Bekahry Bake Shoppe

A new bakery has opened in the little town of Nolensville, TN called the Bekahry Bake Shoppe.  We stopped in to peruse the offerings and ended up taking home a half dozen cupcakes.

From the top, left to right, raspberry, tiramisu, birthday cake, red velvet cake, and chocolate ganache with vanilla icing.

I was talking to the owner, Rebekah Maddox and her daughter, who bake all the cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and pastries locally (except the bagels).  In the brief time that I talked with them, both ladies seemed very excited about their new business adventure and just were really kind.  They talked about how hard it is to judge the business in Nolensville, apologizing because they only had 6 kinds of cupcakes on a Saturday about an hour before they closed.  They said their cinnamon rolls were really popular and I should stop back by and try them sometime.  They also bake and decorate custom order cakes.

This is a cross section of three of the cupcakes (tiramisu, red velvet and chocolate ganache), all delicious.  The cupcakes were moist and tender, and the icings were very smooth.  The red velvet had a cream cheese icing that was delicious.  The other two had a vanilla icing that was smooth and not too sweet.

If you are in the area, you should stop in and try the Bekahry.  They do great work!

Walker Creek Toffee

I’m on this diet, which surprisingly is working quite well for me (yeah, yeah…  I know…  It’s not a diet… It’s a lifestyle change…  blah, blah.).  One of the reasons I’m on a diet is because I ate delicious things like Walker Creek Toffee around Christmas (and I still have 15 pounds of baby weight, but I would rather not talk about that).  A friend gifted me with this lovely package of almond toffee (really bad picture…  I apologize.  They have better pictures on their website).

I have to say, this is the best toffee I think I’ve ever had.  I’ve never really been a big fan of toffee because I feel like it sticks to my teeth for HOURS after I eat it.  This toffee just melts in the mouth.  The Belgian chocolate really accents the nuttiness of the toffee very well.  

This is a Tennessee product, made in the Nashville area.  They don’t use any preservatives, so you have to refrigerate it (a bonus in my book).  One day when I’m skinny again, maybe I’ll get to eat some more!

P.S. These people don’t know who I am.  I just love their toffee. 

Hungry Caterpillar Party

Our little Bug turned one this year and we had a food themed, Hungry Caterpillar Party.

My mom made a tissue paper puff caterpillar for the dining table.

I decorated the mantle with a caterpillar featuring the Bug’s photos, hungry caterpillar garland, and bug boxes as gifts for the kids.

If you are familiar with the book, the caterpillar eats a different food each day.  I tried to get a representative food for every day in the book.

The apples were quite easy.  I bought the pre-sliced apples from the store just to make things easier.

For pears, I got pear flavored Jelly Belly jelly beans.

For plums, I got berry flavored Jelly Belly jelly beans.

The strawberries were pretty easy and a big hit with the kids.

I used candy oranges for Friday.

On Saturday, he ate quite a bit so I had a few things to choose from. We also catered barbeque from Martin’s Barbeque for lunch.

We had a lovely caterpillar cake made by Publix.

I even put labels on the water bottles.

I went a little overboard for this event and I had to promise Cary that the subsequent events would be much more sedate.  However, I think the Bug had a great time!

Bailey’s Sweet Shop

After a particularly grueling week, I wanted to surprise Cary with a few sweets.  I work in Lebanon and wanted to pick up a few things on my way home, so a quick Google search led me to Bailey’s Sweet Shop.  I walked in approximately 30 minutes before they closed.  I was immediately grateful for how nice they were.  They had about 4 flavors of cupcakes.  The owner apologized that they didn’t have more because they had been so busy that day.  However, she immediately let me know that she had red velvet cupcakes in the back that she could ice quickly and even let me choose between buttercream and cream cheese icing.  In the end, I took home red velvet, apple, carrot cake, banana pudding and strawberry.

The red velvet with buttercream icing.

The strawberry cupcake had chunks of strawberries in the cake, which was a bit of a surprise.  Normally, I don’t like strawberry cake, but this was delicious.

The apple cupcake was decorated with a walnut.  It had actual apple pie filling in the cupcake, which was a tasty addition.

The carrot cake cupcake was decorated with a pecan.  It was full of pecan pieces and carrot bits, very scrumptious.

Apparently, in all the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the banana pudding cupcake.  It was decorated with vanilla wafers and filled with banana pudding.  I highly recommend it! If anything it speaks to how good the cupcake actually was, because it did not stick around our house very long.

All of the cupcakes tasted fantastic.  One really nice quality was they were not so large that you had to unhinge your jaw to eat them (or use a fork).   They reminded me of cupcakes I made with my mom as a kid, just deliciously dressed up!

Sweetwise Cake Decorating Class

Recently, I bought a Groupon for a buttercream cake decorating class at Sweetwise.  I am no artist and cake decorating has always seemed tough.  This class really made several things that I thought difficult very easy, like the basics of icing a cake.  Who knew a crumb coat was so important?

The class included simple buttercream flowers, fondant flowers (those sad purple things in the picture), leaves, shells and piping.  It was all-inclusive, so I got to bring home all the tips.  All around it was a very fun time!

Merridee’s Bread Basket

On a recent Saturday, we ventured to Merridee’s Breadbasket in Franklin, TN.  Merridee’s serves breakfast until 10:30 am and begins serving lunch at 11:00 am.  We arrived at 10:50am and they were still taking breakfast orders.  We were in the mood for lunch, so decided to try a few pastry appetizers while we waited.

Cary decided to try a pecan sticky bun.  The bun had an almost praline-like topping with a nice, light but also chewy dough.  It was absolutely delicious.

