Category Archives: Cupcakes

Ad Hoc Cake Mix and Prepared Frosting

Leave it to uber-Chef Thomas Keller to create the world’s most expensive cake mix.

Just how pricey?

We’re talking $14 for either the Ad Hoc Red Velvet, Chocolate or Yellow cake mixes sold exclusively at Williams-Sonoma. Add another $19.95 for a jar of either the ready-to-spread Ad Hoc Milk Chocolate or Dark Chocolate frostings, also sold at Williams-Sonoma.

That’s $33.95 to make one cake right there. Not to mention the butter, plus 4 whole eggs AND 4 egg yolks that you mix into the yellow cake batter, which is the one I received a sample of recently to try.

Boy howdy, you could buy a quite decent bakery cake for that price and call it a day.

Ahh, but then, you wouldn’t have the Ad Hoc or Keller prestige attached to it.

The mixes and frostings are made from top-notch ingredients: Guittard cocoa and Nielsen Massey vanilla. I could smell the strong fragrance of the vanilla as the yellow cake batter came together in the bowl of my stand mixer. Unlike so many other cake recipes I’ve used, the directions on the back of this box call for using the whisk attachment for the mixer rather than the paddle. The result is a batter that is very fluffy and silky-creamy — almost as if there’s whipped cream folded into it.

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Berkeley’s Love at First Bite Cupcakes

This tucked away little bakery in Berkeley definitely has the perfect name.

After friends on Facebook started up a swoon-inducing discussion about Love at First Bite’s strawberry cupcake, I knew I had to make a trip to the East Bay to try one.

If you didn’t know this bakery existed, you’d be hard pressed to just stumble upon it, as it’s located at the back of a small retail plaza on a largely residential street.

But being that I have a nose for cupcakes, I found it handily with the help of my husband.

Love at First Bite sells 12 to 15 different cupcakes each day, priced from $2.75 to $2.95 each.

Of course, my eyes zeroed in on the “Pretty in Pink” cupcakes — the famous strawberry cupcakes made with real fruit and topped with swirls of pastel pink strawberry buttercream.

It was every bit as good as I had read. This little cake packs a whopper of strawberry flavor. The frosting was super lush, though I wish the sugar had been dialed back just one tiny notch.

Since I was there, I had to try a few more, right?

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Ferry Building Happenings, Glam Foodie Fund-Raisers & More

In San Francisco:

The offerings at the Saturday farmers market at the San Francisco Ferry Building just got a whole lot sweeter.

The Arlequin booth, manned by Luis Villavelazquez, executive pastry chef of Absinthe restaurant in San Francisco, will now be a regular fixture at that Saturday market, just steps from the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, beginning May 1.

The booth, which already had been up and running at the smaller Thursday farmers market there, will be selling the likes of malted cupcake with banana cream and Oreo frosting; strawberry and tobacco-infused scone with creme fraiche; spiced ramp and provolone biscuits; and milk chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

Find the Arlequin booth next to Blue Bottle Coffee’s exterior stand,  8 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Thursday and Saturday.

If luscious libations are more your thing, you won’t want to miss “Berries, Citrus and Rhubarb,” a fun cocktails class at the Ferry Building, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. May 7.

Master mixologist Scott Beattie will conduct a hands-on class to teach you how to make market-fresh strawberry margaritas, classic mai tais, and gimlets.

Master distiller, Lance Winters of St. George Spirits in Alameda, will talk about micro-distillation.

The Ferry Building’s Il Cane Rosso also will serve up cocktail-friendly noshes. Additionally, participants will get to take home a recipe booklet.

The class will be held under the North Arcade of the Ferry Building. Tickets are $45.

City College of San Francisco invites you to its 12th annual “Wok on the Wild Side,” a benefit for its culinary arts and hospitality studies department, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. April 26.

Participating in the star chef-studded affair are Staffan Terje of Perbacco in San Francisco, Bruce Hill of Picco in Larkspur, Laurence Jossel of Nopa, Jennifer Biesty of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, and Mauricio Sibrian of John’s Grill in San Francisco.  They will be honoring City College alum, Tom Sweeney, the famous Beefeater doorman who has been welcoming visitors to the Sir Francis Drake Hotel for more than 30 years.

The chefs will be cooking up their specialties and being assisted by the students and faculty of the program.

Tickets are $150. For information, call (415) 239-3152.

You won’t want to miss another gala chefs gathering, 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. April 29, when “Taste of the Nation San Francisco” rolls into town on the Club Level of AT&T Park in San Francisco.

The benefit for Share Our Strength, will feature tastes from more than 40 top San Francisco chefs, including Dominique Crenn of Luce, Mark Sullivan of Spruce, Hoss Zare of Zare at Fly Trap, and Matthew Accarrino of SPQR.

Live music and a silent auction will add to the festivities, which will benefit one of the nation’s largest organizations dedicated to alleviating childhood hunger.

Regular tickets are $85. VIP tickets, which get you into the event an hour earlier, are $140.

