Seeing as how the 4th of July is almost upon us and that means pie with vanilla ice cream, vanilla frosting on cakes with blueberry and strawberry American flags and, ummm, creme brulee? Well maybe save that for Bastille Day. Anyway I thought I'd write a little about the most popular flavor out there and also the second most expensive spice next to saffron-vanilla!Reading up on the process of growing and commercially producing vanilla beans I was extremely humbled. "They have to do all that for one little vanilla pod?" I thought with a twinge of guilt, though I like to think I treat each vanilla bean I use with an appropriate amount of reverance. Apparently the only natural pollinator of the orchids that produce the aromatic beans are a specific breed of bee only living in Mexico, which means all other locations producing vanilla (mainly areas in Africa, French Polynesia and other tropical locales) need to hand pollinate each delicate flower within 12 hours of it opening. Though a vine may have 20 flowers, only 5-6 are pollinated to maintain quality. The ripe pods are harvested daily to ensure that each individual one is at the peak of perfection. They then go through several procedures for curing, taking weeks before showing up in your Ben and Jerry's. For a real treat, vanilla lovers can partake of the Golden Opulence Sundae at Serendipity 3 in New York. A Tahitian vanilla ice cream covered in the world's most expensive chocolate and gold leaf will cost $1000. But you do get to keep the crystal sundae dish!
Some Gluten-Free desserts are decadent treats so rich and satisfying, you never miss the wheat (I'm thinking mainly of flourless chocolate torte, oh yes) Then there are the desserts like the cupcakes I made today. Heavy, misshapen little blobs that actually have a pretty good flavor if you can get past the aesthetics of them. But they're not fluffy and perfectly domed on top like my Gluten-Full cupcakes. I put strawberry puree in the batter, hoping to get a lovely pink color, but ended up with a pinkish grey-ehh! They may still make it to market if I can manage to "pimp" them out with some fluffy frosting and strawberry syrup. In the meantime, I'll keep experimenting with different flours-I prefer the kind I can make myself, like nut flours, to the pricey Bob's Red Mill fancy flours, but a blend of different flours seem to yield the best results
This weekend is Father's Day and I'll have some whole cakes available for celebrating with Dad on Sunday.
The Mountain Artisan Festival is taking place at the market as well and we're looking forward to meeting some new people and hopefully making a few fans.
I took a couple of weeks off from baking to visit my mom in Philadelphia. Being back in a big city with my toddler was so much fun. We found a great playground complete with an old fashioned carousel that Bea fell in love with. Since I couldn't bake I figured I would taste what the city had to offer in cupcakes. I went to a bakery in the suburbs called Red Velvet Bakery and tried 4 different flavors (not all at once.) Your basic chocolate vanilla variations and a Boston Cream (my favorite dessert) I wasn't blown away, but the chocolate frosting was quite satisfying. I tried a vanilla cupcake with fluffy coconut and vanilla frosting at a cafe simply called Cake in the Chesnut Hill area of Philly. Mmmmmm. The cake was just sweet enough and light in texture. The frosting was wonderful. I wish my visit could have been extended by a day or two so I could've tried some more cake from Cake.
Well summer is right around the corner and I'm getting ready to create my summer menu. Basil, lavender, carrots, zucchini and peaches will be featured for sure. Having the pick of fresh local produce from the tailgate markets comes in really handy when trying to bake with seasonal flavors. So keep on the look out-and you just might see those bacon cupcakes too!
