Whoopie pies are one of those wonderful concoctions of debatable origin and undebatable deliciousness. A few months ago, a piece in the New York Times proclaimed it was having "its moment," though plenty of its champions knew full well that the perennial classic needed no such official declaration.

This photo of a mint whoopie pie from This Chick Bakes beautifully illustrates the treat's timeless appeal, and looks like it has all of the hallmarks of whoopie pie greatness, with cakey chocolate layers sandwiching just the right amount of creamy mint filling. The chocolate-mint combination points to the endless flavor possibilities that the treats present to the adventurous sweet tooth. Though originally simple snacks created by the Pennsylvania Amish, today's bakers take them in all sorts of inspired directions. And if this photo is any hint, this could taste like the best peppermint patty on the planet, unquestionably worthy of the shout of joy its name entails.

[Via Blondie & Brownie]

Eating pork buns (cha siu baau) is an excellent way to get a taste of New York's Chinatown. These warm buns -- either steamed or baked -- are full of savory barbecue meats, sometimes with scallions.

Last weekend, a friend and I decided we would eat our way through Chinatown by trying pork buns at various bakeries. And, what started out as a "pork bun journey" turned into an exploration of both savory and sweet buns, ranging from pork to red bean.

Fay Da Bakery, at 83 Mott St., has a variety of buns that you can select yourself with tongs when you enter the shop. While being underwhelmed by their pork buns, we were blown away with their sweet topping red-bean bun. The outside of the red-bean bun is coated in a flaky layer of sugar that balances marvelously with the doughy bun and the creamy red-bean paste.

Head directly to the Golden Fung Wong Bakery, at 41 Mott St., to try some of the best pork buns in Manhattan's Chinatown. Chunks of pork are flavored with a delicious mix of soy and oyster sauce. This bakery also sells an assortment of rice cakes and melon cakes that are worth trying.

These days the European Union is being looked at as an inept "taste police" by many chefs and food enthusiasts. While working in the cheese industry, I spoke with many French cheese makers who felt threatened by the strict laws regarding cheese aging facilities and feared anti-raw milk legislation. This week, bakers in Germany were angered by a proposed regulation on the salt content in their products.

An article from the New York Times states that Androulla Vassiliou, the European commissioner for health, decided on Wednesday to postpone making a decision on new regulations due to the intense reaction from the German bakers, represented by a federal association and by regional lobbies. Commission spokeswoman, Nina Papadoulaki, defends the EU by claiming, "Our aim is to provide consumers with better information so that they can make informed choices. The commission has no intentions of prohibiting any bread. We have decided to continue our talks with the stakeholders."

It seems that one of the major issues that's not being addressed by the EU, thus far, is the preservation of cultural traditions in the various EU countries. Culinary cultures that date back hundreds of years are at stake. The negligence on their part to fight to maintain cultural diversity within the EU is astonishing when related to food concerns. Perhaps, there needs to be another organization to express these issues to the EU. What do you think?

Tate's Bake Shop is a Hamptons-based company who makes cookies, brownies, cakes, and squares.

That's right. Squares. That's how quaint they are.

Inside Kathleen King's adorable yellow and turquoise Victorian-style shop in Southampton, sweet smells, smiling faces, and flowers abound. King grew up on a farm near Southampton and sold cookies from the age of 11 at her family's farm stand.

Tate's Bake Shop has a loyal following across the country. Their secret is in their simplicity. Quality products, nicely packaged, and as my friend Lora says: "By rich people, for rich people."

You can order the delicious cookies and other baked goods online here, for a wonderfully classy host gift or party favor for the holiday season.

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?

We've all had that dream. We're sitting on hour 14 of our work day, slumped down in our non-ergonomic chair, staring at the spreadsheets on our screen, ignoring the phone that's been ringing off the hook for the last 12 minutes, dreaming about leaving it all behind to...open a bakery.

The idea of waking up every morning and heading to the kitchen instead of a cubicle deep within the confines of a concrete and glass office building is warm and inviting, is it not? Sure, if you happen to not care about actually making money from your bakery. According to Forbes, the bakery business is in the Top 10 LEAST profitable businesses to start. In fact, the average pre-tax profit of a bakery is negative - you lose money.

