Hope you’re hungry—continuing this week of special focused Magpie Monday posts, I’m serving up Someone’s in the Kitchen…!
I hope Dinah would be proud!
◊ Amanda Sutker sent me this image by Tracie Kaska called Delicious Red Velvet Cupcake, which I think is heavenly. You can buy a print of this photo or lots of other food photos by Kaska at her website. Go ahead—you know you want to!
Delicious Red Velvet Cupcake by Tracie Kaska
◊ Because it’s bigger on the inside: a TARDIS refrigerator! Via.
◊ Let Them Eat Cake! Rephrase: Let Me Eat Cake!
Check out this slideshow of samples from Mike’s Amazing Cakes in Redmond, WA. I particularly liked Hermione’s handbag, below:
These cake toppers a “Princess Superhero”-themed party are sheer gender-swapped perfection (click through to see some other photos of the other toppers). Via.
Another reason to visit London (as if I needed another one): the Tate & Lyle Sugars cake hotel, where each room’s fixtures and furniture were made of entirely edible sweet things! At Eat Your Heart Out, Miss Cakehead gives an overview:
For one night only, overnight guests will be able to eat their way through vanilla sponge cushions, windows and walls clad with 2,000 macaroons, a rug made from 1,081 meringues, marshmallow garlands, windowsills built entirely from cake and a bath filled with caramel-coated popcorn. There are even edible books on the bedside table—perfect to encourage sweet dreams.
Holy Sweet Tooth, Batman! Let’s break out the insulin from our utility belts and get there straightway! Luckily for me and my pancreas, the cake hotel was a one-day Brigadoon.
“Edible cushions from Carina’s Cupcakes nestle on the bed alongside an edible book also from Carina—photography Nathan Pask”
Miss Cakehead also gives a description of the eight tasting rooms. Oh my!
- A Mediterranean-inspired bedroom, with edible furnishings, a caramel popcorn-filled bathtub, floating meringues and edible pearlescent popcorn bunting, all created using Light Soft Brown sugar. The perfect location for a midnight feast!
- A Pirates of the Caribbean room, with a giant treasure chest full of edible pearls, ginger spiced doubloons and cutlasses, which visitors can spray gold themselves, and rum and raisin chocolate brownies and tea cakes—all made from Taste Experience Caribbean-inspired Light Muscovado sugar
- A British-inspired Golden syrup sugar room, with a giant golden-syrup lion, patriotic treacle tarts in the shape of the British Isles and a giant tower of doughnuts
- A Mayan-inspired room hidden in the cellar featuring a Mayan fudge temple, complete with floating meringue ‘clouds’, ‘sacrificial’ salted caramel and chocolate hearts, and Mayan-inspired carved gold cookies all made from Taste Experience Mayan-inspired golden caster sugar
- A Mississippi-inspired ‘Mardi Gras’ room featuring a five foot long rainbow cake in the traditional colours of green, yellow & purple, gold baby heads and of course King Cakes
- A Barbados-inspired library, with edible shells, and beautiful hand-painted cookies, fruit cakes and florentines showcased as museum features inside vintage glass jars, all made from Barbados inspired Dark Muscovado sugar
- A Guyanese-inspired room, complete with a sea turtle cake, and cake ‘turtle eggs’ buried in mounds of Demerara sugar
- A South Pacific-inspired room with a huge two metre high Easter Island statue, made entirely from chocolate mud cake baked using Golden Granulated sugar
Click through to see additional pictures and learn more about the event. Via.
◊ This birdhouse from made Julia Child’s French Chef Cookbook is très mignon! At $125, the price is too pretty for me, but I shouldn’t think this project would be terribly difficult to replicate on your own. Via.
◊ Recipes You Want.
Croquembouche (“crunch in the mouth”), a French dessert made of piling cream puffs in a cone and drizzling them with caramel, not only sounds good, it looks good, too! And, apparently, isn’t as difficult to make as you’d think. Here are recipes from Martha Stewart, Saveur, and GoodFood. I have long admired croquembouche from afar, and one day I hope to do so from a close!
Why not enjoy these 11 nerdy recipes from books, movies, and TV? You’ll find everything from butterbeer to green eggs & ham to Arrakeen Spice coffee to Popplers to Dothraki blood pie. Mmmm-mmm.
Apparently there is a way to make the perfect chocolate truffle. Felicity Cloake discusses several interesting alternatives before sharing her recipe. Via.
“Felicity Cloake’s perfect chocolate truffles. Photograph: Felicity Cloake for the Guardian”
My friend Andrew Gilstrap sent me the link to Thug Kitchen (subtitled, “Eat Like You Give a Fuck”), which literally cracks me up! Granted, the language is pretty NSFW—which is what makes me laugh so hard—but if that doesn’t bother you, dig in! These recipes sound pretty good.
◊ Erzebet YellowBoy wrote a great blog post about her hens, which are ex-commercial or ex-battery hens. I’ve always wanted to try farm-fresh eggs, and the idea of keeping my own chickens is appealing (but impractical, given how even houseplants fare with me). In her post, Erzebet also linked to a fascinating article by Nadia Arumugam from Forbes (October 2012), Why American Eggs Would Be Illegal in a British supermarket, and Vice Versa. Below is a picture of one of Erzebet’s hens. Isn’t she a doll?
Photo by Erzebet YellowBoy
◊ Breadworks.
More food slideshows! First is the work of Ida Skivenes, a food artist who translates famous works of art onto toast in her Art Toast Project. Yum! I would totally eat them.
Edvard Munch’s The Scream as rendered in toast by Ida Skivenes
From toast to sandwiches: Kaisa Haupt renders monsters and other characters via sandwiches. I thought this one was pretty clever:
Lox-ness Monster by Kaisa Haupt
◊ Parson Produce.
If you’re in the Upstate of SC, check out Parson Produce, an organic farm run by my friend Daniel Parson. He has a great CSA program (with several pick-up sites if you’re not in Clinton), and Parson Produce is at the Saturday Market in downtown Greenville during the summer. This is not a paid endorsement! I just think Daniel does great stuff. Be sure to check out the website link above or the Facebook page, which has some amazing produce photos, like the one below of lettuce.
◊ Frank and Dinah.
A cooking segment on Dinah Shore‘s show with Frank Sinatra in 1970:
Here’s part two, with something we don’t see much anymore with cooking segments: actually eating the food and talking! And I don’t just mean taking a couple bites at the end of the program.
And a little sweet treat to end today’s special Magpie Monday on Thursday, a medley by Shore and Sinatra! I love how they crack each other up.
