Millions of Sprinkles. Sprinkles for you and Sprinkles for me.

Last weekend, Jen was at Disneyland celebrating her good friend's, Liz McMunn, bachelorettehood. While she was in vast land of the angels, Jen picked up an Oprah favorite as a treat for the house. Featured on such shows as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and The Tyra Banks Show and in print such as Bon Appétit, The New York Times, Sunset Magazine, and New York Magazine, I'm talking about a half-dozen cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes. The self-proclaimed original cupcake bakery has revolutionized the pastry world by building a name for itself through miniature albeit full flavored cupcakes.

At $3.50 each, they weren't cheap, but Jen saw people leaving with the yummy treats by the dozen. San Francisco's Citizen Cupcake is our local equivalent though they some how manage to charge $4.50 a cupcake, making Sprinkles look like a bargain. Costs aside what matters most is the tastes. The cupcakes are baked daily from scratch. And despite their expansive list of flavors only a handful are served each day. Jen brought home a half dozen of which I tasted 4 flavors: fragrant lemon cake with lemon-vanilla frosting with zest, Belgian dark chocolate cake with rich mocha frosting, southern style light chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, and Madagascar bourbon vanilla cake with coconut cream cheese frosting. The lemon had great flavor but was a bit could use more of it. The looks of the red velvet was certainly most interesting with a color of red beans found in Vietnamese dessert drinks. Its flavor was most forgettable though. The mocha cupcake was by far Jen's favorite with rich coffee flavor in the frosting atop deep chocolaty cake. Coconut would have been probably just as good with its great frosting flavor but being a few days old the cake hand dried out significantly. (Yes, we somehow had cupcakes sitting in our house for more than a few days. Go figure.)

All in all, Sprinkles does deserve praise for an innovative business concept and pretty good execution but maybe not all of what people are clamoring about. At $40 for a dozen cupcakes, that's bordering on highway robbery to me. Then again, if Oprah's endorsing you, I guess you can charge anything you damn well please.

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Culinary World of the Day: Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla
Made from beans grown on the island of Madagascar, Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla is the king of vanillas. Its creamy, sweet flavor blends beautifully with a variety of foods. Source Nielsen-Massey Vanillas

Is it Irish coffee if you use protestant whiskey?

Jen has put up two new desserts over the weekend to replace the out-of-season Pineapple Coconut Ice Cream Cake and wintry Carrot Cake. The first, which is her new favorite, is the Coffee Vacherin. It consists of layers of meringue discs and coffee ice cream with an Irish coffee sauce and roasted cocoa nibs. Jen gave me a taste of the coffee ice cream as a late birthday gift and, man, was it yummy! The second dessert is the Raspberry Poppy Seed Cake served with a Lemon Mint Granita. Doesn't that sound refreshing after a long, hot summer day? Once again, I invite everyone to come on by the Salt House and checkout Mrs. Celebrity Chef Jen's newest offerings.

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Culinary Word of the Day: Vacherin
A dessert consisting of several crisp meringue rings stacked on top of each other and placed on a meringue or pastry base. Alternatively, the rings may be made with almond paste. This "container" may be filled with ice cream or crème Chantilly and/or various fruits. Source The Food Lover's Companion

An Evening at the Paramount

A few weeks ago I posted lyrics to a little song in the tune of Brian McKnight's Back at One. My inspiration was that on Friday, April 27, 2007, we saw him in concert at the Oakland Paramount Theater. If you have been to a R&B concert there, you will know what I'm talking about. Attendees treat an evening at the Paramount like how most people imagine you'd dress to go to the opera or ballet. People are dressed to the nines. Of course, you get the few folks that think a sweat suit is formal wear but on average, people were wearing their Sunday best. Well maybe not their Sunday best but evening wear best. The show featured a number of headliners including:

• Sunshine Anderson
• Algebra Blessett
A visual and vocal mix of India Arie & Erkya Badu. She put on a great performance that made Jen interested in her other works. Check out her myspace page.

• Joe
Preformed like a headlining star with a show based on his dual personas. A video introduced his double personalities with his bad boy, hip-hop side performing first. These songs were of his more popular hits like "Don't Wanna Be a Player" and "Ride Wit U." In the second half of his set, he broke out with this R&B hits like "If I Was Your Man" and "The Love Scene" (although, he didn't actually sing that song as Jen hoped). During the show, Joe actually came down into the crowd a couple of times and there was this older lady who nearly molested him on each of his trips...

• And... Brian McKnight
The name on the marquee for the night didn't do a duet with Joe as Jen and I guessed but did put on an awesome performance that got the crowd rockin' out on its feet. As a special treat, Brian brought his two sons on tour with him and did a trio with them. After which the kids, kicked Brian off stage and showed off some flair of their own. The two apparently have an interest for rock music as the two did a 180 on the pace of the crowd jamming their electric guitars in rock 'n' roll duet. Their departure and Brian's return brought back the serenity of the R&B mood. Brian went on to close the set with string of R&B hits that made all the women cry out with all the emotion they felt. There was no encore oddly enough.

I'll stop the world and...fonds avec vous

Yes... I have dusted the cover of that old jacket and brought out my high school French to announce Jen's new dessert, Chocolate Fondant Cake. The dessert was unleashed unto the world two days ago on Wednesday. It's a chocolate fondant cake with pistachio ice cream and cherries on top. By the way, when you read fondant... don't think wedding cake... think more like the French word, fondre, meaning to melt. Mmmmm... The thought of the chocolaty, melty goodness makes my mouth salivate just writing this. Try it out today!

In another note, Google Street View was unveiled recently. Lo and behold, guess what it caught... my old BMW. Check it out here.

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Culinary Word of the Day: Fondant
Fondant is a confection used as a filling or coating for cakes, pastries, and candies or sweets. In its simplest form, it is sugar and water cooked to a point, specifically soft-ball stage, cooled slightly, and stirred or beaten until it is an opaque mass of creamy consistency. The word fondant comes from the Old French fondre and Latin fundere, meaning "to melt." -Source Wikipedia