A shot of the delicious pairing of beers and donuts from the Tuesday event at Devil's Den. We got word that over $1,000 was raised for Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society thanks to Devil's Den, Krispy Kreme Philly and Neff Associates.
Archive for the ‘Dessert’ Category
Local Beer & Donut Pairing
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
All day today, Devil's Den is hosting a tasting event benefiting an awesome animal welfare organization. A special $10 paired flight of beers and donuts will be featured, and $4 from each flight will go to the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, the region's only no-kill animal shelter. We love dogs, we love beer, we love donuts. We'll be there and you should come out, too.
The menu for the night with donuts donated by Krispy Kreme:
- Original Glazed Donut with PBC's Joe Porter in a classic breakfast staple inspired mash up
- Cinnamon Bun Donut with Yards' Thomas Jefferson's Tavern Ale
- Pumpkin Spice Cake Donut with Weyerbacher's Verboten, a Belgian style pale ale
The pours will be 8 oz. each with more on tap if you like what you're having.
Devil's Den has quickly become our new favorite neighborhood hangout. Why? They have an awesome beer list with 17 rotating taps and a gigantic bottle list. Happy Hour (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.) means half off all drafts which normally range from $4 to $8. (Um, $2 to $4 for a really good beer? We are so there!) Their higher ABV brews get the 10.5 oz treatment. Also, it seems to be our demographic—seriously, every one in that bar seems to be in the same ten year age span— it's lively but no one is there to get hammered. The jukebox is usually rocking some awesome 90s music. The food is tasty and well portioned (except for the figs, don't get the measly figs!) with the giant cheese plate holding down the best deal spot so far from what we've sampled. Also, there's a fireplace!
The good people at Neff Associates, who have invited us to the event, suggest making a reservation to what they bill as Philly's first beer and donut pairing event. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. so there will be plenty of time at lunch, after work, before dinner, after dinner and before bed to come on by!
Devil's Den
1148 S. 11th Street @ Ellsworth
215.339.0855
PEACHES AND CREAM: WINTER EDITION
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
Right, right, right. You're saying, "Peaches and cream again? Those two are really getting lazy." Well, this is different. It's the middle of January here in the northeast and there's not a fresh peach to be found anywhere. But there you have it right there: peaches and cream. We just had a bowl each a few short hours ago.
PW just wrote a story last week about the locally grown and canned Three Springs peaches available at The Fair Food Farmstand. They're good. Really good. $4.50 for a 1lbs. 12oz. can of peaches.
While I didn't need PW to tell me what I have in stock at the Farmstand, I didn't think about making peaches and whipped cream until this weekend. Some friends came over for dinner and brought over some Ibarra for spicy hot chocolate. I whipped up a batch of fresh whipped cream using the double cream available at FFF $6.50 for a sinfully delicious quart. And then I thought about the peaches I had just brought home from work. How I hadn't thought to do this at some point over the last month since we've been getting the Three Springs canned peaches is beyond me. But now, we'll have a bit of summer to last us until fresh peaches are once again locally available. And don't adjust your screens, that does say 38% milkfat – no messing around here.
The peaches are in a light syrup and packed to the brim. Peeled and sliced in half, they've been soaking in the goodness for several months now. Three Springs also canned them in heavy syrup and no sugar varieties, but we don't carry them at the Farmstand.
I like to half the halves and then cut them into sixths for nice chunks.
Half a quart (one pint) of cream plus one Tablespoon of sugar yields quite a bit of whipped cream. Lucky for us, we love us some whipped cream. If you've never had freshly whipped cream and only had ReddiWhip or CoolWhip, please do yourself a favor and try it out. It only takes a few minutes of time behind a hand mixer. If you really want a forearm workout, you could manually whip it up too and if you've got yourself a fan-cay planetary mixer, more power to ya. I only recently discovered freshly whipped cream. I won't be going back.
