Cupcakes Come to Virginia!

Friday, November 7th, 2008 • 2 Comments

I love to bake and cupcakes are one of my favorite treats.  They’re easy, but so decadent.  I love the way they look piled on a plate and I love sharing them.  Who doesn’t love cupcakes?  In the past several years, cupcakes have hit the scene as being the “it” dessert.  One of my fabulous editors, Rachel Kramer Bussel—in addition to being a writer, blogger and editor—also uncovers all the best of the cupcake world at the wildly popular Cupcakes Take the Cake.  CTTC is my source for all things cupcake and the photos (food porn!) alone are worth a visit to the site, whether you bake or not.

I have often lamented that Virginia—at least my part of Virginia—is not exactly cupcake-friendly.  The cupcake craze seems to be a mostly urban phenomenon—New York, San Francisco and Chicago are just filled with delicious cupcake bakeries.  Bakeries dedicated entirely to cupcakes!  Oh, the wonder!  Imagine my delight when I discovered the Carolina Cupcakery just a few short minutes from my house (in a direction I never travel, which explains why I didn’t know they existed).  Despite the name, Carolina Cupcakery is most definitely located in Virginia.  Happy me!

Jay and I stumbled on the Carolina Cupcakery quite by accident yesterday.  I was willing to come back another time (we hadn’t eaten lunch yet and it seemed irresponsible to be indulging in cupcakes as a meal), but Jay insisted we should go inside.  I’m so glad we did!  The smell was heaven and the selection is truly eclectic. 

The Cupcakery rotates their cupcake flavors and offers a schedule so customers will know what days their favorites are available.  We were in on a Thursday when such flavors as Kahlua and Cream, Espresso Royale, Seriously Southern Red Velvet and Fluffer Nutter are fresh from the oven.  Jay ordered a Chocolate Chipster (yellow cake with a rich, chocolate chip-laden butter cream frosting) and I chose the HoHo Heaven (a Hostess-style chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache and vanilla cream filling).  Oh. My. God.

In September, Sheri brought me a lovely, luscious cupcake from More Cupcakes in Chicago.  It was a similar Hostess-styled cupcake and I was curious to compare the “big city” version to my newfound Virginia cupcake bakery.  I have to say, the More cupcake was delicious, but the cake was a little on the dry side and there wasn’t much vanilla cream filling.  Yummy, to be sure, and the dryness might be due to traveling from Chicago.  The Carolina Cupcakery’s version was a little more decadent (and perhaps a little larger?), the cake moist and rich, the chocolate ganache generous, the vanilla cream practically bursting.  I love my chocolate and I love it rich, so this was perfect for me.  (However, when I offered Jay a bite he said, “That’s so sweet it hurts my teeth!”)

I asked the owner (unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask her name, but I believe it’s Dawn Eskins, according to their website) if she knew about Cupcakes Take the Cake.  She did—and she said she was listed on the site!  Sure enough, when I checked CTTC, Carolina Cupcakery was there.  I’m not sure how I missed it, but it was a sweet treat to find this little cupcake bakery amidst the wilderness of suburbia!  (And they’re green!)  Ms. Eskins gave me a day-old carrot cake cupcake (day-old cupcakes are half-price, which I think is a great way to let customers try flavors they might not otherwise order) to take home with me.  I devoured it last night—I couldn’t resist—and though the cake was a little dry from being a day old, it was otherwise delicious.  I’ll be back for a fresh-baked one.

I can’t wait to take Sheri there later this month.  It’ll be a good excuse to try several more flavors.  As if I need an excuse to eat cupcakes, right?

Life Is Uncertain, Eat Dessert First

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 • 1 Comment

From Cakespy:

Recently, a website called Very Good Taste started something of an internet fire with a list called “The Omnivore’s Hundred”, which listed 100 foods which “every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life.” We liked the idea, and inspired by the vegan variation on Hannah Kaminsky’s site, we thought—why not make our own Sweet 100!? Like the original, our list includes “fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food”—but in our universe, it’s all sweet! (In case any of them are foreign to you, links to pictures and recipes are included; also, for any vegans, feel free to go through the list assuming it’s a vegan counterpart). How many have you tried?

I’ve had a lot of different desserts in my life, thanks to working in a bakery in high school and growing up in an internationally diverse community.  Plus, I really, really like dessert.   See my list below.

If you’d like, feel free to follow the same guidelines:

1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you’ve eaten—or make them a different type color.
3) Cross out any of them that you’d never ever eat.
4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your “To Do” List.
5) Optional: Post a comment here linking to your results—or just post a comment letting us know how many you’ve tried, or what you’re going to try next!

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars)
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
10. Kringle
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream (Oh, I miss London!)
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
14. Halvah
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca “pearls”) (Sheri introduced me to bubble tea)
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
20. Alfajores
21. Blondies
22. Croquembouche
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar
29. Baba au rhum
30. King Cake
31. Sachertorte
32. Pavlova
33. Tres Leches Cake
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime) (I’m from Florida! Jay makes Key Slime Pie.)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas (My neighbor used to make these when I was a kid. Yummy.)
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies (I make awesome chocolate chip cookies!)
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks
53. Daifuku
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
59. Jelly Roll (Reminds me of my high school days working in a bakery)
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe (I love the Chocolate Charlotte at Baker’s Crust)
62. An “upside down” dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black Forest cake
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie) (My mother made this when I was a kid. I thought it was bizarre.)
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte
69. Churro
70. Stollen (Another one from my bakery days, fruit stollen. Yuck.)
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
73. Concha
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle /  Lobster tail
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S’mores (We’ve made S’mores in our fireplace)
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables
98. Millionaire’s Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

(link via RKB’s tumblr)

I Heart Nigella

Monday, December 17th, 2007 • 3 Comments

I have been thumbing through Nigella Lawson cookbooks (I have three), contemplating what to make for Christmas Eve dinner.  I’m having a hard time of it, though.  Not because Nigella doesn’t have many fabulous recipes—she does—but because I get caught up in reading those recipes, even when it isn’t something I would ever eat.  Just reading this makes me drool:

Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova

I love cookbooks, but I love words even more… and Nigella (or her ghostwriter?) has a way with words.  It doesn’t hurt that she’s hotter than her pre-heated oven, either.  And did I mention her accent?  Swoon.

See why I’m having problems planning my Christmas Eve dinner menu?