KLY21: Molecular Popsicles

A creative looking popsicle gets me every time. Having grown up with tradition, one-dimensional popsicles, I always get excited when I see someone put a new spin of these frozen treats, and David Marx, food scientist and founder of The Science Kitchen in Berlin, is just the guy to do it!

Marx’s popsicle line, named KYL21 after the Swedish spelling of molecule (molekyl), features futuristic looking sweets that have been molded into complicated, geometric shapes. He describes them as “the reinvention of popsicles and a real masterpiece of avant-garde cuisine.” They are also free of additives, organic, vegan, and gluten free. They aren’t due to hit the marketplace until the Spring, but, in the meantime, you can click here to check out KYL21 website. ~Erin

Cereal Boxes

Oh, sugary cereals. They always bring up such feelings of nostalgia for me. I'm not sure why. Sugar cereals were not exactly a staple in our house, although they did find their way onto our breakfast table from time to time, and it was always exciting when they did! Marshmallows for breakfast? Yes, thank you. I think I will. Apparently, I'm not the only one that gets all nostalgic over the thought of eating Lucky Charms or Count Chocula. In fact, the folks over at CerealBoxes are hoping that you are so eager to relive the sugar-fueled cereal days of your youth that you'll want to look at cereal every day, on your wall. That's right. CerealBoxes is turning your favorite cereals into art by placing them in handcrafted specimen boxes like the kind you would see in a museum, normally filled with dead insects. Each box includes nine cereal specimens, ranging from Raisin Bran to Corn Puffs to Fruit Loops. In addition, the samples are tagged and dated with the year they went on the market. At the moment there are three different boxes to choose from, with each box costing $225. Click here to check them out and to order online. ~Erin

Matt's - The Chocolate Shop

Okay, let’s talk about minimalism for a second. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for minimalism. I am not a tchotchke kind of gal. That said, minimalist desserts don’t come up that often on this site. I’m not sure why. Maybe because minimalist sweets aren’t as showy, aren’t as “oh, wow,” that I wonder if people will be interested. Well, the minimalism freeze is about the thaw out right now because I am in love with the design concept of Matt’s - The Chocolate Shop! The brown and navy packaging was created by design firm Tofu and features a graphic yet simple theme, while the shop’s interior is sparsely decorated with a clean, contemporary feel. But it’s not only Matt’s branding and style that is pared down to the bone. The menu itself is an effort in simplicity, focusing on one modest chocolate fudge cake. Actually, when the shop first opened in Singapore they only sold chocolate cake. I totally love the idea of a bakery selling only one item. They have added a few things to the menu since their opening in the summer of 2012, but the focus is still on the dark, not too sweet, chocolate cake, as it should be.

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.

The "Simon" Sourdough

Bread is one of the few constants in the food world. Recipes and methods for baking bread haven’t changed much over the centuries. When you think about it, it really is amazing that people all over the world still make bread using the same processes and recipes as their ancestors. With this sense of history in mind, food designer Marije Vogelzang approached her latest project, which involves a sourdough, named Simon. The project, which is a collaboration between Marije and The Museum of Dordecht in The Netherlands, is held at the former house of banker and collector Simon van Gijn. In the kitchen of this historic home, Maije has created a sourdough that permanently lives inside the museum. Because a sourdough culture will remain active, as long as it’s given flour and water regularly, Simon’s yeast will continue to develop, feeding off the molecules of the house as it grows.

From Marije: Simon is site specific and can only be made in the museum. In this way I sort of "catch" the atmosphere of the collector's house. Once a week the sourdough is baked as a cake in a special copper baking pan I designed for it. When Simon is being baked the smell will spread through the premises making the house, which is a silent witness of the past filled with lifeless artifacts, come to life again.

The Simon sourdough currently resides in the kitchen of the Van Gijn house, where it will remain, as a living organism. Visitors will be given an opportunity to take a piece of the Simon starter home with them. By using this starter to produce their own bread, they will be, in a sense, creating Simon’s offspring.

**The recipe of the final cake is based on a recipe used by the mother of Simon van Gijn (c. 1850). --Erin

Date Syrup

I am a huge fan of dates. No, I don’t mean the kind of dates where you sit awkwardly across from a stranger. That’s not the kind of date I’m referring to. I’m talking about the deliciously sweet fruit of the date palm tree. So good. It’s practically candy. It should come as no surprise then that I did a little happy dance when I first saw this date syrup, which is commonly used in the middle east, but is used less widely in other parts of the world. It’s such a great idea and I love the idea of using it in place of other sweeteners like honey and caramel. Speaking of caramel, Date Lady also offers a caramel sauce that is made from organic dates (date syrup), organic caramel extract and sea salt. Yum! I love how these two items really encourage you to explore different flavors and baking ideas. I can’t wait to try them! For more info and to shop online, click here. --Erin

Edible Art: Amy Stevens

When it comes to baking, there’s perhaps nothing braver than diving head first into a decorating idea, with little or no experience behind you. It takes a certain amount of confidence, and a certain amount of humor, knowing that what you are about to do could go terribly, horribly wrong. This was exactly the challenge Amy Stevens faced when she first started her Confections Series, which began as a response to her 30th birthday and quickly transformed into something else entirely.

From Amy: My original idea was to bake 30 birthday cakes for myself and photograph them. I ordered a kit from Martha Stewart.com and watched an instructional video on decorating cakes. When I quickly discovered my cakes were never going to look like the ones in the video and the pamphlet, I decided they were better off in their exuberantly imperfect states.

In the end, it’s the flaws in Amy’s cakes that make them so great. The unevenness and bright colors of the desserts, which are often set against similar graphic backgrounds, are so absurd that you can’t help but smile. The content is garish and trashy, but that’s the reason you love it. In a way, these cakes remind me of characters on a child’s television program, a claymation fantasy where the charm is in the imperfections.

Amy’s photographs aren’t all about the cakes, though. There is a deeper meaning beneath the layers: I am commenting on cake as a rich cultural symbol as well as the domestic fantasy world of contemporary home decorating magazines and television shows. It’s a fantasy world where entertaining, cooking and decorating unite. It’s a place where one needs to have a beautiful home, decorated seasonally, in order to entertain friends with gourmet meals and elaborately concocted desserts.

I really love the whole idea behind the Confections series and the photos are just mesmerizing. You can see more of Amy’s work on her website. You can also buy prints online, via her Etsy shop.

Sweet Testing: S'more Nut Bars with Smoked Chocolate Chips

Nothing says summer like grilling. Traditionally a meat centered event, grilling has expanded over the years to include everything from lettuce to pizza to chocolate. Chocolate? Yep, that's right. Autumn Martin from Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery in Seattle has created her own line of smoked chocolate chips! The semisweet chips, which are cold smoked over alder wood for ten hours, actually taste and smell like a campfire. After I finally managed to get my hands on some, I couldn't stop opening the jar and inhaling the warm woodsy aroma inside. What was I going to make with my new discovery? S'more bars, of course! There are many creative ways you could use these chips, but I felt that a dessert that is already known for being smoky would be the perfect way to showcase the chocolate.

You can order Smoked Chocolate Chips via the Hot Cakes website, right here. If you would like to try making the chips on your own, check out Autumn's cookbook, Malts and Milkshakes, which contains instructions on how to smoke the chips, along with tons of unusual milkshake recipes, including Smoked Chocolate and Scotch Shake, Salted Black Licorice Shake, Tamarind Shake, Passion Fruit Creamsicle Shake, and Blackberry Lavender Shake.

You can find the complete recipe for the S'more Bars after the jump.