Category Archives: Fruit

Berkeley’s Love at First Bite Cupcakes

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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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A Spacy Time with Fruit and Wine

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A visit to the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland is a guaranteed trippy time with its always interesting starry exhibits.

But on the evening of Sunday, April 11, things get even more spacy when the Smithsonian affiliate teams with my buddy, winemaker Elaine Villamin of Eden Canyon Vineyards for a “miracle fruit” and wine party.

If you haven’t heard of miracle fruit, it’s a West African berry that has the wondrous ability to alter your taste buds so that sour and spicy foods can taste as sweet as candy. It’s become a hit at cocktail parties, where folks will gather to experience the legal, temporary effects of the berry while eating different foods. Scientists also are exploring positive medicinal uses for the berry.

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Pie for Pi Day

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Don’t forget to reset your clocks tomorrow for springing ahead with Daylight Saving Time.

And absolutely, positively, do not forget your pie, either.

That’s because Sunday is also National Pi Day. Yes, a day to celebrate the number which is “a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius.” Or so defines Wikipedia. Frankly, it’s been so long since my days of high school geometry that this is enough to make my head spin.

I’d much rather remember that pi equals 3.14. Or March 14 — get it?

Morton’s the Steakhouse wants to put you in the pi mode with, well, pie, of course. And Key Lime, to be exact.

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New Food Gal Veggie Seeds Give-Away — Plus Winners of the New Peet’s Coffee

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You can almost feel it in the air, can’t you? A little more sunshine peeking through, a little more daylight lingering at the end of the day. Yes, spring is on its way. And you know what that means?

Time for planting, of course. Yes, even for those with not-so-green thumbs like myself, this is the time to start thinking about the wondrous possibilities that we can nurture in our very own little window pots or in raised beds in the backyard.

To entice you further, the kind folks at the Cook’s Garden, a gourmet retailer of vegetables, lettuces and herbs, is allowing me to do a great give-away: Three winners will receive the seeds necessary to grow most everything in that colorful salad shown above. (OK, except for the cheese and olive oil, you wise guys.) Not only that, each winner also will receive a beautiful artisan oval cutting board to cut all those home-grown veggies on.

Call it the ultimate do-it-yourself salad when you grow the Myway Arugula, Lettuce Baby Red Mix, Tomato Persimmon and Tomato Carmelita, all by yourself.

When harvest time rolls around, slice the tomatoes about 3/8-inch thick, and alternate them in a row on a serving dish. Layer Myway Arugula and Lettuce Baby Red Mix over the top. Next, add slices of your favorite cheese over the top. Finally, whisk together olive oil, crushed garlic, dill, chives, salt, pepper, wine vinegar and dry mustard to taste. Drizzle over salad, and enjoy.

Here’s how to score those seeds and cutting board: Name the fruit, vegetable or herb that’s most like your personality, and why. Enter the contest by the end of the day, March 13. The three most clever or memorable responses will win. Contest results will be announced on March 15. Participants must reside in the continental United States.

To get you started here’s my own response: Kabocha squash. It’s Asian like me, as well as a little sweet, very versatile, and distinctive. It’s resilient — you can buy it, stick it on the counter, and it’ll keep just fine for quite a spell all to its self. It’s a bit starchy, too — and I never met a carb I didn’t like.

And without further adieu, here are the five winners of the last contest, who will each receive a bag of the new Peet’s Uzuri African Blend coffee:

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Not So Itty-Bitty, Teenie-Weenie Polka-Dot Cake

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Leopard print may be so Victoria’s Secret.

And camouflage so divisive and boldly statement-oriented.

But polka dots? Who doesn’t love the whimsy of big, bright, carefree circles covering anything and everything?

Especially when it’s crowning the top of this clever cake.

“Essence of Orange-Chocolate Wafer Cake” is from Coffee Cakes: Simple, Sweet and Savory” (Chronicle Books) by Palo Alto food writer, Lou Seibert Pappas.

It’s a super moist and dense, but tender, cake strewn with bittersweet chocolate wafers to create a fun polka-dot pattern.

I used the new TCHOPro Organic Baking Drops (66 Percent Cacao), which I recently got a sample of. The chocolate discs with the deep, pronounced flavor are $8.99 for an 8-ounce bag. E. Guittard also makes great chocolate wafers.

Besides its look, the other unusual thing about this cake? It includes one whole orange. Yup, rind, flesh, pith and all — just minus the seeds. It also includes golden raisins, but you’d never know they were there.

That’s because the orange and the raisins get pulverized in the food processor until finely ground. This sticky paste is what gives the cake its moistness. The mixture is combined with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and plain yogurt or buttermilk.

Chocolate discs are stirred into the batter before being poured into the cake pan. Then, more chocolate discs are laid over the top.

My cake took a little longer than the specified 40 minutes to bake (but I have a gas oven, too). If yours cake does, too, and it starts to brown too much, just tent it with foil to allow it to continue baking a few minutes more.

If you like candied orange rinds dipped in dark chocolate, you’ll love this cake. It tastes just like that, with a very gutsy orange flavor.

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