Daily Loaf

Tampa has seen a couple of cupcake bakeries pop up in the last couple of years, so I set out to compare their products; specifically, the simplest of all these sweets: a vanilla cupcake.

In Westchase, there are now two places that offer cupcakes. When Swirls on Race Track Road first opened, they had multiple cupcake flavors as well as several other baked goods. Currently, they seem to be concentrating more on gelato, coffees and a few lunch items. Good thing, because the cupcakes were awful. The cake was dry and oddly solid, as if previously frozen, and the frosting was greasy and flavorless. Thankfully, their gourmet gelato, including unique flavors like Guinness and avocado, are worth the visit.

On Linebaugh is Read the rest of this entry »

From basics to kids’ faves this Periodic Table of cupcakes at Woman’s Day provides 46 delicious cupcake recipes.

Get their recipe for School Bus cupcakes after the jump.
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Cooking or baking for someone is my favorite form of gift giving — it’s personal and heartwarming. I was throwing a surprise party for a very good friend of mine recently and decided to bake cupcakes as my gift.  Being the avid foodie and culinarian that my friends know me to be, I also thought it would have made me look bad if I had shown up with store-bought treats. Little did they know that the party wasn’t the only surprise that night.

As I was brainstorming and perusing my usual foodie sites for flavor ideas, I remembered an interesting flavor combination I’d come across a few months ago: chocolate and bacon. Yep, bacon. My friend loves bacon! I also recalled our shared love of pork products and popcorn mixed with chocolate at the movies. It’s the same concept, right? Read the rest of this entry »

Craft Magazine and Make Magazine are tremendous periodicals for the 21st century DIY culture. And in true 21st century style their blogs are as important as their paper publications. Here’s the Craftzine blog, and here’s the Makezine blog.

I tell you this because they’re great zine/blogs and I thought you might be interested in them, but mostly to assuage my conscience since I’m about to totally rip off their image and post -

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Teatro on 7th (1600 E. 8th. Ave., Ybor, 813-248-9400) has been open for about six weeks, but there’s been little fanfare so I thought I’d give its menu a shout-out. Owners Philip Zeltsar and Bill Haines have a long history in the restaurant business in and out of Tampa, most recently at Bernini where Zeltsar was chef and Haines was GM.

The menu looks modern American with some international influence — which means you’ll never know how good it is without sitting down and eating — although a few interesting ingredients pop up, like green papaya and cucumber dill raita. Blue cheese with poached lobster? They’ll have to sell me on that one.

Get info on Bin 27 Bistro, Cupcakes! Cupcakes, and gossip about The Independent after the break: Read the rest of this entry »