"Here's looking at you, kid"

We’ve been working on the Casablanca, our new pistachio cardamom cupcake with rosewater buttercream for Valentine’s day.  Sexy, romantic, and beautifully delicious!

Casablanca movie poster - inspiring love, romance and sexy Moroccan flavors...

Today Joan, my lovely and talented pastry chef, experimented with adding larger pistachio bits into the cake and upping the rosewater essence in the frosting. Big thanks to my pals Lisa and Lorissa for these suggestions when they tastetested our first attempt at the Casablanca a few days ago.

Casablanca cupcake in recipe development mode

Joan and I agreed it was better to have a hint of rosewater instead of overdoing it (it is potpourri-esque in abundance which is super not sexy and not delicious), and we really liked biting into the pistachio pieces in the cake.  Quite a nice surprise! The picture of the cupcake in its 4 iterations reminds me of my prior life doing 4-blockers on powerpoint pitches when I worked at NBC. Thank gaaawd my due diligence today was comparing frostings and cake textures instead going blind plugging away at some P&L line item of an excel model on a potential deal with an insert project name here on the first page. Seriously, what a great gig I have!

Teasertaste of Sweet Revenge…I’m dropping off our Valentine’s day cupcakes at Martha Stewart and Time Out NY mag tomorrow. You know what happens if you do nothing – nothing happens.  You just never know what might happen when you put yourself out there…fingers crossed!

The sweetest revenge is just to be happy!

cheers,

Marlo