Most photos of cupcakes make us smile for the same reason photos of puppies and Joseph Gordon Levitt do: They're just so revoltingly cute.
This carrot cupcake makes us smile for an additional reason, however. It's got dulce de leche buttercream slathered on top. How often do you come across a member of the carrot cake family that isn't topped with cream cheese (or, unforgivably, vanilla) frosting? Though Joy the Baker, the mastermind behind this inspired combo, gives her blessings to those who tilt towards cream cheese classicism, we think the jar of dulce de leche called for here is a vision that struck from another, more otherworldly realm. We also can't decide what's better -- the idea of a batch of these cupcakes or the idea of sitting on a counter, jar in one hand and spoon in the other, waiting for the cupcakes to come out of the oven.
Studies reveal that certain sweets, like chocolate activate the libido. Just last week, The Times of India had an article reporting on the aphrodisiac effects of chocolate particularly on men. Food scientists tracked down a specific ingredient responsible for these effects - Eurycoma Longifolia Jack.
Chocolates have long been associated with romance. As far back as the eighteenth century, food enthusiasts, like Brillat Savarin, raved about chocolate's corporal effects. So, when thinking about sweets for Valentine's Day, I often think of various chocolate confections and cakes.
Below are 8 chocolates I highly recommend this Valentine's Day:
Dozen Box of Roni's Roses - These chocolates are flavored with rose petal jam, powdered rose petals and exotic rose liqueur. If you're in NY, I highly suggest that you check out Roni-Sue's in the Essex Street Market in the Lower East Side.
Poco Dolce Burt Caramel Tiles - Everything made by Poco Dolce is phenomenal. They have truly mastered the delicious combination of salt and sweet.
When I think of pistachios, I automatically think sweet. Perhaps, this is due to the Egyptian and Syrian side of my family. From an early age, I associated pistachios with sweet syrupy nutty baklava and pistachio ice cream. We would alternate between pistachio baklava and the traditional one made with walnuts and almonds.
As I got older, I started to explore other pistachio flavored desserts. On a recent culinary adventure to Café Sabarsky in Manhattan I discovered the Austrian cake Mozart Torte. This one was made with pistachios, chocolate, and nougat cream. I haven't had any luck yet finding the recipe.
Below are 8 delicious pistachio recipes that are sure to fulfill your craving for something sweet and nutty:
You and your mate might be Equals, but you don't call each other "Splenda." You call each other "Honey." (You might call each other something else, but you need couples therapy for that, not Valentine's Day.)
Honey as an aphrodisiac comes less from science and biology and more from history and folklore. In Medieval times, men and women seduced partners with mead, a drink made from fermented honey. It was likely that sexual vulnerability in the seducees came from the fermentation part (like drunk targets in a bar today?), and not from the honey. Ancient Persians also drank mead, though they drank it immediately following a marriage to "sweeten" the marriage. That's where we get the term "honeymoon."
However, honey isn't all just folklore. Many medicines in Egyptian times were based on honey including cures for sterility and impotence, which worked because honey is rich in vitamin B, necessary for testosterone production. Honey also contains boron, which helps the body metabolize and use estrogen.
If nothing else, the sight of gorgeous golden honey dripping and oozing that can get the imagination working.
Forget the two-layer birthday cakes and the double-chocolate cookies. We're talking wild, sumptuous, no-holds-barred desserts that throw caution - and your diet - to the wind. From deep-fried Mars bars to peanut butter fudge ripple cheesecake, we've gathered five of the most devilishly delicious sweets we could find. Paula Deen makes an appearance, as does The Cheesecake Factory.
Take a minute to gaze over these swoon-worthy desserts, and then let us know: what's the most decadently outrageous dessert you've ever eaten? What made it so incredible? If it's wild enough, it just might make it into a future Outrageous Desserts post.
The perfect melding of sweet and salty, this pie will have your guests cheering for more, so you'd better make two, just in case.
Rocky Road Cookie Pizza From: Pillsbury Cookies, Brownies, and Bars
You will need:
1 pkg. refrigerated sugar or chocolate chip cookies in log form (it's okay to use them, just this once!) 1/2 cup chopped salted peanuts 1 cup miniature marshmallows 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 1/3 cup caramel sauce
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-inch cookie sheet, and press the cookie dough onto the pan. Bake at 350 for 13-16 minutes until the "crust" is golden brown.
Remove the cookie from the oven and sprinkle evenly with peanuts, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. Drizzle with caramel sauce. Bake for another 5-10 minutes.
Cut into wedges and serve (if you're really daring, top your pizza with a dollop of whipped cream or caramel ice cream).
For a Super Bowl party, or any party where people will be milling around, standing, sitting, and perhaps even jumping around and screaming at the TV, it's probably a good idea to serve desserts that don't require plates and utensils. Cupcakes are a natural choice, and these Football Field Cupcakes from Family Fun are perfect for the Super Bowl.
The recipe isn't for cupcakes, as it assumes you already have a cooled cupcake. The recipe is more for the decorated cupcake. You cut fruit leather into the shape of a pennant, attach it to a pretzel stick as a flagpole, and make footballs out of almonds dipped in chocolate. Of course, you can make chocolate-only footballs like me, but they require a little more sculpting work.
No matter where they grew up, it always seems that people have similar "ice cream man" stories. A lot of kids, my brother and I included, were convinced that their ice cream man has some sort of sinister alter ego, complete with an illegal job that no one could quite pinpoint. Ours, we decided, was a cocaine dealer, but yours might have spent his off time running numbers, dabbling in the mob, or laundering money, to name a few.
So despite this nose-numbing, toe-tingling, sniffle-inducing cold snap that most of us are experiencing right now, perhaps we can use our imaginations to conjure up some thoughts of warm days accented by the sounds of slightly off-key jingles wafting from the ice cream truck. You picturing it?
