2nd Annual Scharffen Berger Bakery Crawl

This year's Scharffen Berger Bakery Crawl took me to 3 new places I had never been before, as well as one repeat. I was also pleased to be a resident of the the city of San Francisco this time, and may have overly enjoyed the fact I could just catch BART to get to and from the tour. I have only recently made the move, so yeah, it was kind of a big deal to me.

This year's theme was cookie sandwiches. One of the SB reps suggested that they thought the cookie sandwich might be the "next big thing" to out stage cupcakes, but there was some debate about whether or not cake pops were going to be. Time will tell! In any case, our tour was dedicated to finding these said cookie sandwiches, which did come a wide variety of shapes, sizes, types, and flavors.

As last time, we started off in the Scharffen Berger's only brick and mortar shop that is in the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero. Conveniently located adjacent to Miette, a delightful bakery with a variety of tasty treats. Our sample was of a chocolate macaron with sumatra coffee ganache filling. I'm not really into coffee, but the flavor was not overwhelming and the cookie was actually not too sweet, which a lot of macarons can be. Cute little packages, too.

We were then corralled out into our trolly car, and headed down into my neighborhood, the Mission. We came to Goody Goody Cream & Sugar, a cafe that has apparently won best chocolate chip cookie in the city award.  Not what we were there to try though. The owner is a long time food industry veteran who had gotten burned out and decided she needed to call the shots, so opened this place up with her family. 

It was a fun spot in a kind of worn down looking block across from this amazing mural.

She created for us the most amazing flavor combo I have ever had in a cookie sandwich. Oil cured cocoa wafers filled with a buttercream with preserved lemon and fresh basil. I know right, what the hell is that going to taste like? It was amazing. I was super skeptical since I've had some pretty overwhelming basil-in-my-dessert experiences, but some how this one worked perfectly. No flavor out-did any other. The cookies were super crisp and nutty, and had a nice salty flavor, and the lemon and the basil worked together being a combination of tart, sweet and savory. I definitely took 2.

We got back in our trolly and headed over the hill to Cole Valley to Ice Cream Bar.

It had a cute interior, with a very retro feel.

The owner served up an amazing platter of ice cream sandwich cookies. It was by far the worst episode of food paparazzi, as we couldn't stop taking pictures of the amazing pile of perfectly stacked sandwiches, but the owner finally forced them upon us since they were in fact filled with now melting ice cream. 

When I first read the flavor on the cards we were given at the start of the tour, I was also skeptical. I am not a big banana-in-desserts fan, and worried that the flavor would overpower the whole piece. Ok, here's the mouthful: Caramelized honey and milk chocolate ice cream sandwiched between 2 banana and cocoa nib cookies (with caramelized cocoa nibs studding the sides, also). 

I ate the entire thing. I mean, it was the size of my fist, let me be clear.

It was so good. The banana flavor was not super strong and the cookie was super soft and puffy. The ice cream was creamy and perfectly sweet, which worked against the crunchy and slightly bitter cocoa nibs that you got a little bit of in every bite. It was just an amazingly well crafted flavor and texture experience.

Trundling back onto our trolly, we landed at our final stop. Here we are parked in front of Macy's Union Square. We were going into the cellar to watch Yigit Pura do a demo on making an amazing custard based ganache (learned something new!) and got to sample one of his fancy cookie sandwich creations as well. He was also extremely high on sugar, which made him all the more entertaining.

We then popped upstairs to the 3rd floor of Macy's to see his brand new pastry shop, Tout Sweet. A very bright, open and welcoming space, with so many tasty treats to tempt you with.

Ok, maybe this was the bigger food paparazzi moment. 

I don't even know what he had us try, but it was delicious. Also noted that he put a nice smooth raspberry jam filling into each lated raspberry. The details!

It was a delightful end to the trip. We got hang out and chat with him about his presentation and his career moves (the shop had literally opened only 3 weeks before, so he was still working on his baby). He also just started offering some savory options, of which I recall sous vide egg sandwiches being on the menu. Must go back!

Another year, another contest - with a bigger prize this time: www.chocolateadventurecontest.com/


Thanks again to Scharffen Berger for hosting such a lovely bakery crawl.

