Having worked in a bakery setting since I was 18, I've seen my share of groom's cakes. Actually, I had never heard of the groom's cake until I started working in a bakery. Most of them are chocolate cake with a golf or foot ball theme. My best friend's groom went with a caramel cake, which was very delicious. This one really takes the cake, though.
The Black Widow Bakery came up with the best groom's cake I've ever seen. There's not even any fru-fru cake to ruin the manliness of it. It's a meat cake. The layers are made up of meat loaf, with a special glaze filling, and mashed potato icing. The decorations were created with that same glaze, which is made from Worcestershire sauce , brown sugar, and ketchup.
All the details are here. I'm pretty amused by this cake. I actually think it's a really neat idea. Have you seen any really great groom's cakes recently?
It appears that right now is not a good time to be in the food business. First Bennigan's closed the majority of their stores and now Mrs. Field's Famous Brand is planning on filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
According to Forbes, the cookie maker won't be able to make a scheduled debt payment in September. The company is currently "soliciting votes from creditors for a 'prepackaged' bankruptcy reorganization plan." That means that the people in charge at Mrs. Field's are talking to creditors to see if they'll agree to the company's reorganization plans. So far about two thirds of the creditors have agreed to the prepackaged bankruptcy deal.
For the plan to go through, Mrs. Field's has to file by August 25. It's been forever since I had a Mrs. Field's cookie, and if lots of other consumers are like me, that's probably part of the reason they're heading into bankruptcy. Are Mrs. Field's products good enough to save, or should the company just give it up?
Imagine for a moment that you went to a local bakery and got a loaf of your favorite raisin bread. When you get it home you find small rocks are in the mix. Would you accept five bucks as compensation from the bakery?
That's what one customer in Somerville, Massachusetts did. As reported by The Consumerist, Michael Snyder originally asked for five more loaves of the raisin bread, but the bakery offered $5 and he took that. Apparently the raisins were from Chile and used an older production method that makes it easier for debris to get into the raisin supply. The bakery sent back the rest of the raisins.
There has been no talk about any injuries from the rocks, so I assume everyone is fine. I also suppose that things happen and you just need to be able to take things in stride, but five dollars? What would you do in a similar situation?
If you like bread, chances are that you'd like to stay away from those national brands with lots of preservatives. I know I prefer the artisanal loaves that are free from shelf-extending additives. My problem is that I don't go through bread fast enough and it invariably gets moldy if I get good quality bread. I generally turn to freezing it, and throwing frozen slices into the toaster when I want to eat them.
Wasted Food has posted this article about storing and keeping bread fresher, longer. It's a question and answer session with Paul LaDuca of Zingerman's, a Michigan bakery that does a lot of mail order. He recommends a bread box, and keeping your loaves in a paper bag. According to LaDuca, a plastic bag just draws the moisture from the crumb into the crust, making it soggy.
I was aware of most of these tips, but I have to admit I hadn't thought of using my oven as a bread box. What are your favorite bread storage tips?
Last week, I wrote a post asking why I cannot find decent macarons in the United States. Apparently, I'm not looking hard enough. Comments from all over the country revealed people's favorite shops where they buy them. Although I have not yet tried the macarons at all these places, I thought it would be useful to create a U.S. macaron directory.
So far, it looks like most of these places are located in California. Feel free to comment with new shops to add to the directory! Columbus, Ohio: Becke recommends Pistacia Vera at 541 south third street. Try their salted caramel macarons. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Ann suggests that we try the macarons at 316 North Milwaukee St., at Harlequin Bakery.
New York, New York: To think that in my own city I failed to discover Macaron Café which is just around the corner from my mother's office at 161 west 36th street, just off 7th avenue. Thanks Tom Avel for letting us know about this shop. Kat Kinsman enjoyed the macarons from Alain Ducasse's Adour at the St. Regis hotel. Yountville, California: Although I did not care for Thomas Keller's macarons at Buchon Bakery in NY, Kelly enjoyed them at Keller's Buchon in Yountville at 6534 Washington st.
San Francisco, California:Verena suggests Boulangerie at 2325 Pine Street. Ivan claims that Tartine Bakery at 600 Guerreo St., by 18th street, is the place to buy macarons. Mathew points out another shop located at the Ferry Building Marketplace, shop No. 10 - Miette.
