Tag: baking

Making Gingerbread Houses

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

I admit it: prior to yesterday I was a Gingerbread House Virgin. Through twenty-plus years of motherhood, I’d managed to avoid ever baking, never mind decorating, a gingerbread house. The desire just was not there. I couldn’t have been less interested.

Then something incredible happened: I wanted to make one.  Something shifted inside me and I really wanted to do it…and then…

I got lucky.

🙂

Tip: do it for the first time with someone who knows what they are doing!

Okay, enough double entendre. My friend Kristen (see her blog here) is a fabulous baker and she invited my daughter and me to be part of her (tenth, I think) annual ritual of baking and decorating a Gingerbread House with her son, something I’d never done with my own son in his childhood (but hey, we did make dozens—dozens!–of Christmas cookies over the years! Just sayin’.).

Our jobs were to bring something flat to put the house on the day prior, and to buy some candy to contribute to the stash of building supplies.
Oh, and to show up. 🙂

The end result? Amazing. The ideas the kids came up with were so creative–it was just wonderful to watch their minds working. Plus, my friend and I got to chat virtually uninterrupted for at least an hour.

This is definitely an activity I would like to do again next year.

The irony? My son was making his first Gingerbread House at the same time at his girlfriend’s house with her family. Go figure.

Watch the slideshow that follows to see what we used for materials. 🙂

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Somethin’ Sweet Bakery in Sanford

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, friends, local fun, quest for the best
Jennifer, owner of Somethin' Sweet Bakery in Sanford

Maybe it’s Sunday afternoon and 86 degrees and the last thing in the world you want to do is hang around the house with your cranky kids, since you yourself are very cranky. Here’s an idea: throw…er, put the kids in the car and drive over to Somethin’ Sweet Bakery, 883 Main Street Suite 1 in Sanford, next to Get Fired Up.

Jen opens for business Thursday through Saturday  from 11:00am to 7:00pm and Sundays from 11:00am to 4:00pm.  She may open other days as well; for example last Monday Jen opened for the 4th of July to provide excellent edible support for hungry (for Somethin’ Sweet!) parade go-ers.

Jen has always loved baking and that fact comes through loud and clear to anyone who has been lucky enough to enjoy any of the Whoopie Pies (try the Coffee-filled Chocolate Whoopies! They are amazing!), cookies, brownies, and other treats that you can find at her bakery. She changes up the flavors and items daily but of course, like the ice cream parlors always have vanilla and chocolate on hand, you can always find the old standbys (vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting for instance) represented at Somethin’ Sweet! Jen is working on the new website for her business (somethinsweetmaine.com), but if you need a focal point for your (sweet) meditation today, check out the picture up there now. . . you will have no trouble sitting for 20 minutes if you are focusing on that.

Speaking of Somethin’ Sweet, the decor of the store, as well as the lovely store owner, are exactly that. Jen mentioned that she is working on some new offerings (this week she made caramel blondies..now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!), so keep coming back and check out what’s in the display case. You can also check out the daily flavors which she posts on Facebook.  You may find that, despite the variety of options, your tween will always want the Cookie Dough Cupcake. Let her have it, as long as she stays away from your Chocolate Whoopie Pie with Coffee Filling…

🙂

Jen is taking Somethin’ Sweet on the road tomorrow (Monday, July 11) night. She will be at the Sanford Mainers baseball game at 6:30pm at Goodall Park, Roberts Street in Sanford. Why not eat a light supper then pile the fam in the car for an evening of baseball and baked treats?

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All things cupcake

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, friends, local fun, Midlife Crisis, quest for the best, restaurants
PB&J cupcake (CFB)

My friend Charlotte asked me a question today: ” Who has the best cupcakes?” On the surface, it seems an easy enough question, right?  Wrong! I tried to apply my “Keep it simple” philosophy to this question but found I was not able to.

I mean, come on!