Rootbeer Float Cupcakes

I do adore anything that qualifies as "retro," from neon signage, to clothes, to cupcake flavors. When I saw BrownEyedBaker's Rootbeer Float Bundt cake, it reminded me that I still had to try my own cupcake version of this flavor combo. It has been on the (ridiculously long) list of things to try baking ever since I made Dr. Pepper cupcakes, but hadn't got around to it yet.

So, I really did follow the bundt cake recipe verbatim, but only made half the amount of batter. (Quick tip for approximating quantities: each 1 cup of flour per cupcake recipe will typically turn out approximately 12 cupcakes). (though in this case I managed 14).  (Hey, I said approximately!) Instead of making the fudgey rootbeer frosting, I made a malted vanilla buttercream, hoping to mimic the somewhat malty flavor that happens when you pour rootbeer onto vanilla ice cream, without the need for ice cream (sorry, nothing agains ice cream, but when it comes to cupcakes, I prefer to keep my options open by not requiring a fridge/freezer).

I brought these to a friend's Memorial Day get together, and am pretty sure they went over well considering the call for "who wants another cupcake?" was met with a chorus of takers (and none leftover). Overall, the flavor was rich and chocolatey, texture was spongy and moist, and the frosting was reviewed as having "something" about it that was delectable (yay malt powder!). I do have to say though, it wasn't very rootbeer-y, which I think I could counter with a nice rootbeer flavored filling of some kind. But for now, I still recommend it as an almost perfect chocolate cupcake worthy of baking again.

Bundt cake recipe here, cut in half to accommodate a dozen +/- cupcakes.

Malty rootbeer frosting:

• 3/4 c butter, room temperature
• 2-1/2 c powdered sugar
• 1/2 c malt powder (at first, I thought this was too much and panicked, but it turned out to be just fine)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tbs rootbeer syrup, cooled (from the 1 bottle of Virgil's I had, after using 1 cup for the cupcakes, what was left I let boil down slightly until it was de-carbonated and a thicker viscosity)

Whip butter until creamy. Add in malt powder and powdered sugar until crumbly. Add in vanilla extract and continue to whip (scraping down sides of bowl as needed) and then add in rootbeer syrup until frosting has smoothed out.

I though it would be cute to dollop a "scoop" of frosting on top of each cupcake so it would look like ice cream. I think it worked out all right, but if you didn't know that was what I was going for, I think they kind of just looked sloppy. If I ever think to do a "scoop" of frosting again, I will chill it completely before scooping. I didn't have enough time before heading out the door to let it fully set, which is why I think it had some issues.

Enough of my rattling on about it - go bake some cupcakes already!

Happy Memorial Day! 

Rocky Road Cupcakes

Further inspired by a delicious flavor of ice cream, I have been dreaming up the perfect Rocky Road Cupcake recipe for days. After many debates about how to construct it, I decided to do a simple but delicious chocolate cupcake therefore allowing the frosting to fulfill the role of "Rocky Road."

Marshmallows are pretty amazing and are incorporated into some really awesome desserts out there, but I'm not the kind of person you'll find eating Peeps. I have limits. Rocky Road ice cream might be my favorite way to enjoy marshmallows, but I am always game to snack on a rice crispy treat, gobble down a fireside s'more, or scatter mini marshmallows on top of my sweet potato casserole. So it's with this recipe that I'm trying to find a way to put the marshmallows to good use, without them being an overwhelming flavor.

I used my standard chocolate buttercream frosting as a base. For each half a cup of butter, I use 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar and about 1/4 cup cocoa powder. After creaming the frosting with a little bit of vanilla and milk, I added in mini marshmallows and toasted almonds, both chopped up a little. I let it chill in the fridge, unlike when I usually pipe frosting in which case I let it sit out to soften enough to manipulate. After the cupcakes had cooled, I was able to scoop the chilled frosting with a cookie dough scoop which made the perfect sized ice cream-looking toppings.

My only changes would be to not toast the almonds as it changed the flavor a bit, and I think the raw almond taste is more appropriate. As well, the frosting to cupcake ratio was a bit more than I like. Overall though, the flavor did capture the classic combo.