Do the effects of jet lag intensify as you get older?  I returned from Europe on Tuesday and I have been rising before the sun (like 4:00am before the sun) and falling asleep at 8:00 like a baby.  I am really not complaining because morning hours are arguably some of the most delightful hours of the day and I know I will get back on a normal schedule eventually.

My trip to Europe was a celebration of my brothers graduating from high school,

a last hurrah before my husband begins another educational endeavor next week (yikes!)

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and we also treated it as a celebration of our 3rd wedding anniversary.

This was the first cruise I had been on and I loved that this particular mode of transportation allowed you to see so many countries in a relatively short amount of time.  The trip was filled great food, lots of giggling and sights seen that we will never forget.  Here are some photos from my Baltic Adventures that I want to share with you.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Berlin, Germany

Ronne, Denmark

Gdansk, Poland

Visby, Sweden

Riga, Latvia

Tallinn, Estonia

St. Petersburg, Russia

Helsinki, Finland

If you have made it this far, you deserve to see a few funny photos!

It was an amazing trip, but I am always happy to be home!

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It seems like every city, no matter how big or small, has a cupcake shop.  It amazes me that a bakery can make it only selling one item and it also makes me very curious to sample these items to see what all of the rage is about.

I have told you before about my love for Magnolia Bakery and when I was in Chicago this past week, I naturally had to wander in to the Magnolia there to see if the standards that NYC set were held up.  Everything that I have come to expect from Magnolia was just as it should be.  In addition to their cupcakes, Magnolia offers other confections that people rave about such as pies, icebox desserts, cookies and bars.  I have only sampled the cupcakes, but the other desserts look just as drool-worthy.

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I have never tried Sprinkles Cupcakes and felt that it was my sweet tooth duty to compare the other popular cupcakery to my already beloved Magnolia.  Sprinkles prides themselves on having celebrity fans and using high quality ingredients for their cupcakes which are topped with their signature “modern dots”.

While the cake was incredibly moist, and the frosting was just fine, I just felt that the cupcakes were nothing to write home about.  I detected no overwhelming flavor sensations and the vanilla and chocolate cake may as well have been from a box mix.  Please don’t stone me to death devoted Sprinkles fans, I’m just telling it how I experienced it!

There was an unexpected contender in this battle for the country’s best cupcake.  This quaint little place literally just snuck up on me.

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Even though this place was a sleeper to me and I had never even heard of it, I made two trips in the 4 days I was in Chicago just so that I could be sure of what I am about to proclaim:  Crumbs Bake Shop officially makes the best cupcake I have ever tasted!

What makes these little babies earn the top spot on my list?  Well these aren’t just any old cupcake.  Almost every cupcake is not only frosted and topped with wonderful things like candies, cookies or nuts but also filled with fruit preserves, buttercream, fudge and many more tempting fillings.  I also love the Crumbs philosophy of celebrating the simple things in life, like the best cupcakes on earth, for example!

This cupcake was my love at first bite.  It is called the Baba Booey and is a peanut butter lover’s dream come true:  chocolate cake filled with peanut butter frosting and topped with peanut butter and chocolate cream cheese frosting and miniature peanut butter chips.  Are you booking your trip to Chicago yet?

The bakery also offers inciting breakfast options such as scones and ginormous muffins that looked splendid, but even I only have so much room in my tummy for treats, so those will have to be a reason for me to revisit Crumbs (like I needed another reason )!

The day we left Chicago, we made one final stop and my husband and I each chose a cupcake for the road.  Before I forget to mention, Crumbs cupcakes come in 4 different sizes:  Taste (a mini cupcake to tease you a bit), Classic (your traditional-sized cupcake), Signature (Crumb’s most popular size and the size that you want if you are a serious sweet tooth like me) and Colossal cupcakes (perfect for a party:  serves 6-8).  My husband chose the Salted Caramel Cupcake which was a deep chocolate cake filled with melty salted caramel and topped with fudge sauce and I chose the Cookie Dough which was vanilla cake with chocolate fudge filling and topped with cream cheese frosting studded with cookie pieces.  I regret to inform you that possibly our favorite cupcake, the Salted Caramel variety never made it to it’s photo debut.  You can use imagination as to why that tragedy may have happened……

But it’s Cookie Dough friend made it far enough to introduce himself:

The cake is so moist and flavorful and that fudge filling and perfect frosting just puts these cupcake over the top into my new favorite bake shop dessert.

