Warning : May contain more than your daily recommended allowance of randomness
Over the years, I’ve collected a number of funny pictures, and this series is where I share them with the world. If you have any comments on any of them, you’re welcome to add it.
(To see the other posts of funny pictures, click on the “Funny Pictures” category in the sidebar.)
I just learned that on Sept. 14 (the day before yesterday) that Hostess celebrated 90 years of sweet creamy cupcake goodness. Why was I not notified of this earlier!?!?
I guess our infamous R&D department was taking a nap or something*.
While we all may have missed the ‘official’ celebration, we shouldn’t let that stop us from celebrating with that sweet fatty goodness of a hostess cuptake today!
What! You don’t have a cupcake?
Then make your own by following the recipe here or here
These recipes show how to make something very closely resembling a hostess cupcake (including the filling and icing.)
While you’re at it, why not take things up a notch and wrap it in bacon or add some candy corn? If you do this be sure and let us here at the blog know how it turns out. You could potentially win the opportunity to be a guest columnist** and describe your creation.
In honor of our (belated) celebration I have included a few facts about hostess cupcakes that I found on the hostess website.
*R&D likely WAS taking a nap as they are prone to do between the hours of 8 and 5 most every Monday.
**guest columnist will (possibly) be chosen at random from all entries by our R&D department… Assuming they are aren’t taking their monday nap.
Last night I had the Buffet o’ Blog staff over for a regular team outing (where we played video games and discussed funny stuff — how meetings should go!). As has happened before, this meeting turned into a Buffet o’ Bacon. It was kinda like an Iron Chef episode, where 3 contestants brought an original dish based around bacon. (At these impromptu cooking sessions, the theme is always bacon. Not that I’m complaining!)
First on the menu was bacon-wrapped smokies covered with barbecue sauce and grilled, and served on a stick.
That one used turkey bacon, which works better for grilling and is a lot healthier. The taste was really good. You just have to make sure the bacon is cooked to the point of getting slightly crispy, or it’ll be easier to notice it’s turkey bacon.
The second item we sampled was bacon-wrapped cream-cheese-filled jalapenos. We removed the seeds so they wouldn’t be too spicy (for some). These were also delicious, although I’d like to experiment with different types of cheese. Cooking them on a rack is essential (as I will explain in further detail on the next item). They were also served on a stick (well, a toothpick).
Third on our list was the most ambitious creation, and the one that slightly concerned me. It consisted of club crackers topped with shredded cheese, then bacon-wrapped and cooked for two hours at 250 degrees. Here’s a picture of them during preparation.
Notice there was no rack used to elevate the food above the inevitable bacon grease. Supposedly it wasn’t necessary according to the recipe, that the crackers wouldn’t absorb all the grease. I was concerned because we’ve been down this road before. /* flashback */ At the initial Buffet o’ Bacon, there were some bacon-wrapped croissants, and the bread absorbed almost all the bacon grease during cooking. The consistency of the croissants was like butter at room temperature, and it was deemed the “gut-bomb”. (Read the second comment on our initial Buffet o’ Bacon for an explanation.) /* end flashback */ So how did it turn out? Let’s have a look:
What’s missing from this picture is the grease that was drained before I got in there with the camera. Supposedly there was a pool of grease. And if it isn’t evident in the picture, the crackers were saturated with grease, along with the cheese, and the bacon was quite greasy also. Someone looked at the recipe to see where they went wrong, and they noticed the last line of the recipe said to cook it on a rack over a pan. Obviously that line was never read, and the excuse was used that the picture included with the recipe didn’t have a rack in it.
We each tried a couple of them, and you could tell there was a lot of potential there, if not for the extreme load of grease. The rest were discarded, for the sake of healthiness. Hopefully a lesson was learned from this, because it’s really sad to throw away bacon and cheese. (Should we have a moment of silence?)
If you want to read about our previous bacon research sessions, the link to part one is above, and here’s part two. There are other food-related experiments and discussions — too many to list — but you can search for them if you want.
For those of you who live nearby and would like to participate in one of these in the future, there has been talk of hosting one on a Saturday afternoon and making a party out of it. Stay tuned to this blog for further details.
Here at Buffet o’ Blog I often write about topics I find humorous, although sometimes the topic turns to food. So when I found these videos that combine humor and food, I had to write about it.
There’s an online food show called “Worst Foods Hall of Shame”. The basic premise is that the host tries unusual recipes that are sent in by readers. As you might guess by the title, some of the concoctions are nasty. But there are some that you’ve probably never heard of but will be tempted to make. The episode linked below has one of each.
In this video the host, Shawn McKee, tries 3 reader-submitted recipes. The first involves Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies topped with sliced cheese. He says they’re okay but missing something, so he improvises and adds maple syrup. The second recipe consists of chocolate cake donuts topped with can tuna (packed in oil). That one sounds incredibly gross. He tries it, and says, “It’s even worse than you’d think it would be. Oily tuna on a chocolate donut? Amazing… amazingly bad.” His third recipe is called “crack weenies”, which are made from smokies and bacon, and it sounds good. (Perhaps we’ll try that last one at a future Buffet o’ Bacon event.)
In that video, he references “bacon candy”. If you’re still reading, I figure you’re interested, like I am. So here’s that video. (A short synopsis is candy made from butter and sugar, a gelatinous mix made from cottage cheese, Jello, and ranch dressing, and then bacon candy. Only one of those am I interested in trying.)
If you are interested in our bacon experiments, here’s the link to our buffet o’ bacon and part 2.
Buffet o' Blog 