Over the past few months, I’ve made quite a few birthday cakes. More than usual were for children. My usual cake decorating style is pretty simple: casual frosting application and a bit of chocolate to write happy birthday with. Piping, let alone the creation of more complex …
Chocolate chips are a staple in my kitchen, as they are in almost any kitchen that is equipped with a functional oven. I keep a wide assortment of other types of chips and chocolate chunks, as well. These always include dark chocolate, milk chocolate (as opposed to the semisweet chocolate of “standard” …
A few months ago, Trader Joe’s jumped on the gourmet marshmallow bandwagon and started selling peppermint marshmallows for the holiday season. They were pretty awful – overly sugary and aggressively minty – and it’s no surprise that they didn’t last long. Because of my previous experience, I was a bit …
In spite of the fact that the Cook’s Illustrated test kitchen has assured us that imitation vanilla extract is at least as good as the real thin in most baked goods, I still use real vanilla extract the majority of the time. My favorite vanilla extract is Sonoma Syrup Co.’s …
Barnum’s Animal Crackers, small animal-shaped cookies that come in a distinctive circus car-shaped box, have been around for over a century. They were first introduced in 1902 when they were known simply as “Barnum’s Animal” and were sold in bulk, the boxes sold as optional extras. Now, they’re made …
I used to love Nilla Wafers as a kid. It’s not that the cookies themselves were so amazing, though. The thing I liked about them was that they are vanilla flavored and, up until the last couple of years, vanilla wasn’t usually a flavor highlighted in storebought cookies . Most cookies were …
Ice cream cakes, like graham crackers and puff pastry, are not something that most people thing about making. They’re something that most people think about buying, and when they do run down to the local ice cream shop (whether it’s a chain, a grocery store or a …
Some readers out here on the west coast – even moreso if you’re in Southern California – probably remember eating Thrifty Ice Cream at some point or another. The award winning ice cream was sold at Thrifty Drug Stores before the chain was bought out by Rite-Aid and it was incredibly inexpensive for the …
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