BB Sweets

Brooke Bertelle, owner of BB Sweets, seems to know a thing or two about creating lovely baked goods. Her Facebook page is covered with some of the prettiest cookies and cakes that I have ever seen! I can't take my eyes of her button cake (yes, they are edible) and her Babushka Cookies are so cute; it's crazy!

Actually, the story of how Brooke started her business is almost as sweet as her cookies. In 2010, she was a assigned a school project to raise money for a Haitian hurricane relief program. She decided to bake and decorate a "Heart for Haiti" cookie and sell it to local businesses throughout south Florida. The cookie was a huge success! She managed to raise hundreds of dollars for the charity and, accidentally, started a business, all at the same time!

All of Brooke's cookies are handmade and decorated with sugar dough. You can see more of her desserts on her webssite, here. There are also sweets for sale in her etsy shop. (Thanks, Kristen!) -Erin

Smush Ice Cream Sandwiches

I am, generally speaking, not a fan of novelty desserts. I like original desserts, arty desserts, but when it comes to the cute and the clever, I usually smile nicely and turn away. That said, I do have moments when I find myself oohing and aahing over something that could be seen as a gimmick And when I first saw these ice cream sandwiches by Smush I definitely had one of those wee hoo moments! It may be a gimmick, but I'm buying it hook, line, and sinker! Smush, which is located in New York City creates ice cream sandwiches that look exactly like deli sandwiches, and just like you would at a deli, you get to build your own sandwich, from the cookie up! In fact, the exterior cookies are actually baked in a mold so that they resemble slices of bread. Once you've chosen your "bread," you move on to the "cheese" (fudge) and "meat" (ice cream). Then you top it off with your favorite "condiments." Choices include caramel, marshmallow, peanut butter sauce, potato chips, fruit, and Nutella.



If there are too many choices for your liking, and you can't make up your mind, you can always pick a sandwich of the menu.  For instance, you could choose the "Chocolate Phatty Melt": chocolate chip cookie + white chocolate brownie cookie, marshmallow spread, sliced mint fudge, and chocolate ice cream or "Strawberries on Rye": 2 red velvet cookies, Nutella spread, fresh sliced strawberries, sliced strawberry cream fudge, and strawberry ice cream. Any way you slice it, it sounds delicious. (Sorry, I had to do it.) I haven't sampled one yet, but word on the street is that they taste as good as they look. Hooray! Their website is still under construction, but you can try building your own Smush sandwich right here.

Vintage Ice Cream Photographs

Sisters eating their ice-cream after having completed Saturday tasks.
From Rosmarie Wirz's family album, around 1953.

Over the weekend, I had some seriously delicious coconut ice cream, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since! Needless to say, I’ve got ice cream on my mind, so I thought it was a good time to post some vintage ice cream photos that I’ve collected over the years. I love old photographs, almost as much as I love ice cream, and with summer winding down, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share them with you! Enjoy (and go get some ice cream)!! –Erin

 p.s. I spend a great deal of time researching the original sources/photographers of these photos because I think it’s important to give credit to the creator of the image. Nothing makes me more batty than all these websites out there that post images and give absolutely no credit information. People of the internet: someone took that picture, you should at least *try* to find out who did. Okay, that is my rant for the day. Enjoy the photos! :-)

Natchitoches, Louisiana, a woman buying ice cream for children, 1940, photo by Marion Post Wolcott, New York Public Library.

From a late 1940s collection of photos at Woolacombe, North Devon, source: banksider

Ice-cream after school, Berlin, 1931 by Friedrich Seidenstücker

Women eating ice cream bars, 1949, photo by Ollie Atkins

Blackpool, England, c.1950, photo by John Chillingworth

Men eating ice cream outside pharmacy, family photo from Dressed for Tea.

Boy gives ice cream to sister, c. 1950s, photo by George Marks

Ice cream shop near Berlin, Connecticut, photo by Russell Lee

Marilyn Monroe at an ice cream parlor, 1953, photo by Andre de Dienes

You can find more vintage ice cream images after the jump.

Sweet Testing: Butterscotch Pot de Crème

Lately, I’ve been on a mission. A butterscotch mission. A few years back, I started wondering, Whatever happened to butterscotch?? As a kid, butterscotch was one of my favorite flavors, but as an adult it had virtually disappeared from my life. Was butterscotch a flavor that was only used in children’s desserts?? Was that the issue? Or had butterscotch simply fallen out of favor? I wasn’t sure what caused this culinary drought in my life. All I knew was the butterscotch needed to make a comeback…and it needed to happen soon! Thankfully, the guys at Baked seem to share my retro fondness for butterscotch (I knew I loved them for a reason) and posted this recipe for Butterscotch Pots de Crème on their website. Was this finally the butterscotch revival that I’d been dreaming about?? Excited to relive the glory days of my butterscotch-flavored past, I wasted no time in making these babies and I was not disappointed. These little desserts are delicious! And so easy to make! I especially love how they’re jazzed up with a bit of sea salt on the top. So, so, so good. Let the butterscotch resurgence begin! --Erin



You can find the complete recipe after the jump.