Monday, April 26, dine at a Pasta Pomodoro in San Francisco or elsewhere in the Bay Area to do a good deed.

That night, the restaurant chain will donate 25 percent of profits from every “Cena di Familia” meal to local food banks to help families in need. The three-course, family-style meal, which feeds four, comes with choice of salad, pasta and dessert for $35.

Around the Peninsula:

Take a taste of more than 100 wines from all over Italy in one spot. You can at “Enoteca 100 Primavera,” an Italian wine tasting at Donato Enoteca restaurant in Redwood City, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. May 1.

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A Temptress Named Miette

I can’t resist a wonderful French macaron.

Nor a fabulous cupcake, salted caramels, gingersnap cookies or imported European chocolates.

That’s why I have no will-power whenever I step inside one of San Francisco’s most delightful candy shops, Miette, a short drive from the Holiday Inn Civic Center.

The three-year-old candy shop, sister to the Miette bake shop in San Francisco’s bustling Ferry Building, is filled with all of that, plus everything else a sweet tooth could want.

Done up in girly pastel colors, the shop, whose name means “little crumb” in French, features a small assortment of signature baked goods at the counter, including chocolate vanilla cupcakes ($3.25), chocolate cakes with Italian meringue ($24), and chocolate sables topped with sea salt ($5 for a small bag).

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Delicious Doings Around the Region

The South Bay and Peninsula:

Sonoma Chicken Coop is famous for chicken, of course. But the Campbell locale has added a new item that will have you moo-ing instead.

That’s right — a burger made of grass-fed beef from Estancia ranches. It’s the only one of the franchises serving the grass-fed burger. And it’s flying out of the coop — at 75 orders a day, according to owner Jeff Starbeck. Surprisingly — or not — about 40 percent of the customers chowing down on the burger are women. Starbeck surmises that might be because grass-fed beef is lower in fat and contains more good-for-you omega-3s than corn-fed beef.

The 1/3-pound patty is hand-formed, then charbroiled, and served on a housemade bun. Choose from six different topping preparations, including avocado and mushrooms. The $9.99 burger comes with your choice of onion strings, regular fries or sweet potato fries.

Caltrain commuters at the Hillsdale station just got a tasty new option — a commuter “market” located in the former ticket office, where you can pick up fresh produce like apples, squash and avocados; as well as prepared dinner meals such as chicken pot pies and Dungeness crab mac ‘n’ cheese. How’s that for convenience?

Luke’s Local was opened by Luke Chappell, who started his own bagel business in Maine at the ripe old age of 11. His entrepreneurial spirit runs in his family. His parents founded Tom’s of Maine, a personal care products company that pioneered the use of all natural ingredients.

The commuter market is open Monday through Thursday, 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. Friday.  Purchase items there or phone in your order to take home. And yes, food and beverages are allowed on the trains.

Fans of Chef Michael Miller may be wondering what he’s been up to after he closed his well-regarded Trevese in Los Gatos last year. The good news is he’s now executive chef at the Silicon Valley Capital Club in San Jose.

If you’re not a member, find a friend who is to enjoy his wonderful cooking again.

Around the Region:

Thursday, Feb. 25 is National Clam Chowder Day. (Who comes up with these things?) Get your chowder fix at any Boudin SF or Boudin Cafe, where if you buy one clam chowder in a bowl that day, and receive a second one for free.

You have to present a coupon to get that deal. Print one out here.

If you’re a Parmigiano Reggiano fan (yes, the real stuff), you’ll want to head to Whole Foods at noon (PST) Feb. 27, when all of its markets will be demonstrating the proper way to break into huge, 24-month-aged wheels using five different knives.

In 2008, Whole Foods set a Guinness World Record for opening the most wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano simultaneously with nearly 300 wheels in 176 stores. This year, Whole Foods hopes to break that record.

You’ll get a chance to taste samples of the cheese, too. For more info or to see a video of a wheel of cheese being cracked open, click here.

If all that cheese is making you think of pasta, you’ll be glad to know that Pasta Pomodoro locations throughout Northern California are now letting kids (ages 12 and under) eat free all day on Tuesdays.

The “Kid’ Menu” includes items such as cheesy pasta or mini chicken Parmigiana pizza with a choice of milk, apple juice or soda. A chocolate sundae completes the meal.

Cinnabon — maker of those monster-sized cinnamon rolls whose sugary aroma fills the air of every mall around — has joined the cupcake craze.

The new cupcakes retail for about $2.50 each depending upon the city. San Francisco is the launch point for the cupcakes, which will be rolled out nationally to other cities throughout February.

Four cupcake flavors are available: Cinnacake Classic, Chocolate Passion, Vanilla Bliss, and 24-Carrot Cake.

Wine Country and Beyond:

Congratulations to Yountville’s Bardessono Hotel, Restaurant and Spa for garnering a LEED Platinum certification, the top designation established by the U.S. Green Building Council for environmental  and energy design.

It is the only hotel in California to achieve that designation, and only one of three hotels in the world to do so.

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