I opted for a raisin cinnamon roll with a light icing on top.  Like Cary’s sticky bun, the dough was light and chewy. Many times cinnamon rolls have an overwhelming amount of cinnamon.  This was not the case here.  I was pleasantly surprised by the light cinnamon flavor.  They had these packaged to take home.  I was very tempted.

The small side salad was a mixture of fresh greens, carrots and cheese with homemade croutons.  With the salad, you get a half piece of the famous Viking bread.  The Viking bread is a really unique whole grain bread.  Many times I feel like whole grain breads are gritty with hard grains that hurt my teeth.  The Viking bread contains soft grains that accent the soft bread well.

The chicken salad was a mix of chicken, mayonnaise and celery on white bread bread.  In my opinion, it was just a bit of a disappointment.  I’m southern a believe that chicken salad should contain pecans and some sort of fruit.  I’m sure people really like it, but it just wasn’t for me.

 

Merridee’s reuben came with a homemade thousand island dressing and was on the bakery’s delicious Viking bread.  While the corned beef of the inside had been sliced, it was nearly falling apart tender and luckily had a good bit of cheese to hold things together.  With the thick dressing to dip the sandwich in, as well as the substantial bread that was chock full of various seeds and grains, this turned out to be a top-notch reuben.

 

In our opinion,  Merridee’s Breadbasket is true to their name.  The thing they do the best are baked goods.  The breads and pastries were excellent.  We took home several of their dessert bars, a loaf of Viking Bread and a loaf of French Bread.  We used the French Bread to make French toast and made cinnamon toast with the Viking bread.

Wandering Wednesday: Magnolia Bakery in NYC

While we were in NYC, we thought we would stop by the Magnolia Bakery and try a few cupcakes.  The nice thing about the cupcakes, is that they were simple and reminded us of the cupcakes we used to make with our moms.  Many times I think cupcake companies try to hard, making sickly sweet concoctions with piles on thick icing.  Not the case at The Magnolia Bakery.

From top left to right, we tried a chocolate cupcake with white icing in the center, basically an upscale version of a Ding Dong. It was very good.  The red velvet cupcake was a bit of a disappointment.  The cake had a nice flavor, but the icing had almost none.  After much discussion, we think they may have left out the salt in the icing.

On the bottom left is a yellow cupcake with chocolate icing.  This was my favorite.  It was very simple and reminded me of the cupcakes I used to make with my mom.  The carrot cake cupcake was a bit spicy and had a nice, not too sweet cream cheese icing.  The very traditional chocolate with vanilla icing was Cary’s favorite for the same reason that I liked the yellow cupcakes.

The Magnolia Bakery was wonderful and if you are in the area it is a great stop!

Shake Shack

We’re never one’s to turn down good comfort food, even when we’re in the middle of quite possibly the greatest food city in the world, New York City.  After a long day (really a morning) in the American Museum of Natural History, you probably won’t feel much like fine dining, or for that matter someplace where you don’t really know what to expect.  The need for something simple and relaxing led us to taking advantage of a nearby Shake Shack.

The burger is, quite simply, almost burger perfection.  The meat mixture is extremely juicy, while the patties are griddled to a nice crust and topped with very fresh toppings.  The Double ShackBurger, which I tried, was a two patty mess that was very similar to the Double-Double “Animal-Style” I tried at In-N-Out on a trip out west.  There’s not anything fancy about it, but something fancy would just mess it up.

Sarah tried the regular cheeseburger.  It was similar to the the Double Shackburger, except it had no sauce and was only a single patty.  It was moist and the bun was excellent.

The fries are of the crinkle cut variety and are fried to a crispy finish, which is a nice change from most crinkle cuts, which end up either hard as a rock or gooey and flaccid.  I tried the cheese fries, which ended up just being too much, as the cheese was a little rubbery and tasted a little artificial.

The Shack also specializes in frozen custard, which can best be described as ice cream on steroids.  Or maybe extra rich ice cream.  Or maybe solid heavy cream, I don’t know, let’s just say it’s rich, heavy, decadent, and you definitely don’t have to order a large.  My “concrete” as it’s called, featured almonds, brownie bits, marshmallows, and other toppings that were almost overwhelming.  In fact, I was only able to finish about half of it, but it’s was a very tasty half.

Who could go to a place called the Shake Shack and not try a shake?  The black and white milkshake was a perfect blend of chocolate and vanilla.  It has a very nice light chocolate flavor.   Why can’t we have one of these in Nashville?

Shake Shack

366 Columbus Ave.
New York, NY 10024

Banana Pudding Festival

Cary and I get excited about food related festivals, and by golly there are lots of great ones in the Tennessee area.  The Moonpie and RC Cola festival, Cornbread Festival, Biscuit Festival and Greek Festival are just a few that pop into my mind.

We are super excited about the first Banana Pudding Festival on October 2nd in Centerville, TN for several reasons, other than the obvious love for nanner pudding.  The festival was started by twelve Red Cross volunteers who wanted to raise funds for people who had experienced natural disasters.  In the middle of planning, the Nashville experienced the worst flooding in many years.

At the Banana Pudding Festival there will be a banana pudding cook-off, crafts, and a “Puddin’ Path” where you get samples of banana pudding!  Sounds like an awesome time for a great cause!

Wandering Wednesday: Beth Marie’s Ice Cream Parlor

After dinner one night in Denton, TX, I decided to stop by Beth Marie’s Ice Cream Parlor.  Located on the square in Denton, TX, the decor is everything you would expect in an ice cream parlor, complete with bar stools and a checkered floor.

The ice cream is served in a frosted cup.  After a long time, I finally decided on Texas Doctor, Dr. Pepper ice cream with candied pecans.  The ice cream was creamy and delicious.  My only regret is that I couldn’t try all the flavors!

Beth Marie’s Ice Cream Parlor

117 W Hickory Street
Denton, TX 76201