Cupcake Wrinkle

Did you know that Cold Stone Creamery makes ice cream cupcakes and packages them for sale in clamshells of six assorted ones? And that the cupcake "wrapper" in this case is dark, dark chocolate?

I did not know that. Cousin Jan knew and she brought us some as a present. We still have two more left.

We adore Cousin Jan.

Sweet Surprises

On a recent rainy Saturday, we took Cora and our pal Sari up to Napa to visit the Oxbow Public Market, a foodie paradise next to the now-defunct Copia. It's a great location for a rainy day, as it's entirely indoors and there is a wonderful variety of shops that cater to the food-obsessed crowd, of which I am a proud member.

One of the delights we sampled that day are mini cupcakes from Kara's Cupcakes, dainty little treasures found at a truly dangerous emporium in the market. I tried one of the mocha and one of the dark chocolate velvet flavors - both are dreamy but one would have been ample. Unusual in a cupcake, the cake was as tasty as the sumptuous buttercream icing. Despite their diminutive size, they pack a wallop! We were in cupcake coma for hours afterward, even though they were not terribly sweet.

Knowing that we were headed to a birthday celebration for daughter Katie the next day, we bought a dozen of the tiny terrors to take along to the party - flavors like passionfruit, coconut, peanut butter chocolate, raspberry, lemon filled with lemon curd and carrot as well as the usual chocolate, vanilla, yadda.

The cupcakes were sweet surprises for the partygoers - they were divided and subdivided so many could taste several flavors and everyone pronounced them to be delicious and sweetly sinful.