Berkeley, California: Verena also reccomends Masse's Pastries at 1469 Shattuck Ave.
Los Angeles, California: Jon raves about the macarons at Boule located at 408 N. Cienga Blvd and at 413 N. Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills.
Beverly Hills, California: Apart from Boule's Beverly Hills location, you can stroll into Paulette at 9466 Charleville Blvd. If you're not in Beverly Hills, you can order from them online. That's what John did.
Several years ago, I spent some time working at a medical school. It was the kind of job where there were lots of morning meetings and at least once a week I found myself trekking to other schools for some planning powwow. One of the few benefits to these meetings were that the host school often served breakfast-y treats. Most of the time it was just an assortment of dough-y bagels or supermarket donuts, but once, someone was feeling generous and picked up muffins from Metropolitan Bakery. And it was at that meeting that I discovered the millet muffin.
These muffins aren't fancy. They are a basic combination of flour, sugar, butter and eggs, but something happens when you add in that toasted millet that transforms those simple ingredients into something amazing. The resulting muffins are nutty and have wholesome feeling, with a nice yielding crunch. Ever since I acquired a copy of the Metropolitan Bakery Cookbook, I've been meaning to try making a batch in my little kitchen (instead of running down to the bakery to satisfy a craving), but until a couple of nights ago, I just hadn't made the time to do it.
Now, knowing that I can make them on my own, they are the only thing I want to eat. Scott agrees (he also made off with the last one this morning). The recipe, which would make a perfect Saturday morning treat, is after the jump.
Ever since I returned from my school year abroad in Paris, I have been on a quest for delicate luscious creamy macarons. Unfortunately, every time I purchase them in the U.S., I am disappointed.
Why is it so hard to find decent macarons in the United States? The ones at La Maison du Chocolat are not bad. But, they're overwhelmingly chocolatey. Many times, they even taste too greasy.
Yesterday, I went to Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery in Manhattan and was jumping up and down with excitement when I saw macarons. They looked just like the ones I had at Ladurée in Paris. Except, when I looked at them closely, I noticed that the layer of cream in the middle was much thicker and heavier. A bite into a macaron from Bouchon Bakery is more like a bite into a heavy creamy delicious cake. Although it tasted quite excellent, it lacked many of the characteristics I love about the macarons I've tasted in Paris, mainly its lightness and slightly crunchy exterior and creamy interior.
Can someone recommend a shop where I can find a decent macaron?
I have a co-worker that has the ability to find some of the most amazing cakes on the internet. Knowing that have an unhealthy obsession with anything edible, he is nice enough to send links to those cakes in my direction on a near-daily basis.
The cake you see above is another creation of Zoe Lukas (the woman who was also responsible for the Robert Indiana cookies, the Battlestar Galactica cake and the patriotic wedding cake). She has was charged with making a sushi-themed cake and so came up with a spiced carrot ginger cake with cream cheese icing. She topped the whole thing with fondant and used it as a "serving platter" for her tasty veggie sushi. Coconut stands in for the rice in the pieces and rolls, and she even made pickled ginger out of colored fondant.
You know that saying, "The greatest thing since sliced bread?" It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to those of us born in the last few generations since we've always had sliced bread, but the invention of the slicer sure had an impact on the world when it debuted 80 years ago.
The first loaf of pre-sliced bread was sold on July 7, 1928, but its inventor, Otto Rohwedder, had been working on it since 1912. Invention Dimension profiled Rohwedder, who was a jeweler until 1916 when he decided to work on this idea full time. The world would have been treated to sliced bread in 1917 if a fire hadn't destroyed the blueprints and prototypes at the factory set to produce the first bread slicers. Rohwedder didn't give up, though. He worked until he made up for those losses, and kept plugging away at perfecting his bread slicing machine. He sold the first one to a bakery in in Chillicothe, Mo., in 1928, and a star was born.
I think fate may have played a part in that 1917 fire, because it wasn't until 1926 that the electric pop-up toaster became popular in the US. Would sliced bread have caught on without the new toasting device? We'll never know, but they sure do go well together!
My obsession for those heavenly creamy, crispy, sweet French pastries, called macarons, began when I lived in Paris. I would go to the Ladurée, the pastry-shop and tearoom, almost every week to sit down like an old woman and drink tea and snack on a macaron. Ah, the wonderful gastronomic moments spent at Ladurée! It deserves its own blog post.