So our advice to you when you stress out at work and want to march right out of your office to bake bread? Do it, but bake a loaf at home, then go back to work the next day.

I have a radio in my bathroom that is plugged into an outlet in the light fixture. This means that every time you turn the light on, the radio comes on as well. My friends know this about my apartment and so don't get startled when they go into use my bathroom. However, it tends to freak strangers out. This evening I went in to wash my hands and found myself standing there a full ten minutes later, although I had needed but 30 seconds to finish the task at hand.

The reason I got stuck in the bathroom? This story, playing on NPR's All Things Considered about the Great Harvest Bread Company and the people who own the franchises of the company. The main company encourages their franchises to be creative and innovation in their stores and in turn, the store owners seemed to find great satisfaction in the work that they did. If you have a few minutes, it is definitely worth a listen.

Photo link

It's no surprise that the Cupcakes take the cake girls want you to say it with cupcakes this Valentine's Day. They have put together a list of some of the cupcakeries around the country that are offering V-day specials, whether they're flavors, prices or events that have been arranged in honor of the holiday. Their list reads like a who's who of bakeries: Cupcake Royale in Seattle, WA, Sprinkles in Beverly Hills, CA, Best Buns in Arlington, Virginia, Frosted Cupcakery in Long Beach, CA, Cake and Art in Los Angeles, CA, Leda's Bake Shop in Sherman Oaks, CA and The Cookie Jar Bakery in Houston, TX. Sprinkle's "I love you" cupcake assortment, which includes chocolate marshmallow, red hot velvet, and vanilla cupcakes packed in an XOX box, is pictured above.

Remember that some bakeries will not advertise their specials anywhere other than in-store, but just about every single one is going to have some kind of Valentine's cupcake in stock, so it's worth dropping by your favorite bakery to check out their offerings if you're not planning on baking yourself.

Every year, Eleni's NYC cookie bakery puts out a series of Hollywood-themed cookies in honor of the Academy Awards. This year, for the 79th annual Oscars, Eleni's is offering four different sets of their signature cookies:

• Famous Hollywood Quotes - ($45)includes 9 sugar cookies with one director's slate, three Hollywood stars and five famous quotes: "Show me the money", "I see dead people", "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn", "Life is like a box of chocolates" and "Supercalifrajalisticexpialidocious"
• Best Actor– ($58.50) 16 cookies include 3 each of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Gosling, Peter O'Toole, Will Smith and Forest Whitaker and one sealed envelope cookie
• Best Actress – ($58.50) 16 cookies include 3 each of Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet, and another
• Best Picture – ($65) includes 18 cookies decorated with signature items from Babel, The Departed, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen.

The cookies are hand-iced and have a remarkable amount of detail on each - to the point where it is almost difficult to eat them. Almost, of course, because once you bite into one and realize how tasty they are, you won't feel quite as bad about indulging in a few bites of the best picture nominee or your favorite "best actor" candidate.

Cook and Eat's latest posting of Honey Orange Bread Pudding looks like it is the perfect combination of bright, seasonal citrus and the custardy comfort of regular bread pudding. In short, it might just very well be one of the most appealing winter desserts that we've seen all season - especially because the orange used in the recipe was blood orange. The recipe is a take on one of Macrina Bakery's offerings, which uses lemon instead of orange. It is a restaurant style bread pudding, which means that instead of being baked in a casserole dish and scooped out for serving, as so many homemade bread puddings are, it is baked in a loaf pan and simply sliced into portions when it has come out of the oven and set up. C&E used mini loaf pans and baked the bread puddings in a waterbath very slowly, ensuring a creamy and delicious result.