There are tons of cases of the peaches at the Farmstand now. Lots of heavy cream too. While you're there, check out the locally grown and canned crushed tomatoes the article mentions (and mistakenly states are not available in Philly). The only ingredients are tomatoes and salt – no preservatives! They're deliciously sweet and perfect for sauces (just made a sauce with a can plus onions, shallots, white button mushrooms, cremini mushrooms, garlic, oregano, sage, rosemary, hot pepper seeds, salt and pepper). I want seconds writing this post…
VEGAN CHOCOLATE PIE
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
When I was growing up, my (nearly life-long vegetarian) sister used to make the most delicious chocolate tofu pie. For those who've never tried it, you can't actually taste the tofu, it just provides a super smooth and creamy texture with minimal effort. Everyone always loved this pie, even though we didn't always divulge the secret ingredient. For her birthday this year, my sister made a grown-up version of chocolate tofu pie in the form of a fancy cake with a cashew crust and raspberry sauce and toasted candied almonds. We happened to be visiting at the time and got the chance to taste some — it was divine. It was so delicious, in fact, that I decided to make myself the same cake for my birthday.
Since it's hard for me to eat nuts (I am sadly rocking adult braces for at least another few months) I figured I would make a graham-cracker crust instead. Then, I thought, wouldn't a chocolate cookie crust be even better? Then I figured I would do away with the raspberry sauce and whip up some cream on the side instead. So basically, I decided to make a different cake all together. There are a lot of recipes for chocolate tofu pie online and I combined a bunch of them to make this one. I made a terrible mistake by forgetting to melt the chocolate (you can see in the picture that the pie is a little grainy) but it turned out to be quite tasty nonetheless.
Ingredients
Crust:
20-25 cookies, crushed [I used Paul Newman's vegan version of Oreos - Newman-O's]
about 4 Tbsp butter or vegan margarine
Filling:
16 oz Silken tofu
1 package (12 oz) Chocolate Chips [If you are serving vegans, make sure the chips are vegan, many aren't!]
1 tsp Vanilla
Directions
To make the crust: Crush up the cookies. Mix with approx. 3 1/2 Tbsp of margarine or butter. Pour into a buttered (or margarined) pie plate. Bake at 350°F for about 8 minutes. Allow to cool completely.
To make the filling: Mix the tofu and vanilla in the blender. Melt the chocolate chips using a double boiler (or equivalent) over medium heat. Add melted chocolate to the blender and mix until smooth. Pour mixture into pie crust and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
Serve small slices, as this pie is really rich. We served it with slightly sweetened, homemade whipped cream (Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market has some wonderful local heavy cream). I have not made vegan whipped cream yet, but I hear it can be done with coconut milk. If anyone has a tried-and-true recipe, I'm interested!
BEILER'S BAKERY
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Taking up the northwest corner of Reading Terminal Market is Beiler's Bakery, described on the Reading Terminal website as an "Amish bakery selling homemade baked goods." They bake breads, pies, cookies, sticky buns, donuts and other treats daily and they also sell an assortment of conventional bread on their easternmost endcap. This corner of the market is usually pretty packed when the Dutch Market is open, but your time waiting will be well rewarded with reasonably-priced delicious treats.
There was a huge Dutch festival a couple weeks ago at Reading Terminal Market, where Picky happened to be working at the time. He noticed that Beiler's was set up in the main seating area frying up fresh donuts. Without any cash on him, he didn't get a chance to sample the gigantic fresh donuts. He didn't recall seeing the donuts at the bakery in the past either. After the festival ended, he ventured over to the stand and sure enough, there were donuts (and buns)! Armed with some cash, he plunked down 75¢ for a vanilla creme donut and bit into soft and flaky dough oozing with fresh creme. Sure that Messy would also be a fan, Picky decided that the next tag team visit to Reading Terminal would definitely include a stop off for more treats.
Above is Messy's pick from the rack: a chocolate covered donut. While the donut was certainly fresh, Messy is not a huge donut fan and will probably go for a different treat next time. This didn't hurt Messy's perception of Beiler's — she is a big fan of their bread and has her eye on some of their other simple-but-hearty looking treats.
Picky's second sampling was a strawberry jelly and creme filled donut, a double whammy encased in powdered sugar. Life doesn't get much better than a good donut.With Beiler's being a walk up the aisle from Picky's day job, it would be easy to have too much of a good thing so he's limited himself (so far) to one return for a frosted blueberry donut. The only other blueberry donut he's had was a sad excuse of one from Dunkin' Donuts. In contrast, Beiler's blueberry donut burst with flavor. And the texture of a fresh small batch donut is to die for.
