Cake Byte: More CakeSpy Celebrates a Year of Collaboration with Taylored Expressions

Booyea! You know what this month marks? 

CakeSpy is celebrating one year of collaboration with with Taylored Expressions, a rubber stamp company! Cuppie has taken part in many rubber stamp adventures this year from a trip to the beach to the latest Halloween costume party. All of the Cuppie stamp sets and coordinating products are available at Taylored Expressions. And check out the company blog to see how you could win a custom painting by yours truly, Head Spy Jessie!

Now that's the sweetest news I've heard all week!

Once again: buy here; find out more here.

A Sweet End of Summer Treat: Cakes Grilled in Orange Shells on Serious Eats

If Labor Day is the last hurrah of the outdoor grilling season, why not go out with a sweet bang? Wow your guests with these totally awesome cakes which can be baked on the grill in orange shells, which I recently wrote about for Serious Eats!

It's a little trick I discovered in an old Boy Scouts camping guide. Basically the idea is simple. First, you slice the top third off of an orange, and hollow out the bottom part:


Then you fill it about 3/4 full with your favorite cake batter:


Then you either bake it according to the cake's recipe instructions, or throw it on the grill for about 15-20 minutes (shifting frequently if on grill):


Once done and cool, you can eat it as-is, or make it even awesomer by giving it a healthy dollop of frosting and garnishing it with a piece of the orange leftover from when you sliced the top off.

Either way, it's a sweet treat for the dwindling days of summer! Find the full recipe at Serious Eats!

All You Need is Luv: Cupcake Luv, Kirkland, WA

You know what all of the recent cupcake backlash made me want to do?

Eat a cupcake, that's what.

So I was particularly excited when I happened to discover a new-ish custom cupcake business based in Kirland, WA called Cupcake Luv, which had a booth at the Mercer Island Farmer's Market.

They had a gorgeous array of beautifully decorated cupcakes. They were a bit spendy ($3 for a "regular"; $5 for a "jumbo") but most variations were filled and all of them were beautifully decorated, so it took away a bit of the sting.

I picked up the "Seduced by a Peach" (vanilla butter cake filled with a chunky peach chutney, and finished with buttercream with peach puree); while generally I shy away from fruit flavors (too healthy!), it seemed really fresh and seasonal, and was a flavor I hadn't seen anywhere else.

The cupcake itself, which was a vanilla cake filled with fresh peach preserves and topped with a peach buttercream, was satisfyingly heavy--a good start. The cake itself was moist and finely crumbed, and nicely complemented by the sweet, creamy frosting. Unfortunately, it was the beautiful decorating that was its ultimate fatal flaw: since the piped frosting was applied directly above the filled part of the cake, it didn't have much to hold on to, and so when the cupcake was bitten into, the frosting tended to flake off and a precious morsel even fell to the ground (just picture it in slow motion: noooooo!).

Construction aside though, it was a pretty delicious cupcake. Just make sure to eat carefully, perhaps even with knife and fork.

Want to feel the Luv? Check out Cupcake Luv's website here; they can also be found at Kirkland's Wednesday and Friday Farmer's Markets; Issaquah and Woodinville's Saturday Farmer's Markets, and Mercer Island's Sunday Farmer's Market. For more information on the Farmer's Markets including locations, visit pugetsoundfresh.com.

Sweetness in Chicago: CakeSpy at the Renegade Craft Fair!

Get excited, Chicago. Your city is about to get even sweeter.

A veritable tornado of sweetness is coming your way on September 12th and 13th: I (Head Spy Jessie) will be taking part in the annual Renegade Craft Fair! But I won't be alone: there will be a veritable cupcake posse on board as Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake, Sandy from Iron Cupcake and Sheela of Miel y Leche Catering (home of the Elvis Cupcake!) all converge in the fair city of Chicago as well!

I'll be sharing a booth with the lovely and amazing Abbey Christine (check out her awesome work here, or see her work pictured left--why yes, that is a Peewee Herman finger puppet!).

On Sunday, there will even be a Cupcake Meetup at Molly's Cupcakes (coordinated by Cupcakes Take the Cake), followed by a group jaunt over to the craft fair to visit my booth!

I hope that I'll see some of your smiling faces there! I will have all manner of sweet artwork and accessories on sale, including original paintings, stationery and gift items--even some new products which I did in collaboration with Eleven Eleven Industries, including CakeSpy checkbook holders, passport covers and more!

Here are the details (or, for more info, visit their site!):

Oh, and did I mention the most important part? I will actually be driving to the fair from Seattle...making a pastry road trip of the journey! Look out for updates on sweets from Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota and more while I work my way over to Chicago! And of course, feel free to pass on any suggestions along the way.

Sweet Freedom: Nut, Egg, and Dairy-Free Cookies by HomeFree

Every so often we receive product samples, and a parcel of chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies from HomeFree Baking was intriguing, not because of what was in them...but what they were without.

Made in a dedicated allergen-free kitchen, these cookies are (wait for it): peanut free, tree nut free, dairy free, and egg free (in addition to being suitable for some wheat and soy allergies, although the cookies do contain oats and soy lethicin). The cookies also contain no trans fat or cholesterol, and are made without corn sweeteners, artificial colors, artificial flavors, MSG, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

It begged the question: if they're devoid of all of these things...what is in these cookies? Well, here's the ingredient list for the chocolate chip cookies, in case you're curious:

Organic whole barley flour, organic cane sugar, natural chocolate chips (sugar, chocolate liqueur, non-dairy cocoa butter, anhydrous dextrose, soy lecithin [an emulsifier], vanilla extract), organic oleic safflower oil, organic tapioca starch, organic whole oat flour, organic turbinado sugar, pear juice from concentrate, baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), organic vanilla extract, salt, baking powder (non-aluminum), soy lecithin (an emulsifier), xanthan gum, cream of tartar, rosemary extract.

So how did they taste?

The mini chocolate chip cookies were very crunchy, and while the flavor was sweet and nicely balanced, it lacked the richness that I usually expect from a chocolate chip cookie, instead bearing more of a dry, crackery sweetness.

The singly-packaged oatmeal cookie was a lot softer, and smelled sweetly spicy upon opening the package. The texture was very nice, lightly crumbling but moist. The taste was lightly sweet, but overall we couldn't get past the fact that it tasted like a "healthy" cookie--almost like the outside of a Nutri-grain bar, but without the filling. While this is not an unpleasant flavor, sometimes you look for something a bit mroe indulgent in a cookie. Overall though, the more delicate flavor and softer texture of this cookie made it our favorite of the two styles sampled.

Final thoughts? These cookies are quite impressive considering all of the ingredient challenges they face--I mean, they're basically cookies made without the key ingredients of most classic cookies. If you do suffer from allergies, they are a great way to get your sweet fix without too much compromise; also, for parents bringing treats to their children's schools, they're a great choice because they're probably going to be safe for most children with allergies. However, I've got to say that Chez CakeSpy, ultimately we're probably going to stick with the real thing.

Want to try them yourself? Check out their site at homefreetreats.com.