Inspiration

You never know where clicking around the web will take you. A few weeks ago I was learning about Cake Pops. I often forget You Tube isn't just for watching your favorite movie and cartoon clips illegally. I was watching videos on how to make cake lollipops and in the suggestions section were videos on baking cupcakes inside ice cream cones. Granted, most of the amateur videos should be made fun of on Tosh.O, but here is this kid, making cupcakes for his Mom on Mother's Day, and hocking his T-shirts - with 27,000 views! Complete with porn-style background music! I really enjoyed it. It's 9 minutes long, but worth watching the whole thing.

Su-Tang Cupcake Clan

My take

The other day was a special anniversary here in the Hungry Household. Fifteen years ago, there was a blizzard in the Northeast. NYC Public Schools were closed for a snow day for the first time in a long while. I was a junior in high school. I was spending the day on the Internet, much like today. On that day, I met my future husband! Online. He was snowed in, in King of Prussia, PA. I didn't know a town called King of Prussia existed and was sure he was making it up. What is not made up, is that we fell in love and spent many years commuting back and forth on weekends to see each other. To mark this occasion I wanted to make something with similar flavors as one of our 2 wedding cakes, and so I created my own cupcakes in ice cream cones. Chocolate cake with lemon curd filling and rich chocolate frosting.

I explained to the Hubby that I didn't invent these, but he was as excited as the first person to see sliced bread must have been. ♥

Place the cones in a foil wrapped muffin tin to hold them upright.

The finished product. I seem to always frost cupcakes the same way.

The original cake!

Dagoba

I have eaten a lot of chocolate in my time. Amedei still reigns king for me. I picked up this Dagoba bar at Whole Foods - 74% dark chocolate with dried cranberries and raisins. What surprised me most was the gold ingot format of the bars. The divisions often represent portions of bars - not here. Nearly impossible to divide the bar with these divisions other than in half. I proclaimed it, "Not terribly nuanced, but not bad for $2.99."

Haut Chocolate

Chocolate, sushi and olive oil are my biggest food expenses. Luckily I received an assortment of Vosges Exotic Candy Bars for Christmas from a very wise friend. Since we went to their storefront while I was last visiting her, the gift was even more special. Yesterday I snacked on the Barcelona Bar - truly extraordinary. 41% cacao with sea salt and smoked almonds. Now some may say you need darker chocolate - not when you want to taste the other components in the bar. The sea salt is crunchy and the almonds buttery. This bar had less almonds than the last bar I had but that's OK. It means it wasn't made by a machine and I'm happy to endure inconsistencies for artisan product.

I will note that smoked almonds are a little nontraditional for a Spain inspired bar. In Barcelona proper you'd find Marcona Almonds in the chocolate bars, commonly pressed into the back of the bar while setting. They combine 2 of my weaknesses as the almonds are fried in olive oil, salted and then combined with the chocolate.

All of the Vosges products (another great company that is owned by a woman) are interesting and unique. I consumed all of their chocolate covered toffee in one sitting. Considering the cost, that was an expensive 5 minutes. Their most 'out there' truffle is chocolate mixed with taleggio cheese with balsamic vinegar. On paper is may sound repulsive. The food adventurer in me said, "I have to have one!" While it was tasty, it was made on the safe side so the funky cheese wasn't very prevalent. I would prefer a chocolate covered baton of cheese, now that's haute chocolate.