Peanut Butter and (barely a) Cupcake

This teeny-tiny (pictured on a 3" square Post-It) peanut butter and jelly bite-sized cupcake is from a place I haven't found yet. That is, I've never been to "Baked By Melissa," the shop that sold the baby cupcake pictured above, which was then shared with me by a kind coworker who happened to be in possession of a sampler box.

So, it tasted a little eggy, but a cupcake with peanut butter on top and jelly filling is a great idea. I liked the flavors together, though there wasn't much cupcake to this bite. In fact, I got so little "cupcake" and so much filling/topping, that I couldn't tell what flavor the cake was supposed to be. Vanilla? It should have been banana.

Baked by Melissa has been in SoHo for some time, but now it's in Union Square, too.


(Thanks, Caitlin!)

Poetry Tuesday: If she had a mouth, she could eat herself.

Itty
Bitty
Kitty
Committee.


Marshmallow snacks with jelly in the middle are good. My favorite flavor is grape, but Hello Kitty strawberry chocolate is also quite nice. Thanks, Paul!

Venezuelan Beaver Cheese

Gjetost Cheese is a Scandanavian whey cheese that goes by many names. Read more about it!





This cheese is the color of peanut butter. It is a little sweet (the process of making it includes the caramelization of sugar) and neither entirely hard nor entirely spreadable.



It was good alone, but delicious with fruit. I ate mine on an english muffin with Anna's homemade blueberry jam. I hear it also goes well with slices of pear.

Some snacks you just don't mess with.

(it's really only worth a blurry picture)

A classic Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie is a beautiful thing. It's soft, squishy, creamy, sweet, and simple. I understand why the people at Little Debbie might want to make something else delicious in the same vein. I could eat four to six of them right now.

The newer Little Debbie PB&J Oatmeal Pie, however, doesn't work. Here, the Oatmeal cookies are stiff, not soft. The peanut butter and jelly filling they've created is not tasty enough to complement the oatmeal. It falls flat. I am relatively sure I will never eat another one, and I'm pretty fond of a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I am dodgy and so were these.

(photo by Dan)

I admit it. I've been a dodgy, barely-there, ghost of a blogger these past few weeks. As has been pointed out to me, I have a duty to my readers that has gone unfulfilled. So this weekend I'll be trying to catch up with many of the things I've been eating and taking photographs of since I last posted.



Let's start with these queer biscuits. Jammie Dodgers were a birthday gift from Dan -- and British to boot.

What does the package claim? "Delicious stretchy jam splodged [ed: !] at the heart of 2 yummy shortcake biscuits."

What would my description be? "Two shortbread cookies sandwich a red jam that is meant to be raspberry. The cookies are slightly dry. The jam is terribly hard and chewy. The result is unsettling."

My description is a little too long and not very lyrical. But at least it doesn't use the word "splodged."

The Silent Snackstress

While browsing vintage cookbooks on Ebay (trying to look-but-not-buy), I ran across one from the early 1930s titled, The Silent Hostess. Produced by General Electric, I expect that the "silent" to this book is the silence of G.E. appliances, and that it's not a treatise on why the woman throwing the party should keep quiet, but the title made me wonder what I might serve at a "silence" themed dinner party. I mean that the food would need to be silent, not the guests (or the host/ess). Nothing crunchy or crispy or that needs to be sawed into with knives and forks. Still, you'd want enough variation in flavor and texture that dinner guests don't feel like they're eating an institutional dinner for the infirm. And I'd hope everyone would wear muted colors and soft-soled shoes.

As a silent snack, the marshmallow is a revelation, if not particularly healthy. I like a jumbo Jet-Puffed with a smear of peanut butter on top. But if you're more of a jelly lover than a p.b. fan, why not go with these?



There's jelly in them thar marshmallows. Grape jelly.



