Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

The World Chocolate Expo is sort of a misnomer.  Yes, there is a ton of chocolate glistening and waiting for your enjoyment.  But there are also many fascinating and diverse vendors selling all sorts of goods, perfect timing for the holidays and last-minute presents.  The Expo is similar to the New York City Chocolate Show, but the venue is more spacious (Lexington Armory) and wandering around is way more comfortable and interesting. We wove up and down the rows meticulously, taking in all the vendors and their offerings.  First, we were greeted by flavored fudges.  I found it intriguing that they served their fudges in vats, not unlike ice cream or decorative gelato.  They had some beautiful and tasty fudge morsels that reminded me of my trip to Fudge Kitchen in Bath and in Oxford in the UK: they have beautiful logs of fudge with awesome flavors (rum raisin, orange, strawberry, etc.) and sell them in fat slices the size of your fist.  I...

Even though we both graduated from NYU this spring, we find ourselves still enchanted by the Greenwich Village neighborhood and we visited a bakery called Molly's Cupcakes recently.  Molly's Cupcakes is supremely cute, decorated with swing-like seats and light wooden furniture.  Their glass counters contained many large cupcakes labeled with adorable cartoon signs.  My mouth was drooling reading one after another sign. We selected four of the most delectable-looking cupcakes: creme brulee, peach cobbler, Cookie Monster, and rocky road.   The creme brulee was topped with glistening berries and a caramel crust and stuffed with a vanilla custard.  It was definitely reminiscent of a creme brulee!  It was not too sweet, yet retained the classy, classic flavors of creme brulee.  I was especially impressed with the thoughtful touch of vanilla custard inside.   Peach cobbler was also delicious.  The tan...

Today at my work-study office, we had a Halloween potluck.  Yum yum, free food!! I brought hummus and pita chips, and in all, there was pizza, leek pie, pumpkin baked ziti, salad, salmon pinwheels, empanadas, nacho dip, brownies, cupcakes, rum cake, crudités, and a whole lot of other stuff.  Oh my gosh, I love parties.  Everything was really good...but I have to give props to: I would buy these.  I swear I would pay money for these. Justin's seven layer dip. I'm normally not a fan of bean products, but this dip was so so so so good.  It contained mashed beans, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, onions, olives, and cheese.  It was really smooth and creamy and the perfect pairing to my pita chips.  It was so good that I was just eating it with a fork.  A little on the salty side, but it was just the thing to hit the spot.  Mmm. Kate's cupcakes.  I laid eyes on these little beauties and had to have two. These cho...

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that we're very much macaron people.  Well, turns out we're very much cupcake people as well.  In fact, our ideal dessert would probably be a macaron-topped cupcake. Stand Mixer Over the summer (wow, it's fall already?!) we participated in a cupcake baking lesson at Butter Lane in the East Village.  It was a school event, so we ended up paying $10 for something that would otherwise cost $60 or so.  We arrived at the hole-in-the-wall bakery and its adjacent kitchen.  An instructor split us into groups and introduced us to the things we'd be making: chocolate, vanilla, and banana cupcakes, and cream cheese, vanilla, and chocolate frosting. We settled down in front of these super-cool KitchenAid stand mixers and got to baking. Our group made banana cupcakes, which sounded like they'd be muffins.  We sheepishly followed the instructions and dumped ingredients carefully into the mixer.  A bunch of stirring, ...