Category Archives: Bakeries

Decadent Baked Brownie Mixes

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Brown sugar blondies made from the new Baked bakery's mix.

Brooklyn’s Baked bakery makes irresistible modern-day, home-spun desserts. These aren’t dainty, precious, overly fancy sweets. They’re the type of treats that you grew up with — only way better.

Now, you can make the Baked brownie and two other variations easily in your own home kitchen, thanks to Williams-Sonoma, which is now selling Baked brownie and blondie mixes.

Choose from: Deep Dark Chocolate Brownie, Peanut Butter Brownie, and Brown Sugar Blondie. I had a chance to try samples of each.

The mixes are packed with premium ingredients, including Guittard Cocoa Rouge,  and Callebaut semi-sweet chocolate and milk chocolate.

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For a Heartfelt Time

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For the optimist on Valentine's Day. (Photo courtesy of SusieCakes)

For Valentine’s Day, SusieCakes has got you covered, no matter if you’re head over heels in love or not.

For those that are, there’s the “Susie Loves Me” gift box of conversation heart sugar cookies, sweetheart sandwich cookies, a Sugar & Spice cupcake and a Red Hot Red Velvet cupcake.

And for the pessimist...(Photo courtesy of SusieCakes)For those for whom Valentine’s Day is more bah-humbug, there’s the “Susie Loves Me Not” gift box with cookies amusingly decorated with “Love Me Not” written on them, as well as “It’s Not Me, It’s You” conversation heart cookies, a black sweetheart sandwich cookie, cupcakes inscribed with “Serial Dater” and “Breakup Queen,” and a “Broken Heart Brownie.”

Both gift boxes are available Valentine’s Day for $25 each at SusieCakes locations in San Francisco and Marin.

San Francisco’s Baker & Banker Bakery is getting into the mood with special Valentine’s Day treats and special-order cakes.

Among the tempting offerings for Feb. 14 are strawberry champagne cupcakes (champagne-soaked yellow cake with strawberry frosting; $3.50 each); hand-written “Hostess” cupcakes with salted caramel ($3.50 each); conversation heart cakes (Devil’s food cake with Grand Marnier ganache; $50 for 6-inch; $80 for 10-inch); and champagne cake truffles ($5.50 for four).

Adorable conversation heart cakes. (Photo courtesy of Baker & Banker)

For a bottle of wine with a heartfelt message, look no further than 2007 Linda’s Hillside Vineyard Cabarnet Sauvignon from Napa’s Darms Lane Vineyard.

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Just in Time for Valentine’s Day — A Sweet Food Gal Giveaway

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Win this lovely box of petits fours by Divine Delights. (Photo courtesy of the bakery)With Valentine’s Day around the corner, it’s never too early to contemplate sweet gifts for your sweetie.

Divine Delights, a small family bakery in San Rafael, has got you covered.

The company — which has been touted in the New York Times, Gourmet and Bon Appetit — offers a full line of cookies, cakes, tarts, and petits fours.

Among its offerings for Valentine’s Day, are red heart-shaped boxes filled with signature petits fours — miniature almond butter cake layered with truffle cream, fruit fillings or buttercream, then enrobed in chocolate, and decorated with hearts and roses.

One lucky Food Gal reader will win one of the small Valentine heart boxes of petits fours (pictured above; a $37.95 value). It will be delivered to you just before Valentine’s Day. You can give it to someone you love — or just hoard it all to yourself. I won’t tell; I promise.

Contest: Deadline to enter is midnight PST Feb. 5. Winner will be announced Feb. 7. Contest is open only to those in the continental United States.

How to win?

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The Recipe for Bakesale Betty’s Iconic Fried Chicken Sandwich

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If you’ve had the pleasure of chomping down on the two-fisted, crunch-a-palooza known as Bakesale Betty’s fried chicken sandwich, you know it’s hard to forget.

Not with that impeccable golden crust, pillowy torpedo roll and mound of tangy slaw.

If you can’t make it to Bakesale Betty’s two Oakland locations to stand in line for it — and there almost always is one — you can try your hand at making one at home.

Baker-Owner Alison Barakat, who dons an electric blue wig as her alter ego, “Betty,” shares the recipe for this killer sandwich on the new, improved Via magazine Web site. Starting with this inaugural spotlight on Bakesale Betty, yours truly will be working with Via to bring you a new recipe on that site each month for a signature dish created by a landmark restaurant in the West.

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