I like that they're individually wrapped because it increases portability (and because of this they don't stick together in lumps or go stale like other bags of marshmallows can). They have a pleasant, powdery sweetness that soothes the palate and neither too much nor too little of the jelly filling. The marshmallows used in these treats might even taste better (leaving aside the probably artificial grapeness inside) than the plain, bagged variety available everywhere. I'd buy these unfilled, too, if that were an option, and put them in dark chocolate cocoa.

Want to go wild? PBJ marshmallow (one of these with a little peanut butter on top). Or two held together with peanut butter spread in between. Why not?!

You remind me of the babe.

What babe?

The babe with the power.



What power?




The power of voodoo.



Who do?



You do.



Do what?



Remind me of the babe.




Okay. Enough lyrical silliness.

Several people told me to check out Voodoo Doughnut while in Portland (even Matthew, though he did not seem to recommend the Tang-encrusted donut). The Voodoo Doughnut location I found (looks like there are two now) is located at 22 SW 3rd Avenue and is, according to the website, open a whole 24 hours. It is a tiny, hole-in-the-wall dive of a donut shop that is really-and-truly-would-I-lie-to-you-about-donuts worth a trip.

Pictured: Butterfinger topping on a devil's food cake donut, an "Old Dirty Bastard" oreo and peanut butter on devil's food, a "Maltnomah" glazed with malted milk balls and very fudgey frosting, and the classic glazed "Voodoo Doughnut" with jelly blood filling and pretzel stake through the heart. All gimmicks aside, the donuts are so delicious that they'd be worth eating without any toppings/fillings - especially the glazed - but since the toppings/fillings are impressively inventive it's worth trying a few. Alas, the bacon-topped maple donut was not available when I was there. And, perhaps less sadly, the Nyquil Glazed and Pepto-Bismol donuts have apparently been put on hold indefinitely.

Also, my Voodoo Donut (in the shape of a gingerbread person made of a jelly-filled glazed donut) was gorgeous and fully-frosted. Then it spent the evening in a bag within a bag at Ground Kontrol (and got just a tad smooshed in a photo booth pile-up) and the rest of the night in Andre's fridge (because I became full eating the Maltnomah donut), which is why a lot of the frosting has come off in these pictures. It was still fabulous the next morning, if somewhat less photogenic.

Snaki

Ikea is coming to Brooklyn.

No, I will not be tormenting myself by attending any opening day ceremonies. Don't get me wrong. I like Ikea. And I want a Sommar for my freezer this summer. But I'm not braving those crowds for a popsicle mold.



Rather than visions of blond bookshelves dancing in my head, promotion of the new store's opening (promotion like this giant studio apartment in a "cardboard box" seen in Union Square), reminded me of the Ikea edibles kicking around in my pantry. Contrary to popular belief, Ikea snacking is not just about eating Swedish meatballs in the cafeteria (which, actually, I've never done) after a morning of looking for the perfect end table on wheels.

Here are my two favorite take-home snacks found in the big Swedish box thus far:

1. Lingonsylt preserves -- Lingonberry is a tart fruit here, and the preserves are not unlike a spreadable homemade cranberry sauce with small, whole berries in a fruit syrup. Thick flavor. Good on biscuits! Seen here on baking powder drop biscuits, prepared as described in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.


2. Anna's Ginger Thins -- I first found them at Ikea, but they can be bought elsewhere. I appreciate how thin and crispy these cookies are. Their ginger-icity is tops!


To accompany your repast, consider these Swedish proverbs [source]:

Den som vill ha något gott fär söka där det finns.
Who wants to have something good, will have to seek it where it is.

Ingenting retar aptiten så som litet på fatet.
Nothing stimulates the appetite like little on the plate.

Hade jag inte min buk att fylla, skulle jag min arm förgylla (då hade jag råd till smycken).
If it weren't for my need to fill my belly, I would have gilded my arm (then I could have afforded some jewelry).

Aftonsång med dryck, morgonsång med hosta.
Evening song with drinks: morning song with coughs.

Wait, what?