Category Archives: New Products

Love’s Cupcakes — Finally

Caramel cupcake.

It’s taken more than a year of waiting, but Love’s Cupcakes has finally opened in downtown San Jose.

I used to laugh when my gym workout buddy, Ellie, would give me week by week updates on the site, which she doesn’t live too far from.

“Oh, brown paper went up on the windows a few days ago!”

“A guy was actually inside working yesterday!”

“I peeked my head inside and they told me it would be open by the end of April!”

“They’re saying it’s PG&E’s fault now, that there’s a delay in turning on the power!”

“Still no power. Can you believe it?”

And on and on it went. I started to think it was some cruel joke by the baking gods, that the place would forever be in construction limbo.

Chocolate Dream cupcake (front), Caramel (rear left), Hummingbird (rear right)

But lo and behold, it’s now churning out about half a dozen flavors a day. I visited the cheery bakery on opening day (July 25). It was started by April Zarazua, a home baker, who graduated from the California Culinary Academy’s pastry program.

The regular size cupcakes are $3.25. There’s also a fun “create-your-own” cupcake option. Choose vanilla or chocolate cake, then your choice of frosting and one topping. Additional toppings are extra.

I chose three from the bakery case: Hummingbird, Chocolate Dream, and Caramel.

So were they worth a year-long wait?

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Food Gal Contest: Pop Along for Popchips

Cheddar Popchips go my heart.

I said I wasn’t going to lose my head

But then Popchips! Go my heart

(Popchips! Go My Heart)

Apologies to Hugh Grant, who so deftly performed a wicked parody of an ’80’s pop band in the film, “Music and Lyrics” with the catchy, goofy song, “Pop Goes My Heart.” But somehow, I can’t help but hear a version of that silly refrain whenever I think of this California-made snack product.

For those who haven’t yet discovered Popchips, they are an all-natural crispy potato snack food that is neither baked nor fried. Instead, a combination of heat and pressure is used in some mysterious way to create these round disks that have the addicting crunch of potato chips, but no trans fat, no cholesterol, no preservatives, and little or no saturated fat. They’re also certified kosher. A one-ounce serving has 120 calories.

Popchips come in seven flavors, including Sea Salt & Vinegar, Barbecue, and Sour Cream & Onion. They’re available at Costco, Whole Foods, Safeway, Lucky’s, BevMo, Jamba Juice, Target, and other stores.

Three lucky readers of FoodGal, however, will get a free sample of every flavor.

How?

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Silver Moon Rising

Strawberry Daiquiri in ice cream form.

Working a dozen years in the topsy-turvy industry of high-tech in Silicon Valley is enough to drive anyone to drink.

For Sheri Tate, though, it drove her to ice cream — laced wickedly with liqueurs.

Tate traded high-tech for artisanal ice cream three years ago, when she launched her Los Gatos-based company, Silver Moon, a purveyor of ice creams and sorbets made with high-end liqueurs.

Tate has a long fondness for ice cream. She made the hand-cranked stuff for years just for fun. Friends and family were so enamored with her concoctions, they urged her to start selling it.

A big bowl of dreamy Orange Creamsicle ice cream.

And so she did, combining two of her after-dinner favorites — dessert and liqueur all in one.

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Chocolate That Benefits Farmers in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Chocolate that helps farmers in the Amazonian rainforests.

In the world of chocolate bars, Kallari Chocolate Bars are a definite do-gooder.

All profits from the sales of these premium chocolate bars (available at Whole Foods) is returned to the Kallari Association, a cooperative of more than 850 Quichua families in Napo Province in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The association touts itself as the only farmers cooperative in the world that harvests, markets, and receives all profits from its line of organic chocolates. With this revenue, the Quichua families are able to make a viable living without succumbing to the temptation to make quick money from logging their rainforests or from extracting petroleum from their lands.

The chocolate-making venture was established with expertise and start-up funds from Stephen McDonnell, founder and CEO of Applegate Farms in Bridgewater, NJ, which produces natural and organic deli meats and cheeses. Visitors can even tour the cacao farms in Ecuador now to watch the harvest and the fermentation process.

The smoothest melting chocolate imaginable.

The bars do good. But do they also taste good?

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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