PB&J, Rocky Road and Cheesecake Cupcakes

National Cupcake Day was Saturday, August 14th. National Cupcake Day? Yes, there was an entire day dedicated to the love of cupcakes! After hearing about National Cupcake Day, I started thinking about how cupcakes had transported themselves into the day to day lives of people everywhere, from the once, small, inexpensive alternative to cakes, and the tiny treat children brought to school for birthdays, to a gourmet delight commanding significant price tags. Beautiful works of art, cupcakes can now be found everywhere!

Where did it all begin? If you were a Sex and the City fan, you may remember Carrie and Miranda eating cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery on Bleeker Street. The rest, as they say, is history. From that episode, Bleeker street was never the same, and neither were cupcakes. Today, major cities not only have cupcake centric bakeries, but trucks dedicated to distributing the sugary cakes. One of the lower priced gourmet cupcake options in Philadelphia is Buttercream Cupcake Truck which offers cupcakes for $2.00 each. Many other area bakeries have cupcake assortments that top $3.50 each for the mini cakes.

So, how did I spend National Cupcake Day? I thought you’d never ask!

My 12 year old son is talking a lot about becoming a chef. I’m really not clear on where his obsession with food comes from….hmmm, I’ll have to get back to you on that when I figure it out. Anyway, since we were going to be alone for the day and he loves food, I thought, “what better way to spend a day but tasting cupcakes?” And so it goes….

We went to local bakery, Night Kitchen in Chestnut Hill as our 1st stop, at least that was the intention. It ended up being our only stop. The variety of cupcakes in such a small bakery, which is dedicated to cakes primarily, was mind boggling. It stimulated my son’s creative, culinary juices and there was no turning back. Our day became a quest to create his vision of the  perfect cupcake.

My son’s concept drawing of  his cupcake

While at lunch, he began brainstorming and drew the above picture of a dark chocolate cupcake with a molten mango and white chocolate center. He wanted the caramel frosting to resemble a tornado in keeping with the theme of the “molten” center. Yes, I agree it sounds pretty, um, unusual, but he is 12 and he is actually a very good cook as well. So, we went shopping with nothing more than his concept.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Mango and White Chocolate Center and Caramel Frosting

8 T unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 C Dutch-processed cocoa
3/4 C  all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking soda
3/4 t baking powder
2 large eggs
3/4 C sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 t table salt
1/2 C sour cream

Filling

A large mango

1/2 cup of white chocolate chips

Frosting

1 box confectioners sugar

1 stick butter

milk

caramel sauce

yield: 12 cupcakes

Usually you would line the cupcake tins with liners. We were not prepared, and in case you should get stranded without cups, butter and flour cupcake pans to prevent sticking. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine first three ingredients in medium metal bowl. Melt ingredients using a double-boiler or a saucepan over simmering water. Whisk until smooth and combined. Set aside to cool, until just warm to the touch.

Whisk flour, baking soda and baking powder in small bowl to combine.

Whisk eggs in medium bowl to combine; add sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until fully incorporated. Add cooled chocolate mixture; whisk until fully combined. Alternate about 1/3 of flour mixture with the sour cream into chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. End with remaining flour mixture and whisk until batter is homogeneous and thick.

Divide batter among muffin pan cups. Bake for 10 minutes.

For Filling:

Cut peeled, pitted, mango in pieces and puree in food processor.

Soften white chocolate in microwave. Blend the white chocolate into the mango puree.

Take the cupcakes out of the oven. With one hand, gently spoon out the center of a cupcake. With the other hand,  fill the center with mango mixture. Replace the cupcake filling to cover mango. Repeat for all cupcakes.

Bake cupcakes for another 8 minutes. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack until cool.

For Frosting:

Cream butter in mixer. Add confectioners sugar and cream together. Add milk 1 TBSP at a time until desired thickness is achieved. (Ours was too thin and we were out of sugar to thicken.) Add 3 TBLS of caramel and blend.

Frost cupcakes and drizzle with caramel.

Rediscover the cupcake. I am glad I did!

A year and a half after we launched our original website The Best of Food.com, we have launched a new, improved and updated website. Why so soon? Why, indeed!

When we set out on this path, we had grand plans of creating a website that would be a diners best friend, a non-diners guide to better food options, and an all around reliable “go-to” site for dining in the tri-state area. The #1 priority of the site was to be user friendly. In certain ways it was, but for the most part, not so much!

We wanted users to be able to pick as many features as they wanted and have our website “spit” out exactly what they were looking for. For example: The best French restaurant for outdoor dining, with kids, in center city would be ~ Click a button. In our old site, you had to look up outdoor dining and child friendly separately, although that was not what we requested.

In keeping with our theme of “local” businesses, we picked a web developer that was in walking distance from our homes. Great idea, right? Sure, if the developer had any interest in meeting face to face. We met once in a year and a half. After that, everything was via conference call or email. Nothing about the site ended up being what we wanted and after being live for 2 months, we started to search for a new web host/developer.