Don’t worry, Chicago is not the only place you can find a Crumbs cupcake of your own.  There are bakeries on both coasts and you can also order your very own assortment of cupcakes and have them delivered to your door.

I hope you enjoyed my cupcake tour of Chicago (FYI: they actually have formal cupcake tours of the city that you can go on!).  I always love to get new inspiration on my travels and you can bet I will be trying to replicate some of these incredibly scrumptious creations!

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I have lived in Minneapolis for 11 years now and even though Chicago is only about 400 miles away, somehow I had never made it there until last weekend!  My husband has always said how much he thinks I would love Chicago since New York is my favorite city and he says Chicago is basically a midwestern New York.  Since we both had a few days off, we decided to make a road trip of it and took off last Saturday for a few days of exploring a new city.

My husband knows me well and I completely fell in love with this city.  The people were so friendly, the city so buzzing and beautiful, the shopping was colorful and exciting and the food was some of the best I have ever had.

Did I mention that the food was exquisite?  I feel like we really hit the city hard and settled some debates in our minds:  best pizza, best cupcakes, a true love for mussels.  Each time I would tell my husband that we had to go get a cupcake from Magnolia, Sprinkles or Crumbs for research and because I had a duty to fulfill.  Thanks for being my excuse sweet teeth!  I did want to experience all that the city had to offer so that I could come home and share my food explorations with you!

Let’s start with pizza.  Obviously Chicago is known for deep-dish pies oozing with sauce and cheese.  If you ask most Chicago natives, they will tell you about a rivalry between two pizza joints:  Lou Malnati’s and Giordano’s.  My husband and I felt that if we tried one, we had to be fair and try the other one to compare. We agreed to order the same simple pepperoni pizza at both locations for a fair comparison.

First up was Lou Malnati’s.  Lou’s is known for their thick, chunky tomato sauce and “World Famous Buttercrust”.

I knew we were in for a treat as soon as this pizza landed on our table.

The sauce on this pizza had big chunks of tomatoes and was a perfect balance of sweetness and saltiness.  The cheese was abundant, but not overwhelming.  And the real magic in this slice was the crust.  I almost want to describe it like a cookie.  It was crispy on the outside, but perfectly chewy and not soggy on the inside.  The thickness of the deep dish was ideal as it was just enough of that perfect crust without drying out the entire pizza.  We were pretty sure that it couldn’t get much better than this.

On our last day, we made it a point to eat lunch at Giordano’s before we left town.  Giordano’s is know for it’s stuffed deep-dish pizzas.  Yes, that’s right, a bottom crust topped with cheese and any other toppings then topped with another crust that is then smothered with sauce.

As you might be able to appreciate from the photos, this pizza was basically cheese and crust with a side of sauce.  I like my pizza saucy, so this didn’t do it for me nearly as much as it’s rival.  The cheese was also a bit chewier and reminded me more of a mozzarella cheese stick than perfect ooey gooey pizza cheese.

I thought I would love the crust on top of more crust, but this crust just wasn’t that buttery goodness we had come to expect from deep dish.  It was more dry and we found ourselves wanting extra sauce to dunk the crust in.  So, if you still need me to spell it out for you, our opinion on this Chitown rivalry is that hands down, Lou Malnati’s has the BEST Chicago deep-dish pizza!

Stay tuned for my new ultimate favorite cupcake bakery!

