Sweet Toppings

So I have found myself in a kind of strawberry ice cream craze lately (and by craze I mean I've repeated the flavor twice in a month). So yesterday I decided to go for strawberry ice cream yet again. Ocassionaly the dinning hall will provide toppings for your ice cream. These days are amazing. I do enjoy ice cream on its own, but sometimes the toppings...well...top it off!

So they had the usual, jimmies/sprinkles (chocolate/rainbow), chocolate syrup, caramel, whipped cream, chocolate chips, nuts, etc. Then among all of these delicious treats was a new addition (or perhaps I just never noticed). Strawberries! Well..strawberries that had most likely been covered in sugar and was now sitting in some kind of strawberry juice.

I guess it isn't too much different from putting strawberries in your cereal, but I have never done it so it seemed a little foreign to me. Even though I do enjoy strawberries, I figured it might be a little difficult to balance it's sloppy goodness ontop of my cone. Then I had to ask myself how readily others would top their ice cream with these strawberries? What type of ice cream would they use it to top? Just vannila or other flavors as well? Who knows, maybe I'll have to experiment later (any excuse to justify eating more ice cream!)

Special K...Take 2

This past weekend was President's Day long weekend. Even though I enjoyed the time off, it has thrown off my posting schedule. One good thing about being home was being able to eat "good" food. "Good" food to me is atleast being able to pick out a cereal that I like to eat.

The usual cereals at my house are either Frosted Flakes or some kind of Kashi, both of which I enjoy. To my surprise I found a box of Special K with strawberry. Even though I found out before that Special K was pulling the wool over our eyes with their cereal bars, I do still enjoy their brand, and decided to give their actual cereal a try.

Even though they may have covered up their "strawberry pieces" in their bars, they stayed true to strawberries in their cereal. The ingredients list on their cereal is easier to read and allows you to quickly find what exactly is in their cereal. These strawberry pieces are actually freeze dried strawberries!

I now give my consent to continue eating Special K cereal. My only advice would be to allow the strawberry pieces to soak in the milk for a minute or two. Otherwise they are slightly crunchy, and for me atleast I am not ok with my fruits being crunchy. I hope you all enjoy your cereal!

Strawberry Shortcake, Banana Split!

Well, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

I figured I should probably write on Valentine's day, since it is pretty much an ode to the strawberry. Even though I may not enjoy this holiday, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy all of the tastey treats!


For anyone who lives on campus will be able to back me up when I say it was a strawberry extravaganza in the dinning halls. Even though I was not into the holiday, they so got me on all the strawberry desserts. There was actually an entire section that was devoted to the color pink. Since pink is one of my favorite colors (ask anyone who knows me, or has seen my room), it made me immediately drawn to the area.

While I was searching through all the pink treats, I happened upon an interesting one. It was supposed to be a whipped-cream take on strawberry shortcake. It is hard to better such a delicious dessert, but I was willing to give it a try. It was a whipped cream/mousse combo that was light and strawberry flavored, with vanilla whipped cream and pieces of cake and real strawberries mixed in. I'm not going to lie, it did not taste anything what I expected, but it was still delightful. It was much lighter than the original strawberry shortcake, but now I'm on a quest for some true strawberry shortcake...

When they say Imitation, they mean it!

So after I made my cupcakes (which are almost all gone) I decided to try and break the mystery of what exactly strawberry extract is (or any extract for that mater). So I went to my little bottle of extract, and because I apparently do not read labels, I found that it was actually imitation extract! Well that really gets me far.


So I tried to do a little snooping online to see what exactly the extraction processes is. I came across exactly what the process is for vanilla extraction, and I would have to assume it would be the same for almost any flavor.


"Pure Vanilla Extract is produced exclusively from beans grown on the estate. After curing, the beans are carefully chopped to increase their surface area and placed in stainless steel percolators. A solution of ethyl alcohol and purified water is circulated through the chopped beans to extract the flavor. A proprietary cold process is used to extract its beans. This minimizes the loss of delicate flavor components. The extraction process usually takes two to three days. The Pure Vanilla Extract is then aged in special holding tanks for as long as two weeks, prior to being filtered and boltted" http://www.silvercloudestates.com/vanilla_process.aspx


So now that the myster was solved for me, I decided to figure out why mine was imitation. So for "pure" extracts, the only ingredients would be extracts of strawberries, water, and ethyl alcohol. This is the list of what is found in imitation strawberry extract:
"water, alcohol (27%), extractives of strawberry, apple juice concentrate, lactic acid, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors, propylene glycol, and fd&c red 40"

Even though the fact that the list is mainly ingredients that are chemicals, what worried me the most was the apple juice. To me apple juice has a very distinct flavor, and I'm not sure how that would help bring out strawberry flavors. Maybe it's more cost effective to produce more bottles of extract? I just do not know.


Well all I do know is that the majority of the strawberry world is a lie. First they get you with the cherry pieces in Special K, and now with apple juice in strawberry extract. Who knows what it will be next, but I bet you I'll find out!

Heavenly Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes

With Valentines day this week, I decided that I was going to devote this whole week to posting about valentines related things. To me the classic Valentines day treat would have to be chocolate dipped strawberries. It is strange to think that this is probably one of the biggest selling holidays for strawberries, and they are out of season. Either way, I still love chocolate dipped strawberries.