Thanks to twitter, we found a new web developer in Lancaster and they were willing to travel to Philadelphia to meet with us as needed. We now have the flexibility to do anything with the site we wish. On our old site we had to send an email to have them change everything. Talk about a complete lack of flexibility!

So, thank you for your patience with us for the last year as we have moved toward our goal of being the Philadelphia area’s most comprehensive restaurant guide for the BEST places to dine. We can now get back to the business of building our database to add, add, and add some more great places for you to visit. Please take a look around at our new search features, our new bakery, gourmet and catering pages, and know that we will be adding great new places each and everyday! Also, we now have restaurant’s specials on some pages and we are loading them daily too!

We would LOVE your feedback with ideas, suggestions or questions!

Have a delicious day!

Seafood and Beer Night – missed it last week? They are doing it again!

Wednesday August 4th and Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Each course paired with Belgian Beer

TRATTORIA TOTARO

First Course

Red or White Seafood Chowder

Full of shrimp, clams, crab and fish in a creamy broth or zesty tomato

Second Course

Soft Shell Caesar Salad: Soft shell crab sautéed in garlic, olive oil and butter, served over romaine lettuce with fresh ground black pepper and house made croutons, tossed in our cheesy Caesar dressing

Third Course

Seafood Sampler A sampling of fish cooked in parchment paper served over brown rice with grilled vegetables:

Flounder Porto – Sautéed spinach and lump crab meat baked between two flounder filets and topped with port wine reduction and cream sauce, and

Swordfish Putanesca – Sautéed capers, kalamata olives, fresh tomato, anchovy and white wine

or

Cioppino – Clams, mussels, shrimp, scallops and crab in a vegetable tomato broth

served over home made pasta

Fourth Course

Claire’s Chocolate Cake, CapoGiro Gelato or Creme Brule

$40.00 plus tax and gratuity

Call for reservations: 610-828-7050

Spampinato’s is The Italian sister restaurant to Conshohocken’s Spamps on 1st Avenue, just off of Fayette Street. The Spampinato family purchased the now defunct Viggiano’s about a year ago and not only created a more family friendly atmosphere, but dramatically improved the quality of the food.

Owner Mike Spampinato makes the delicious sauces and home made braciole fresh daily. In keeping with the family atmosphere, The Spampinato’s wanted to make their restaurant a place that families would feel at home by creating a more casual environment, thus encouraging parents with young children to dine here on a regular basis.

For the entire summer, children 10 and under eat free! In addition, there are nightly “Family Dinner” specials. The specials were created so that families could leave baseball practice, or the pool, come dressed as they are, and eat a healthy, delicious meal without spending a lot of money. A family can relax and enjoy a wonderful “home cooked” meal without the stress of making it themselves.

Each evening there is a different special entree and it is served with a family-style salad bowl for just $15 per person. Again, children 10 and under can order a child’s dinner for free! So, a family with multiple children can still eat for just $30.00! Spampinato’s also allows you to BYO even though there is a full bar available.

Sunday Night’s Special: Spaghetti and Meatballs

Here are the daily specials:

Sunday: Spaghetti and Meatballs

Monday: Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken

Tuesday: Penne and Braciole

Wednesday: Chicken Parmesan

Thursday: Clams or Mussels over Pasta (Red or White)

On the weekends, there is an upgraded Family Dinner for just $25 per person:

Friday: Lobster Ravioli

Saturday: Veal Saltimbocca

To make reservations for Spampinato’s Family Dinners,  call 610-825-3151, or just stop in for dinner and they will find a table for you!

Tonight is Spaghetti and Meatballs!

Mangia!

We are looking for good food combined with televisions on site!

Halladay takes on his old team in a road game, at home!

Let’s do this thing! 2 1/2 Games out of 1st, The Phillies are back in the hunt. Stay cool and root on The Phillies tonight. Here are some cool spots.

Burbs

Chick’s Tavern

StoneRose

Spamps

Boathouse

Magerks

Wine Thief

McMenamin’s

MangoMoon

City

Byrne’s Tavern

Royal Tavern

Tony Luke’s Beef and Beer

Grey Lodge

P.O.P.E

PYT

Chickie’s and Pete’s

GO PHILLIES!!!!!

Polanco with an amazing play on a foul ball at Yankees Stadium

The Phillies have started to hit again, and it is time to rally behind our WFC Phillies and get ready to take our place in the hunt for another National League East Title. The Phils take on The Twins today at CBP at 4PM. If you are not headed to the beach, and are not attending the game, it’s going to be a hot one, so we suggest one of these great locations to watch the game!

We are looking for good food combined with televisions on site!

Burbs

Chick’s Tavern

StoneRose

Spamps

Boathouse

Magerks

Wine Thief

McMenamin’s

City

Byrne’s Tavern

Royal Tavern

Tony Luke’s Beef and Beer

Grey Lodge

P.O.P.E

PYT

Chickie’s and Pete’s

GO PHILLIES!!!!!