Good. Now, while you're in the mood, check out this gallery of unique ice cream trucks, and then leave us your ice cream man stories in the comments. (Speaking of which: did anyone's neighborhood have an ice cream woman?)
We first heard about Cacao Reserve chocolates, the new premium line from Hershey's, a couple of weeks ago. It is the first Hershey's-branded premium chocolate line, since up until this point, all of the gourmet products from the company have been produced by Scharffen Berger or Joseph Schmidt Confections, the two luxury chocolate brands that Hershey's acquired. Cacao Reserve is all-natural and, like so many other new chocolates, is categorized by cacao percentage, not just "milk" or "dark." They seem to carry the full line, although I did not see the "country of origin" bars (with beans from specific countries, at Target and I picked up a couple bars to try.
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've been staying on top of baking blogs lately, you've probably noticed that quite a few people have been using recipes from Dorie Greenspan's newest book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. Sara, from i like to cook, organized the huge event with the publishers and got out the book to many different people so that readers could get some real-life feed back on the recipes. She also made up a roundup of all the recipes that people tried, so take a look at the recipes she tested herself and at the recipes tested by others for a comprehensive listing (with photos!) of all the treats our food blogging friends enjoyed.
Getting back to the book itself, it is over 500 pages and has more than 200 recipes. Although it is called Baking, it doesn't cover too many yeast breads or completely savory recipes. Instead, it concentrates on sweets, divided into six sections: breakfast sweets, cookies, cakes, pies and tarts, spoon desserts and base recipes. From these categories, you'll find more tempting recipes that you can imagine and but book is filled with excellent pictures that will tempt you. Unfortunately, not every recipe is illustrated, so we're probably missing out on some food porn, but since the recipes turn out to look exactly like the photographs, you can easily make your own food porn at home.
We're not planning to have an ice cream theme day, not until it gets a little closer to summer and warmer weather, but the fact that it's cold out doesn't mean that we're not going to get an ice cream fix between now and then. And Turkey Hill's Ice Cream Journal might just be the way to do that without giving us brain-freeze. The all-ice cream blog is the first one that I've seen out there and although there are a number of other food-specific blogs, I'm not sure that I could have guessed that there was so much to say about ice cream. Only a few posts are up on the brand new blog, but their post about spotting a happy face in the top of the ice cream container is pretty interesting (and it's only a matter of time before someone finds some sort of religious icon). Drop in a leave a comment for them, since they're giving away a prize each month to a random commenter. It sounds like bribery, but as long as ice cream is involved, we're willing to look the other way.
How can you tell when a celebrity is doing something just for the money? It is easy when they don't even attempt to conceal the fact that they dislike the product that bears their name. Gordon Ramsay, for example, doesn't seem to think that his new line of chocolates, called Just Desserts, are anything special. He said "I don't think you are going to be blown away at £3.99-odd for a box."
While it is true that price can be an indicator of quality, shouldn't Ramsey have tried to get the product to be a really superior one for its price range? A random chocolate from a relatively inexpensive box obviously wouldn't stand up to a single, carefully-crafted truffle that costs as much as that whole box, but with an endorsement from Ramsay, consumers are at least expecting to get something worth what they paid.
The chocolates, if you are interested, are available in the UK at various major retailers, including Sainsbury's.
When it comes to candy corn, there are definitely two camps: the lovers and the haters. I find myself on the love side, which means that I get a lot of them all to myself around Halloween, since almost no one else I know enjoys them as much. The basic recipe is for a slightly honey-flavored candy made with sugar, corn syrup (not high fructose corn syrup, incidentally), honey and some gelatin. The ingredients list artificial flavors, but it is clear that the main added flavor is vanilla and, if you take the time to appreciate it for a moment, the overall flavor is a good one. The problem with candy corn is that you can tire of them quickly because of the amount of sugar and the lack of variety as you eat piece after piece. Fortunately for candy corn fans, there are some gourmet alternatives to the classic. Mentioned on both Candy Addict and Candy Blog this week were Galerie Gourmet Goodies Candy Corn. The slightly upscale corn comes in three new flavors: cherry, green apple and tangerine. Judging from the reviews, the flavors sound good, if not earth shattering. The colors, on the other hand, might just make you look twice, especially if you're expecting the classic orange, yellow and white combination.
Well, the Slashfood's Candy Day is almost over, and good thing, otherwise this very expensive root canal that I just had done was all for naught! We had a few submissions from readers, and it's about time we took a taste of their candy creations!
The blog might be called The Garlic Press, but thankfully, there isn't any garlic in Connie's Sweet & Salty Snack Mix -- cereal (you know the one), pretzels, nuts,and of course, M&Ms!
Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas puts together homemade marshmallows, and to "cover them up," drizzles them with chocolate. She says that is the answer when your "cake/brownie/ice/candy/dessert is ugly," but we say, do chocolate any time.
Coconut & Lime goes for decadence with Chocolate Cream Cheese Truffles, that are so "so dark chocolate-y and tangy" it's hard to believe there are only four ingredients!
The perfect melding of sweet and salty, this pie will have your guests cheering for more, so you'd better make two, just in case.
For a 
We're not planning to have an ice cream theme day, not until it gets a little closer to summer and warmer weather, but the fact that it's cold out doesn't mean that we're not going to get an ice cream fix between now and then. And 
How can you tell when a celebrity is doing something just for the money? It is easy when they don't even attempt to conceal the fact that they dislike the product that bears their name. 
When it comes to candy corn, there are definitely two camps: the lovers and the haters. I find myself on the love side, which means that I get a lot of them all to myself around Halloween, since almost no one else I know enjoys them as much. The 
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