Category: baking

Cupcake Fetish Bakery Grand Opening!!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, local fun, quest for the best
Amy and Jen from CFB

Amy and Jen have been selling cupcakes and other small baked goods for a while now at their new bakery: Cupcake Fetish Bakery at 883 Main Street in Sanford, but Saturday was a special day: the official Grand Opening celebration.

They set up a three tiered table that was adorned with an assortment of mini cupcakes which were not only delicious…but they were also so cute!

In addition to the generous offering of free bite sized cupcakes was a plate of mini cinnamon buns with icing to sample. It was a smorgasbord of sweet baked treats!

When we arrived at around 2:30PM the little shop was packed with happy people: men, women, children, all with their tummies filled with yummy cupcakes. Amy came out with another tray of Snickers cupcakes after hearing someone say, “Oh! They got the last one!” People were sitting and chatting at the tables. Kids were bargaining with parents over how many cupcakes they could sample and buy. The common denominator: the smiles that people smile when their sweet tooth has been satisfied...big time. 🙂

“I’ve been baking all day!” Amy said, smiling as she restocked the case. Jen was busy helping us with important decisions. Which cupcakes? Should we get a few whoopie pies? Yes! Thank you, Amy! Thank you, Jen! We appreciate you both!

Reasons to go to the Cupcake Fetish Bakery today:

  1. Your husband is in a funk and needs cheering up
  2. You’re in a funk because yoga teacher made cupcakes for the class…the class that you couldn’t get to.
  3. Your (amazing!) daughter got a 103 on her spelling test and a 106 on her science test and you want to celebrate.
  4. It’s someone’s birthday and you want to give them a little something sweet.
  5. The cupcakes (and everything else) at the Cupcake Fetish Bakery ROCK!!!

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Thank you, Amy and Jen, for opening your lovely little shop. We hope your business is supremely successful and that you are keeping us in cupcakes (and cinnamon buns and pupcakes and coffee cake and whoopie pies and muffins….) for a long, long time. 🙂

P.S. Maybe you could sell those bite sized cupcakes too? We LOVED them!

Whoopie!!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, books, family, quest for the best

Maybe you’ve heard this news already, but just in case you missed it: The Great State of Maine is considering making the Whoopie Pie its official state dessert.

It wasn’t already? There are lots of places to get a great wh0opie pie, including your very own kitchen. If you take this route, here are two excellent cookbooks to consult:

  1. Whoopie Pies By Sarah Billingsley, Amy Treadwell
  2. Making Whoopies by Nancy Griffin

Did you know that there’s a Maine Whoopie Pie Association? Me neither!(Although a Google search of this phrase got me zero hits). I read about it in a Portland Press Herald Article on 2/1/11.

Did you know that there’s a whoopie pie song? Me neither!  It’s by John Linscott (see link to above article, right side of the page for the lyrics).

Want to buy your whoopies?

  1. Cranberry Island Kitchen
  2. Two Fat Cats Bakery
  3. Wicked Whoopies

No decisions were made at the first meeting. They will reconvene on February 9th.

Here’s hoping the whoopies win!

🙂

Cupcake Bakery in Sanford

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, fitness, friends, local fun, quest for the best, tweens
Coconut Bunny cupcake (one of the "Groupies")

I was returning my books at the library this weekend, two of which happened to be about cake baking, when one of the staffers said, “Have you tried that new cupcake bakery in Sanford?” “There’s a new cupcake bakery in Sanford??” I asked (of course, she had me at “cupcake”). She did a little research for me and discovered Cupcake Fetish Bakery, 883 Main Street in Sanford.

An hour and a half later, we were there. It’s in a little group of stores next to Get Fired Up! The parking lot is just before the shops, and if you see St. Ignatius St. on your right, go back! You’ve just passed it.

When you enter the shop, the counter is on the right, but if you look to the left, you’ll see Amy the baker through the window, plying her craft. Jennifer will take your cupcake order, which you can get boxed up to go, or you might choose to sit at one of the cute little tables (as my daughter Izzy and her friend Madi did)  in the shop.

Our choices today were a Chocolate Dream Warrior cupcake with pink vanilla bean frosting, a MegaDough cupcake (complete with chocolate chip cookie on the top and cookie dough hidden inside!), and a red velvet whoopie pie. We took a Coconut Bunny cupcake and a traditional chocolate whoopie pie home with us. All were excellent.

There are different items every day, but not all of the menu items are available every day, so check out their Facebook Page to find out what they are offering the day that you are going. They categorize the cupcakes as “Groupies”  and “Rock Stars”… hmmm…wonder what that’s about?

Note: the menu states that they will close early if they sell out!

After the bakery? An hour of Wii Just Dance 2 to work off the goodies. 🙂

Verdict: worth the trip.