Although I am no Martha Stewart, I do love baking. I don't tend to go too far creatively with actual recipes, but I do like making a showy presentation (if i can). So I decided that I was going to try to make a Valentine's Day cupcake, inspired by strawberries. Now this was my first attempt at creating my own design for any type of dessert. I used angle food cake as the cupcake (because I havent had it in forever and I thought that the lightness of the cake would compliment the heavier chocolate), topped it with chocolate-strawberry frosting and a chocolate dipped strawberry piece.

Heavenly Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes

1 box of Angel Food Cake mix

1lb of Strawberries (a carton)

8oz. of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

12oz. of Milk Chocolate Frosting

1 1/2tsp. of Strawberry Extract

Start out preparing the strawberries by rinsing and cutting out the green leaves. Then slice the strawberries into a 1/4 of an inch thickness and set aside. Continues this for the entire carton of strawberries.

Once all of the strawberries have been sliced, prepare the chocolate dip. Place the chocolate chips into a bowl (you will only need about 3/4 of a bag) and microwave/double boil the chocolate until it has metled with a drizzly consistency.

The strawberries will be a little slippery, so you may want to wipe them off with a paper towel. Then dip them half way into the melted chocolate. Place them onto a sturdy piece of aluminum foil (this way you can peel them off later, rather than breaking the chocolate coating). For extra support while carrying, place the aluminum first on a plate or baking sheet. Place in the refridgerator for approximately 15minutes, or until the chocolate coating has hardened.

While the chocolate dipped strawberries are drying in the fridge, you can make the cupcakes. Follow the directions on your box of angel food cake mix (mine just had to add 1 1/4 cup of water). Once the batter is prepared, place muffin cups into the cupcake pan. Fill each cup 1/2-3/4 the way with the batter. Place in the over for 15 minutes on 350.

Next prepare the chocolate frosting while the first batch of cupcakes are in the oven. To do this, take your can of milk chocolate frosting. Add in the strawberry extract and stir. (Depending on your brand of frosting, you can add more or less extract to taste. I would suggest adding 1tsp at first, and then judging from there).

Once the cupcakes have cooled for 5 minutes out of the cupcake pan, you may frost. Place a chocolate dipped strawberry (..or two) and enjoy!

(This can yeild up to 30 cupcakes)

I enjoyed these, and thought it was a good first try for a recipe. The angel food cake is not so sturdy, but it is fun to eat, and still tastes good!

If you are daring enough, and want to attempt to make these, let me know how yours came out!

I Scream, You Scream...

We all scream for ice cream!

It is so true though, it could almost be said that it is "unamerican" to not like icecream. It is the staple in an elementary school kid's diet. There are just so many flavors to choose from!

Personally, my childhood is filled with memories of walking down the road with my parents to get a strawberry frappe from the local ice cream parlor (which is sadly no longer there). So naturally when I saw that there was strawberry ice cream at the dinning hall this evening I imediately thought of my childhood summers (..right after I screamed "strawberriess!!!")

Even though I may have caused a small scene in the dinning hall I was just so excited because I was almost positive I would not come across strawberries in any of my daily activities. I personally thought that strawberry ice cream as a favorite flavor was only a phase that younger kids go through before they realize the amazingness of chocolate. Apparently I was wrong because the industrial sized container of strawberry was gone and the chocolate had barely been touched in comparision.

By following foods, I am beginning realize I take a different approach to eating foods. For my ice cream instead of just trying to get as much in my mouth in the shortest amount of time, I found myself savoring it, and trying to disect the flavors with my tounge. In this experiement I have concluded that what we think is "strawberry" flavored is nowhere near what strawberries actually taste like. The actual ice cream tasted very sweet, creamy, and echoed that "natural strawberry flavor" that everyone uses in their products. What was interesting was when I ate one of the actual strawberries. It was not as sweet as I expected; it actually was bitter in comparision to the sweet creaminess of the actual ice cream.

In short I have concluded that we've been brainwashed. Ok maybe that was a little extreme, but we do not know the true flavor of strawberry. We can claim it as our favorite fruit, but for most of us it is only our favorite when doused with spoonfuls of sugar. Perhaps Mary Poppin's did know what she was talking about. "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...in the most delightful way!"

Tea can be berry good!

Now I don't consider myself too much of a tea drinker. I don't know many brands or flavors beyond Lipton and Red Rose. Even though I may not be a tea connoisseur, like many of my friends claim to be, I do enjoy a good tea after classes.

Yesterday afternoon it was a little breezy, but still nice out. A wonderful setting for afternoon tea. My roommate just opened a new box of Celestial Seasonings tea and we decided to try the Wild Berry Zinger. I'm personally a fan of any Zinger tea (because I'm too lazy to find milk and I don't need any for this), but my roommate was not too fond of it. Of course I took it off her hands. Although it did need a little more sweeting (I have a little bit of a sweet tooth) it was really good. I was nont really sure what kind of berry would be used in this tea, but my first guess was blueberry and raspberry. To my surprise I actually found that strawberries were used in it as well! (Of course its "natural strawberry flavor" though)

So this is one unexpected place to find strawberries, and a nice surprise at that. Now that this is the second time I've come across "natural strawberry flavor" I'm on a quest to find out what exactly this means....