I suspect that there could be a whole Food Porn series devoted to the perfect cuteness that is exhibited by Leda's Cupcakes, especially the miniature ones. Daily Gluttony captured (and consumed, at least in part) this particular batch of them. The LA area cupcakery's mini cupcakes come in flavors that rotate daily, but are always filled with curd, ganache or creme and topped of with a generous amount of buttercream frosting and a little, retro-inspired candy. Since the photo above is an assortment, it probably includes flavors like Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate, Chocolate Chocolate White Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Pumpkin (pumpkin cupcake with orange curd filling and vanilla buttercream), Lemon (vanilla cupcake with lemon curd and lemon buttercream), Dulce de Leche (vanilla cupcake with dulce de leche filling and dulce de leche buttercream), Carrot (carrot cupcake with an orange curd filling and mascarpone buttercream ) or Coconut Lime (coconut cupcake with lime curd filling and vanilla buttercream). While the cakes and the frostings are excellent, the real selling point for Leda's cakes is the curds, since so many other cupcake bakeries concentrate on the sprinkles without trying to improve the insides of the cupcakes themselves.

If you know how to bake really good chocolate chip cookies or everyone loves your lemon bundt cake when you bring it to parties, odds are that you've had at least one or two people tell you that you should go into the business of baking and open a bakery. Perhaps you've even thought about it on your own a few times. It'll be easy, right?

"Easy" is subjective, so you can judge for yourself. Egullet has two threads that chronicle members starting their own bakeries. One of the threads followed every detail that went into building (physically) a Portland bakery, attracting a clientele and working through the first year of he business. Unfortunately, Criollo Bakery has now closed, but the level of detail and dedication that went into it was phenomenal and truly awe-inspiring for a would-be baker.

The second thread, a newer thread, follows a couple that moved from San Francisco to New Jersey with dreams of opening their own bakery. With pastry backgrounds, a generous relative who is happy to help them with accommodation, and a lot of hard work, they are just starting out on their journey to open The Sweet Life Bakery. So far, after only a couple of months, it sounds like they are really building up momentum. It's another interesting read, especially since it will be on-going as their journey progresses.

[via browniepoints]

When I heard that Noah's Bagels and Einstein Bros. Bagels, which are owned by the same parent company, are introducing Candy Cane Bagels for the holidays, it didn't sound like an appealing concept. Cream cheese and peppermints? Not the best combination, especially not where breakfast food is concerned. Fortunately, the bagels are not mint-flavored at all, but merely shaped like candy canes. They are made of red and white potato doughs that are twisted together and bent into a hooked candy cane. They have a very light coating of powdered sugar, added partially for looks and partially to give it a little something to stand out from the ordinary bagels where flavor is concerned.

The company says that the bagels "taste as good as they look," but I'm not entirely sure that most bagel fans will like their look -- or the sugary coating -- when given the choice between one of these and a regular bagel. They are very cute, however, and would probably be well received at an office holiday party.

One reason to experiment with non-cream cheeses in cheesecakes is to experience the different textures and subtle changes in flavor that they introduce to the basic dessert. If nothing else, you'll develop a new appreciation for the classic, but if you try enough variations, the odds are good that you'll come across at least one that you'll like. This cheesecake, photographed by Foodie Universe, is made with fromage blanc and it is from Boule Bakery in Los Angeles. Fromage blanc is a thick, yogurt-like cheese (similar to quark) with a unique and somewhat mild flavor. It is relatively low in fat compared to many cheeses with similar textures and can be used as a dessert topping, as well as an ingredient in other recipes.

The Foodie Universe blog specializes in Los Angeles-based restaurant reviews and described the cake as being "nearly fluffy" in what might have been a surprising, yet welcome, contrast from the heavy and dense New York-style of cheesecake that so many bakeries seem to want to serve.

Forget about regular frosting when the holidays come around. A special day, or night in the case of Halloween, calls for something over-the-top when it comes to dessert, not just a pile of plain chocolate buttercream on a cupcake. This is a ghost cupcake from the Wheatbery Bakery Cafe in Pasadena, California. The spirited treat was captured by Jill of Jill's Notebook. She reported that the ghost was made out of a "marshmellow substance," which sounds like it might have been a very light fondant (the stuff used to smoothly cover wedding cakes), which is very malleable and easy to shape. Underneath the sheet was a mound of green buttercream. Jill didn't report on how it tasted, but as long as the flavor was half as good as the appearance of the cake, we can assume that it tasted great.

If you want to try sculpting a little ghostly sheet for your own Halloween cupcakes, you can usually find pre-made fondant at baking supply stores or at craft stores that also have a section of baking equipment.

[via Not Martha]