So here goes my attempt to answer this question:

  1. Cupcake Fetish Bakery, Main St. in Sanford. which has the best variety and most interesting flavors. Hello, The Elvis? Peanut butter, banana and bacon? Plus Tiramisu, Pink Lemonade, Drop Kick Murphy, Chocolate Kahlua…and I’m barely even getting started here. Plus the store has a little window into the kitchen so you can watch the actual cupcaking process as it happens! And the inside of the shop is decorated with cute cupcake paraphernalia that gives it a very fun atmosphere.
  2. The Village Cupcake, Kennebunk. Owner Kristy Douglas was recently at the Keys to the Kitchen in Kennebunk to giving out cupcake decorating tips. She also brought along some mini cupcakes to sample. SO GOOD! Kristy sells her cupcake wares from her home so if you want to pick up a cupcake on a whim, this will not be your cupcake go-to person…I don’t think. Call her though; maybe she does keep some on hand for when the whimsy hits. Also, they have many interesting flavors (amaretto, hel-LO) and are open to creating new flavors at your request (Green Tea cupcakes? You betcha!).  They also offer gluten-free cupcakes. 🙂
  3. Tulips Cupcakery, Portland. These cupcakes can be purchased at Kamasouptra in Monument Square; check the website for other locations to buy. They describe themselves as  “from farm to cupcake”, since they are inspired by and use local, seasonal ingredients in their recipes. If you are a person who loves strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting but doesn’t want any of those annoying strawberry chunks in the batter–you like ’em smoooooth–then these will be the answer to your strawberry cupcake prayers.

This post covers the above 3 businesses because they are the first 3 that came to mind!  Apparently, I’ve never met a cupcake I didn’t like…

🙂

Of course, cupcakes made at home or by friends are really the best of them all!

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The day I ate whatever I wanted…Part One

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, local fun, Midlife Crisis, quest for the best, restaurants

What better day to do so than on your birthday? That was my thought process anyway.  As I started planning my day’s meals ahead of time, I recalled reading about this in a book by Elizabeth Berg, entitled (appropriately) The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. I was a little disappointed that the whole book wasn’t about this; rather, it was just the title of the first story what turned out to be a book of short stories. Oh well. The book is worth reading for that first story.

I’m interested in seeing how close to the plan the day ends up going, so I’m writing a “Before” and an “After” post.

One of the meals that woman in the story ate was doughnuts (her first stop: breakfast). Not just one doughnut…one DOZEN doughnuts. (Well, she didn’t actually eat all twelve, but you get the idea). I didn’t want to be overstuffed (read: sick) at the beginning of the day!

This would not be conducive to a  successful day of Eating Whatever I Want.

So here’s my problem: there are so many options!!! How to narrow it down? Darned if I know.

Breakfast: Amore Breakfast, All Day Breakfast (the one in Kennebunk), Omelette Factory, Congdon’s

Lunch: Anthony’s for tried and true good food. Maria’s for dying to try, rumored to be good food.

Afternoon snack: Bread and Roses for an amazing array of baked treats.

Supper: It’s gotta be Varano’s. My favorite Italian…unless I get Italian for lunch…decisions! One thing is for sure: it is totally all about the food, isnt’ it? At least these decisions are happy ones.

Late evening snack: Big Daddy’s in Wells or Brown’s in York for a Kahlua Brownie ice cream cone.

So, this is the before post. Will write Part 2 tomorrow to account for what I actually did end up doing for my birthday.

Cakewalk in the cube

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, friends, Life in the cube
Amazing cake baked by Kathy Cyr

The planets somehow aligned last week. That’s the only explanation that I can come up with for this phenomenon that occurred at my place of employment. Are we a restaurant? A cafe? A bakery? No. We are an office full of nurses.

Yet we  had 4 (count ’em) cakes to share during the work week. Birthdays, comings and goings, TGIF days…any of these are good enough reasons to let ’em eat cake. Some are store-bought, some are baked by colleagues…and we have some amazing bakers where I work.

The one in this picture was baked by Kathy (a fellow nurse) and this is just a small sample of the wonderful treats she bakes for us (which include breads, cookies, and whoopie pies, to name just a few things in addition to the cakes!). One bite of this cake and you completely forget that you are eight hours into your ten hour shift, your fourth one that week.  Yep; those are raspberries in the midst of all that chocolate.

The next cake we had was this lovely chocolate cake with vanilla frosting from the Wild Oates Bakery in Brunswick.  Shirley bought this cake for Pauline to celebrate her birthday this week.  It was the best birthday at work ever!

We also had two other supermarket variety purchased cakes, one (you guessed it) chocolate with vanilla frosting and the other (sorry, didn’t get a picture of this one) was marble with vanilla frosting. We were inundated with cakes! Both of these were very good, but were eclipsed by Kathy’s homemade one and the Wild Oates bakery cake.  Really though, it was a win-win situation for us all. Well, except for the people who avoid gluten. Sorry guys.

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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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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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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. 🙂