Recently, I discovered another incredible pastry-shop in Paris, Pierre Hermé, where you can try some interesting flavored macarons, such as caramel with fleur de sel and passion fruit with chocolate. The tiny store, located at No. 72 rue Bonaparte on the Left Bank, almost always has a quick moving line started out the door. As you enter this chic pastry boutique, your eyes are automatically drawn to the many gorgeous fruit cakes on your left. And then, as you get further into the store, all your senses are overwhelmed by the beauty -- the fresh aroma of baked sweets and the stunning displays of various cakes and macarons.
My experience at Pierre Hermé was like a glance into heaven. By the time it was my turn to order, I was speechless. I had spent the entire time in line absorbing the smells and the delicious goodies instead of figuring out which macarons I wanted to order. One of the shopkeepers gave me a menu of macarons. I studied it closely and finally bought a box of 16. Check out my favorite flavors and more after the jump.
This R2D2 cake is the perfect storm of my nerdy obsessions: science fiction, red velvet cake, Rice Krispy treats, things that look like other things. As we last wrote about an R2D2 wedding cake last month, I'm clearly not alone in my love of cake-flavored robot. However, I think this cake is even better-looking. The recipient is one lucky four-year-old!
Created by baker Mark Randazzo, it's a multi-layered red velvet cake with white icing, with Rice Krispy treat legs and hand-painted food color details. Check out the pictures of the cake in-progress: I'm not sure I've ever seen so many layers. Randazzo's a talented guy - catch him making a giant monkey cake on reruns of Food Network's Extreme Cake Challenge.
Now this is what a chocolate chip cookie should look like. Thick, chewy, moist at the center, with a toothsome density that makes it feel like you're really eating something. And so full of melty chocolate chips that when you break the cookie in half chocolate drips from the edges. Thank Vanilla Sugar for the recipe, which attempts to replicate the cookies sold at Levain bakery in New York. Full of brown sugar, walnuts and a healthy dose of salt, these make for the kind of 4 p.m. snack that satisfies you in a way that a Snickers bar never could.
Can you tell which one is made of butter and flour?
Pastry Chef Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes is the mastermind behind this and many other magnificent reproductions made of cake and fondant.
She put together a video of the construction of the dog cake, a four hour process sped-up to four minutes and set to hurried classical music that makes the whole process seem even more impressive. Watch as she whizzes through the crumb coating, tosses on layers of fondant and double-times the "fur" sculpting.
You should also check out a video montage of more of Strauss' cakes, from cheese steaks to hat boxes to Yankees caps. You'll walk away in awe, with a new appreciation for cake making and an unmistakable craving for sugar.
I'd heard the rumors that bacon and chocolate where getting together. But now we have gorgeous, photographic post that the rumors are true. And really, how could something that looks so, so right be wrong? Have any of you tried this devilish combination? I admit that I haven't had a chance to check it out yet (although I have gotten to try both bacon vodka and a particularly good Blood Mary made with the stuff).
Here in Philadelphia, we are lucky to have a small, local chain of bakeries that is devoted to making true artisan bread. Metropolitan Bakery believes in letting bread have a long, slow rise and each one of their loaves, rolls and baguettes are shaped by hand. They've been around since 1993 and back in 2003, for their 10th anniversary, they published a cookbook that is filled with their signature recipes that have been scaled down to make them appropriate for the home cook.
The Metropolitan Bakery Cookbook isn't just a vanity publication, created for the glorification of a bakery. It is a book that was obviously carefully crafted and systematically thought out, as it is really interesting to read and designed to be used. They've included recipes for all their favorite products, including their French Berry rolls and (my favorite) Millet Muffins.
In addition to the recipes, they've included picture layouts that show off their pastries and breads in all their luscious glory, along with pictures that detail how to recreate their signature twists and designs (on page 77, there are step-by-step pictures to show you how to cut, twist and fold the dough for the Cinnamon Swirl Danish). Admittedly, for those of us lucky enough to be fairly nearby a Metropolitan location, we probably won't be turning to this cookbook for much other than incentive to make a visit to the bakery, but for those of you who once visited Philadelphia and got a taste of Metropolitan pastries, this might one you could add to your collection.
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Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