Aside from the donuts, we've also taken a liking to their fresh sandwich loaves. Their white and wheat breads run about $2.50/loaf and come in a bag that seems to be coated with oil or butter on the inside. We're not sure exactly what it is, but it's not hurting the flavor.
While the Dutch Market hours are only Wednesday through Saturday you can benefit from this bakery making everything fresh. Get there Saturday towards closing and you'll find treats marked down to $1.50 because they'll be closed until Wednesday.
Their best offering is the pumpkin creme filled donut. It's seasonal so only around October-November. But that makes them that much more special. Get 'em while they're around!
Messy ***1/2
Picky ***1/2
The final word: Fresh, homemade inexpensive baked goods.
Beiler's Bakery
Wed: 8am – 3pm
Thu – Sat: 8am – 5:30pm
Sun – Tu: Closed
215.351.0735
FRANKLIN FOUNTAIN: BUST OUT! EDITION
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
It is no secret that we love Franklin Fountain. So, when we got the opportunity to have a free, breast-inspired dessert there, we jumped at the chance. We trekked over to the Bust Out! launch party at N. 3rd, but somewhere along our long walk, Picky lost a contact lens, which caused some trauma. We sadly missed the rest of Bust Out! but we did make it to the ice-cream! And you should come out and have some, too — Franklin Fountain's Broken Hearts sundae (pictured above on the marble end bar) is on their permanent menu.
We got to see e at N. 3rd and got to, briefly, meet Alex of Le Petit Cochon. Alex's take is up here. But with Picky's lost contact, and resulting headache and disorientation, we had to grab our vouchers and go, missing all the breast-inspired treats. Yes, that was vouchers plural. We thought we were going to be sharing a Franklin Fountain dessert, but we got one each!
We knew the portions would be huge. We debated inviting friends to share. But, in the end, we decided to just pig out. Our server asked us how many spoons we wanted for each sundae. "Um. . .just one," replied an embarrassed Messy. The sundae is basically delicious vanilla ice cream with a slathering of strawberries and whipped cream. Huge. Simple. Yummy. Messy wanted a few more wafers, but made do with two. Messy could only eat half, but Picky was there to finish it all off. It should be noted that Picky had the unfair ice cream eating advantage having been raised in a family that owned a Carvel ice cream store growing up (he ate a ton of ice cream between the ages of 5 and 20). Here's the recipe for the Broken Hearts sundae straight from the Franklin Fountain website:
Broken Hearts
{recipe taken from The Dispenser's Formulary, 1910}
"…put a slice of BRICK VANILLA ice cream on a 6-inch plate. Cover the ice cream with fresh, sweetened, and slightly mashed strawberries, and over these put sweetened whipped cream; top off with two whole strawberries and serve with two nabisco wafers. Sells for 20 cents. {F. Varney}
The Brothers Berley have revived a wonderful dish (which sells for a bit more than 20¢ nowadays) and selflessly donated 50% of the proceeds garnered from people ordering that delectable sundae for a good cause. We're sad we missed the festivities surrounding the evening's events, but look forward to reading about them from everyone who made it out.
BUST OUT! FRIDAY
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
What are you doing on Friday August 1st? We'll be helping to support women living with breast cancer. Everyone's favorite baker, e, shot us an email about Bust Out! Eat Inspired. Support women living with breast cancer. It sounded great, we were free and we'll be taking part. Bust Out! has arranged for some of the city's finest eateries to come up with breast-inspired dishes (think strawberry iced cupcakes with cherries on top, roasted chicken breast with cranberries, or melon sorbet) and donate 50% of the proceeds from those items will go to Living Beyond Breast Cancer, a local organization committed to assisting women at all stages of diagnosis, treatment and recovery.
The full list of participating eateries can be found here and M&P will be at our favorite ice cream place in the city, Franklin Fountain eating up, what e called, "one sweet sundae" – we're psyched!
In addition to the various eateries around town and their marvelous creations, there's also going to be a launch party from 4p – 6p at N.3rd and movie at 9p at The Arbol Cafe.
Help spread the word and eat up!