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I did not feel good about saying “adios” to Mexico Week without a grand finale.  Remember the Tres Leches cake that I mentioned earlier this week?  If you are not familiar with Tres Leches, please allow me to enlighten you!  ”Tres leches” in Spanish means “three milks”.  The way that these three milks apply to our cake is that you start with a somewhat basic white cake and then soak it in a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream.  You can imagine what happens next.  The cake becomes oh so marvelously moist from the sopping up the milks that it literally feels like it is melting in your mouth when you take a bite.

In Mexico, Tres Leches cake is commonly served at weddings, birthdays and other events.  My best friend Naomi had this cake for her wedding and ever since then I have been meaning to attempt to make it myself.  Naomi will have been married for 5 years in August, so what better time than now to follow through with my commitment!

(Recipe adapted from Cook’s Illustrated)

for the milk mixture:  sweetened condensed milk

 sweetened condensed milk after it is darkened and thickened

 finished milk mixture

 for the cake:  dry ingredients

butter/milk mixture

 eggs, thick and glossy

 poke holes 1/2-inch apart into cake

 pour milk mixture over cake

 spread on topping after refrigerating

 so moist and decadent, disfruta!

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You know how you return from vacation and although it is good to be home, you can’t help but have a bit of the vacation blues?  If you are like me, it can put you into a little slump wishing you could still be lying on the beach in Mexico, strolling down the Champs Elysees or skiing down the Rockies for example.  That’s why I have decided to declare it “Mexico Week” at Satisfy My Sweet Tooth.  You don’t mind if I extend my vacation through food with you, do you?  We started with enchiladas, so I bet you know what that means!  Time for the sweet stuff!

When I was in Mexico after dinner one night I asked for a hot chocolate.  What I received was not your ordinary hot chocolate.  It was Mexican Mayan chocolate melted by pouring steamed milk over it.  It was creamy, slightly spicy from the cinnamon and utterly comforting.  When I asked our server Emilio about it, he said that this was the traditional way to make hot chocolate in Mexico and that there is one main brand of chocolate that has been produced for over 70 years called Abuelita.   The brand was recently purchased by Nestle but you can still only purchase it in Mexico.  On the menu they called it “Grandma hot chocolate” and I’m guessing that has something to do with the adorable woman on the package enticing you to have a cup.

I have always enjoyed the combination of chocolate and cinnamon.
It just seems to warm me from the inside.  I remembered that I had this recipe for Mexican chocolate shortbread that incorporates this flavor combination and so as a tribute to Grandma Abuelita and Emilio, here it is:  warm, chocolatey, spicy shortbread.  After making these, I can truly say, they may change your life.  No, I am not that delusional to think that a baked good could actually change your life but it’s about the little things.  And if tasting this delectable treat can make you smile and feel comforted, well then that is  life-changing enough for me .

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Mexican Chocolate Shortbread

by adapted from Food Network Magazine

Keywords: bake dessert chocolate cookie Mexican

Ingredients

• 12 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3 Tbsp sliced almonds, plus more for topping
• 6 Tbsp Dutch-process cocoa powser
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus 1 tsp for topping

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350

Butter 9-inch baking dish (*I save the butter wrapper after I put the butter in my bowl and wipe the inside of the wrapper around my dish-easy and clean) and line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on all 4 sides

Pulse almonds in food processor until finely ground then add flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, salt and cayenne pepper and pulse to incorporate

Beat butter and 1/2 cup sugar in large bowl with mixer until light and fluffy

Add flour mixture and beat until just combined

Press dough evenly into prepared pan (I rubbed my fingers on a butter wrapper before doing this to prevent sticking and tantrums as a result of frustration from the potential sticking)

Prick the dough all over with fork, then using a knife cut into long pieces, (about 12 pieces) top with almonds and sprinkle with remaining sugar

Refrigerate dough until firm, about 10 minutes

Bake until slightly puffed and firm 30-35 minutes

Remove from oven and immediately retrace the strips with a knife and cool completely

Lift parchment to remove shortbread from pan and separate into bars

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