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The best yoga class ever!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, fitness, friends, quest for the best, yoga
Kathy, Alexis, Kristen (our teacher!), Janna, Me, Jeannie
Last night was a special yoga class at Windsong Yoga Studio in South Berwick. My friend Kristen (right in the center) is the instructor, and she teaches nice blend of many different styles of yoga. She has studied with some of the top teachers in the United States,  including Doug Keller, Desiree Rumbaugh, Sianna Sherman, and Judith Lasater, to name just a few. A bonus: she teaches women (no men allowed!). 🙂
She planned a special class to celebrate the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year).
After this excellent class, we were treated to an excellent meal, prepared for us by Kristen. A Tempeh Wreath was the main course, accompanied by a side salad of mixed greens, lightly dressed. Dessert was partially by way of Whole Foods  (and may I just say, OMG! Especially the chocolate covered figs? Unbelievable!). There were also some delicious Christmas cookies made for us by Janna, because, after all, what is Christmas without the cut outs? I ask  you.
Now, if you are someone who practices yoga, and midway through most classes you start thinking about pizza and/or assorted baked goods, this was like a class made in heaven. Thank you, Kristen! Put that Tempeh Wreath recipe in your cookbook!
What holiday celebrations are you participating in this year?

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To frost or not to frost?

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, friends, tweens
Iz ready to bake!
My daughter and I were looking for something interesting to bake last weekend and came upon a recipe for blondies. Not just any blondies…pumpkin blondies.
Now it’s not often that we bake things that don’t list chocolate as one of the top ingredients, but these looked and sounded so great that we decided to take the leap.
We found the recipe in this month’s issue of Mixing Bowl Magazine.
My husband happened to call during the decision-making phase and I told him that we were baking, and the recipe we had picked. “What’s in them?” he asked. I told him that besides pumpkin, there were white chocolate chips and coconut, and he interrupted me. “White chocolate chips? Sounds gross,” he decided. “Don’t save me any.”
(Note: Never ask my husband his opinion about anything if you don’t really want it). 🙂
Well, we made them anyway, of course, and they were excellent. I thought a little maple frosting would kick these up a notch (I mean really; what isn’t better in life with a little frosting on top? I ask you), but my daughter didn’t agree.
We compromised by frosting half of them with some maple cream cheese whoopie pie filling that I’d made, and left half unadorned.
Well, they turned out great! We’ll definitely make these again. Our compromise on the frosting issue is this: next time, we’ll make a maple glaze and drizzle it over the bars.

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Pumpkins in the Old Port

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, local fun, raising chickens

Love pumpkins? There are lots of options for getting your pumpkin fix here in the Old Port. 

First, Coastal Maine Popcorn Company has a seasonal flavor called Pumpkin Spice. Now, popcorn is not something that immediately springs to mind (like muffins!) when I think of pumpkin, but maybe hereafter it will. Head over to the tasting bar and try some for yourself; see what you think. I’d tell you what I think of it except that the day I went to try it, they were sold out of it. Maybe that means that it’s good? 

Pumpkin Pie from Bam Bam Bakery

Next, you can indulge your pumpkin and your chocolate cravings at once with some pumpkin chocolate swirl fudge from the Old Port Candy Company. They will give you a free sample if you want to “try before you buy”. Fair warning: it will be hard to walk away without it once you’ve tried it. 

At The Farmers Market in Monument Square on Wednesdays, you can pick up a personal-sized, gluten-free pumpkin pie from Bam Bam Bakery’s table. Be focused though, because they also have lemon bars to die for. Get your little pie, hand over your $5, then walk away. 

Pumpkin Whoopie from Two Fat Cats Bakery

Finally, there are amazing pumpkin whoopie pies made at the Two Fat Cats Bakery on India Street.  Their recipe is in the Making Whoopies: The Official Whoopie Pie Book by Nancy Griffin. They were featured recently on America’s Best Sweets on the Food Network and touted as having the best whoopie pie not only in Portland, but in America. I have had the pumpkin version and I totally agree. 

On another note: don’t forget about how much chickens love to eat real pumpkins, and feel free to save any post-Halloween for consumption by the local chickens of your choice. Especially mine. 

🙂

Fall!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, restaurants
Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Muffin

Fall is a time when a young(ish) woman’s thoughts lightly turn to…pumpkin muffins! What is a better harbinger of the new season? I ask you. 

Pumpkin muffin is a term that should be used loosely; more of a suggestion than an edict. There are many different versions of the pumpkin muffin. 

Here are a few: 

  1. Dunkin Donuts has a Pumpkin Muffin. You may want to know (if you are on Weight Watchers) that it has about 16 POINTS. Really. Almost my total allotment for an entire day. You might prefer to assuage your pumpkin craving with a pumpkin donut if you are at DD; they have about 6 POINTS. (Disclaimer: these point values were calculated last fall with nutrition info from the DD website using the online WW point calculator and I am recalling them to the best of my memory since the pumpkin products aren’t on the DD website at the time of this writing).
  2. Better yet, cheat: make them at home with this recipe from Copykat.
  3. Tim Horton’s version of Pumpkin Spice Muffin is “healthier” at only (count ’em) 9 Weight Watcher’s Points. Hey, it’s better than 16. Way better, actually.
  4. Your local bakery/coffee shop/breakfast place most likely will also have some pumpkin muffins of some sort, and most likely they will be very hard to resist, and probably better than #1 or #3 above.
  5. The local supermarket will probably have pumpkin muffins in their bakery section. Smallish, plain (as in unadorned by streusel topping and/or glaze), unappealing ones are offered at my local market.

