Cupcake Wednesday

Today's cupcakes come from Susie Cakes in Calabasas, CA and were a delicious surprise from my in laws when the visited us in July (I'm behind on photo uploads).

Clockwise from upper left: chocolate, strawberry, peanut butter, coconut, orange, and lemon. Orange was a cupcake flavor I hadn't had before and I'm not sure I was a fan. I think I'd like the cake better with a chocolate frosting or the frosting better on a chocolate cake. Hey, everything is better with chocolate.

Did you know Susie Cakes cupcakes are filled with frosting (yum)? Or that they recently opened a location in San Francisco? It's probably a good thing that it's all the way in the Marina or I'd be gorging on these on the regular.

Made of Awesome

This stopped me in my tracks so clearly it needed to be posted.

Traditional Greeting by Paul Bruno on Threadless.com

Cupcake Wednesday

When unloading my memory stick last week I came across this photo of a chocolate peanut butter cupcake from Molly's Cupcakes in Chicago. My lovely coworker gifted it to me when I was visiting the office in July. 

According to Molly's menu, this is called the Ron Bennington and includes chocolate cake, peanut butter filling, chocolate ganache, and crushed butterscotch topping. It was oh so rich and oh so delicious.

Susie Cakes Anniversary

Friday was my parents' 32nd wedding anniversary and instead of sending my mom the usual flowers, my dad decided to change things up and send her a whole bunch of goodies from Susie Cakes!

Way better than flowers, in my opinion!

Hi, my name is Jess and I'm a t-shirt-aholic

On Friday my Mom sent me a link to a funny t-shirt site, Snorg Tees. These made me giggle:

                    

Japanese Tea Garden

On Monday and Tuesday my mom and grandma came to San Francisco so I took a couple days off of work to spend with them. On Tuesday we hit up the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I went there once when I was much younger and it's been on my list of places to visit since I moved to the city.

We're finally getting our San Francisco summer and it was just perfect out!

The lady at the gift shop feeds all the squirrels

  

Grandma, me, Scott. Oh hello, blue sky - I've missed you.

Mom and Grandma

With my honey

Love this bridge

Tea! Mochi! Fish shaped waffle with red bean curd inside! Yum!

Visiting the Tea Garden really makes me want to visit Japan. Just need to convince Scott...

Pie Night

A couple months ago my friends and I heard about SF Food Wars Pie or Die event and thought it might be fun to do our own little event. So our Sunday book club meeting also became pie night. Our spread included 5 sweet pies, 2 pizza pies, and 1 pot pie.

Clockwise from upper left: my coconut cream, Swati's Indian pizza, Scott Jr's New Yorker pizza,  Scott Sr's sweet potato pie, Yogi's peach pie (from Whole Foods), Andrew's s'mores pie (from Bi-Rite Creamery), and Andrew's chicken pot pie. Not pictured: pear pie with gingerbread cookie crust.

Scott's been wanting me to make a coconut cream pie for some time. He loves loves loves all things coconut. Pie night seemed like the perfect time to try it out. I'd never made a cream pie before and it's not my favorite dessert, but it was pretty darn tasty.

My coconut cream pie topped with homemade whipped cream and toasted coconut

I used Martha's pie crust recipe and the filling was from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. 

Scott and I debated back and forth over what he should make. We explored several savory options but ultimately went with a sweet potato pie since we had all of the ingredients for that and we didn't want to do another cream pie. I am very ashamed to admit that I completely forgot to taste his pie. Definitely not a shining example of wifely duty. It was very popular though and I heard it was very good.

Scott's sweet potato pie topped by home made whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon (if you look closely you can see the S Scott traced into the whipped cream)

This was also my first time making homemade whipped cream. It's ridiculously easy to make. I've never really been a big fan of whipped cream but it turns out I'm just not a fan of the pre-made stuff. Homemade whipped cream is delicious!

I believe we can consider pie night to have been a success. There was perhaps too much sweet pie and not enough savory pie but we'll plan better next time.

It's here!!

My copy of Cake Pops by Bakerella arrived in my mailbox this afternoon, one week early.

Can we discuss these? 

Because I'd really like to be able to make these. I think they are out of my range as is anything in this book because, let's be honest, me and melting chocolates do not get along. But they are all so pretty to look at. 

Also, the robots on the book cover - I need to figure out how to make those.