The Chef of Flanigan’s Boathouse prepares crab cakes at the event

Conshohocken Restaurant Week begins on June 14th and is sponsored by The Londonbury at Millennium Apartments, on Washington Street in Conshohocken. On Wednesday night the apartment complex held a party to kick-off the event. There are 18 restaurants participating in the event including the ones featured here.

The party was held to showcase the new apartment building and included a tour of one and two bedroom apartments, which I believe, but don’t quote me, start at $1700 per month for a one bedroom apartment. My obvious concentration was on the food! It was a fun night with lots of good eats and a great way to meet area residents and sample the local, expanding restaurant scene.

A guest sampling crab cakes and quesadillas from The Boathouse

Ribs from The Boathouse

Quesadillas from The Boathouse

The ladies from Trattoria Totaro

Erin from Trattoria Totaro serves a chicken and tortellini dish to a guest

Blackfish served chilled carrot soup

Jason Mase, The Chef from The StoneRose serves short ribs over mac and cheese

The StoneRose crew Brian Pieri, Jim Maglio and Jason Mase also served limoncello and Prosecco

Spamps served lots of sushi

Beautiful sushi from Spamps ~ photo by Kevin Tierney

Kevin was far more diligent than myself, as well as, knowing where to actually find The Londonbury, (I was on the other side on the bridge for 20 minutes), so he was able to get a picture of the full dish of beautiful, fresh sushi. I, on the other hand, arrived after hungry guests had devoured many of the delicious rolls.

Sushi plate from Spamps that was enjoyed by many

Guests relaxing with drinks in The Club Room at The Londonbury

The Game Room

The Club Room seating off of the pool

A great time was had by all!

Since I arrived late and left early, to be in place for the face-off of Game 6 of The Stanley Cup Finals, I did not get pictures of everything, and not everything that was tasty, photographed well, so since the pictures might take away from the taste, I chose not to post some.

The food from Baggataway Tavern looked amazing as did the pizzas from Pasta Via! Andrew Totaro, from Totaro’s on Hector Street, not to be confused with Trattoria Totaro, which is on Spring Mill Avenue was upstairs, as was Pepperoncini. Gypsy Saloon served a lobster mac and cheese dish which, again I did not think would photograph well. Other participants that I missed, or were not in attendance are (in not particular order):

Spring Mill Cafe

Fayette Street Grille

The Great American Pub

Stella Blu

Guppy’s

Spampinato’s

Theresa’s

Menus for restaurant week are $20 -$35 pp depending on the restaurant and can be found by clicking The Restaurant Week Link.

Oyster House Philadephia

Today marks the one year anniversary of the re-opening of

Oyster House

To celebrate the event they will be offering $1 oysters all day from 11:30AM to 11:00PM and will tap a firkin of Stoudts Double IPA at 4PM in honor of Philly Beer Week.

White Sangria

Trattoria Totaro the BYO on Spring Mill Avenue in Conshohocken, not to be confused with the restaurant on Hector Street, has started to offer FREE Sangria to dinner guests Monday through Friday beginning at 5PM.

The free beverage trend continues. What can we say? WE LIKE IT, that’s what we say! Tables will likely fill up faster than normal now, and outdoor tables are limited, but they do accept reservations at 610-828-7050, so if you are in the area you may want to grab your table quickly!

If you are not familiar with the area, this is one section of town where there is unlimited free parking as well, an extra bonus!

The Magic Tomato Pie

Here’s a follow-up on our original post on the Magic tomato pie:

We recently reported on the tremendous amount of activity on @conshybakery’s Twitter page and ConshohockenBakery’s Facebook page regarding the “magic” in the tomato pie. The buzz mounted over the fact that not only had the Flyers entered the playoffs unexpectedly, beat The Devils in just 5 games, but then went on to come back from an unthinkable 3 game deficit to The Montreal Canadiens Boston Bruins and win 4 in a row, then beat an overwhelming favorite Montreal Canadien team 4-2 to enter The Stanley Cup finals.

On Saturday night in Chicago the Flyers took on the Blackhawks for Game 1 and scored 5 goals only to lose in the end 6-5. None the less, record amounts of tomato pie,  for a Saturday of a holiday weekend, flew off the shelves of the bakery and were even served at local restaurants, although many fans had already headed to the beaches. Following the loss, fans still showed support for the magic of the pie in posts on facebook and twitter on a great offensive effort on the road.

Then Monday came, and their closing left the magic tomato pie out of reach and unavailable as they were closed for the holiday. “Not to worry,” came their rally cries yesterday, The Flyers had not shut-out any teams with the magic of the pie, they had simply won the series and would again. The bakery was open with a huge stock of pies ordered and The Flyers prevailed in an overtime victory at home 4-3.

The Flyers will play game 4 against The Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night. Will the tomato pie work it’s magic again?

“You can not deny the power of the pie!”

We’ll see………..

Conshohocken Italian Bakery

79-83 Jones Street

Conshohocken

GO FLYERS!!!!!