The choice is yours. My choice was purely based on proximity; I was driving by DD and had a half an hour to kill before the football game started Sunday morning. I also had a DD card with some money left on it. Can you say DD combo with black french vanilla coffee and a pumpkin muffin??? 

So, only the 3rd day of being back to active weight loss and a pumpkin muffin knocked me off the wagon. At least my daughter split it with me…well, she had a bite of it. 

Tomorrow is another day. 🙂

Magical thinking (or: the 80/20 rule revisited)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, fitness, health, restaurants

This summer, for the first time since losing weight, I put some back on. In reviewing my behavior over the past 3 months, I realized what happened: I reversed the 80/20 rule of maintenance. Instead of staying on track with eating 80% of the time so that the other 20% I could eat whatever I wanted, I ate whatever I wanted 80% of the time, using magical thinking to hope that staying on track 20% of the time would balance the wild abandon of the other 80%. I did the same thing with exercising (ugh!).

Coffee gelato

What happened? Well, for one thing, I guess I got smug. For a while, it actually didn’t matter that I did that; my body compensated for the excess until it just couldn’t anymore. Also, I got lazy about portion sizes and, in many instances, doubled what I knew was the amount that I should have been having. What can I say? So much (goooooood food); so little time.

Plus, hello?  Tiramisu, gelato, sweet potato fries every week? Cinnamon buns and (just today, as I recall :)) blueberry muffins as big as your head? How did I think that would turn out?

Okay, time to put the 80/20 back in the 80/20 rule; time to lose the magical thinking. Goodbye maintenance; hello active losing: points counting, writing everything down, exercise of some sort 6 days a week for 30 minutes instead of 3…um, or 1.

It ain’t gonna be easy.

The foods of the summer of 2010 will not be soon forgotten. Here’s a (small) sample:

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Baking bread

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, books
Bread!

 

Years ago I had tried baking bread from scratch. It was a many-houred affair, what with the kneading, and the punching down, and the multiple rises (unless you’re making beer bread, but that’s another story)…well, I discovered that this is not the only way to make bread at home.  A coworker told me about a book that explained a different approach. http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/ is the author’s website, and you can even find a video of the process (if you search around a little) there. 

Well, I’ve never looked back. I’ve been making bread this way now for more than a year and it’s fantastic. There are several different recipes (there’s even a second book now, recently released by them and a third book in the works) in the first book as well as on the website, but even if you only make the basic recipe boule, I predict that you will be happy. My niece Ariana loves it so much that every time she visits me (or I visit her!) I have a bread freshly baked, ready to give her. 

The book is:  Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. 

Have any of you heard of this book? Have you tried the recipes?

Fun with friends

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, italian, local fun, restaurants, tweens

What could be better than a great day spent doing fun things with your friends?  Not much; especially if it involves good food. 

friends

 

This past weekend, my daughter and I did just that. We started off at The Good Table, a wonderful restaurant in Cape Elizabeth.  Sunday brunch is the day to go; that is the day that you can have a cinnamon bun that’s (almost as) big as your head. Even if that’s the only thing you have, you will be very happy you went. 

Of course, it’s not the only thing that we had. Among us, we ordered an Italian Villa (an egg dish, not a house), blueberry crepes…home fries, toast, eggs, bacon were all present and accounted for. We had plenty left over; too bad I forgot it in my friend’s car! (yes, she saved them for me…). 🙂 

Next, being happily filled up with an abundance of excellent food, we stopped at Two Lights. We got out, walked around, took pictures of our kids and ourselves. Then we headed over to Fort Williams Park for a drive through…we didn’t have time to get out and walk around because the girls were anxious to get to the Maine Rock Gym. If you are bringing your tween to climb, please note that if they are under 12 then they will need someone to belay for them, so be prepared. About an hour is how long we (my 11 year old and I) usually last at rock climbing. 

climbing rock wall

 

The girls had been wanting to go to Coastal Maine Popcorn in the Old Port. This is a great place to take your kids. They have up to 30 different popcorn flavors, both savory and sweet. Some recent offerings are black licorice, buffalo wing, salt and vinegar, watermelon, Maine maple. You are welcome to try any flavors before you buy them. We tried, then we bought for others. 

After that, the girls (and of course, the moms!) needed a treat for ourselves. We had an “ice cream vs gelato” debate, and in the end, ice cream won. We headed to the new location of Mt. Desert Island Ice Cream in the Old Port. If you are an adventurous ice cream eater, this is the place for you. Like Coastal Maine Popcorn, they will happily let you “try before you buy”  (lavender? avocado? jack daniels? all these ice cream flavors and many more), like all good businesses do. 

This concluded our outing. We were tired, but happy. Consider your own “Fun with Friends” day in your own or nearby town.