Here are some lovely pics of The Tasty Show's totally sweet and delicious birthday bash a couple weeks ago. A special thanks to my friend Eric Scott for offering up his photography skills while we were all eating cupcakes that night! Click anywhere below to see full versions on Flickr.

In preparation for The Tasty Show Birthday Party, a small crew of us got together for two pairing sessions - one to figure out which beers should be paired with which cupcake flavors, and one to match particular beers with 4 different artisanal cheeses. A lot of people I talked to over the past few weeks found the concept of pairing beer with cupcakes & cheeses hard to imagine - until they tested out our pairing menu with their very own tastebuds.

That said, below you'll find the entire pairing menu from the Tasty Show Bday last week along with notes about how we came up with each one. Or if you'd like to see the actual menu that our guests were given when they arrived to the party, you can see it here.

Beer + Cupcakes:

Stone Cat Blueberry Ale + Kickass Blueberry Crumbly Cupcake: This medium bodied fruit beer has a slight blueberry essence and pairs perfectly with a light, fruity dessert. The blueberry crumbly cupcake, which was a topped with a bit of mascarpone, was a nice and simple pairing with the mascarpone adding a little twist. Flavored beers can be really simple to pair with awesome results.

Stone Cat Blonde Ale + Kickass Vanilla Cupcake with Herbed Topping: The blonde ale is light and crisp with inherent herbal notes. For the pairing, Kickass Cupcakes came up with the brilliant idea to top a light vanilla cupcake with a vanilla buttercream frosting and a piece of caramelized sugar with a tiny sprig of thyme in it. I think this one won as the favorite pairing of the evening. And the favorite cupcake too. The vanilla cake was pristine.

Ipswich IPA + Kickass Cinnamon Caramel Cupcake: The IPA has a strong, dry bitterness balanced with a slight malty sweetness. The malty notes made a smooth pairing with the caramel flavors in the cupcake, and the spice warmed things up a bit.

Ipswich Oatmeal Stout + Kickass Maple Chocolate Cupcake: The oatmeal stout is a great dessert on its own; this rich, smooth stout works best with chocolate and was paired with the most curious cupcake on the menu - a maple-based chocolate cupcake sprinkled with smoked salt. The maple balanced the rich sweetness of the beer, and both elements were then heightened by the smoked salt.

Beer + Cheese

Ipswich Summer Ale + Hannahbells Classic: This light-bodied, crisp unfiltered blonde ale matches the creaminess of the Hannahbells classic cow's milk cheese without overpowering the flavor. A nice, even pairing.

Stone Cat Hefeweizen + Hannahbells Lavender: The floral notes that this unfiltered German-style wheat beer possesses are a wonderful match for the lavender flavor of the cheese. This was one of the evening's favorite cheese pairings.

Ipswich Original Ale + Hannahbells Rosemary: We tasted the rosemary over and over again until we finally went for the Original Ale. The smooth, malty flavor of the unfiltered English-style pale ale compliments the rosemary accent in the cheese.

Stone Cat ESB + Hannahbells Chipotle: The spicy chipotle was definitely the favorite cheese flavor of the night. Our biggest challenge with this one was to pair a beer that enhances and not flattens its spicy, smoky elements. The ESB, which stands for "extra special bitter" has a smooth malty sweetness and is not bitter at all. It was an excellent complement to the spiciness of the chipotle flavor.

Photos by Eric Scott Photography.

The Tasty Show Bday Party was quite the evening of tasty delights. In the next couple days, I will post the entire pairing menu of both beers + cupcakes and beers + cheeses along with some of our reasoning behind the pairings. In the meantime, here are a couple posts about the event:

All Eyes on Jenny
BostonKnows

And of course, I want to say thank you to the evening's wonderful sponsors:

Then there's Eric Scott Photography, whose pics I'll be posting sometime in the next few days, and Fleming Printing who provided all of the printed materials for the event (and which was also the excellent local printer who did all of the lovely tasty kit printed pieces). And our gift bag sponsors, Whittard of Chelsea, My Lip Stuff, and La Tene Chocolatier.

And finally, thanks also to Joe from Somerville Local First for bringing along Heather, Jessica, Jonathan, and Kerri, our high energy volunteers (who looked pretty awesome in those Tasty Boy and Tasty Girl tees!), to my awesome friend Jeff of Nerve Action for handcrafting delicious-looking tables to display the new tasty kits, and to my close friend Jon who helped out with everything the whole entire day!

The Tasty Show's big night is tomorrow! We've had a tremendous response to the event and are fully expecting tomorrow evening to be nothing short of absolutely fabulous.

Several people asked me about the new Chocolate Tasting Kit that will be available tomorrow eve. Kits will be $45 (the regular price after tomorrow night wlll be $48) and $5 of every kit purchased tomorrow night will go to Somerville Local First. Tasty girl and tasty boy tees will be available as well, and of course, the lovely Grand boutlque will be open and willing to satisfy all of your wildest shopping desires.

Several people also asked about tickets/cost for this event - this event is free. In order to attend and enjoy the evening's deicious beer, cheese, and cupcake delights, you just need to be on our guestlist.

Important Note: If you have already RSVP'd and are a confirmed guest for this event and need a refresher on event details, it's all here. For those of you who have not yet RSVP'd, unfortunately this event is at capacity, and we cannot accept any more guests. If you're not sure if you or one of your guests is on our guestlist, please contact me to confirm by noon tomorrow.

In Part II of the pre-Tasty Show B-Day party beer pairing sessions (here's Part I) that have been taking place these past few weeks, five of us congregated at Kickass Cupcakes to determine which brews and which cheeses we're going to pair up at the April 16 event. I can wholeheartedly say that I have never seen anything quite like the tiny, thimble-shaped artisanal cheeses that we've lined up to be part of the pairing. These little cheeses, which are called Hannahbells and are made by Shy Brothers Farm in Westport, MA, are made according to a traditional recipe that the Shy Brothers (two sets of very shy twins) discovered in the Burgundy region of France.

Once again, I'm not going to be all giving away all our party secrets (at least not until after the Tasty Show beercupcakechocolatecheese evening of tasty deliciousness next week), but I will say that after an exhausting evening of rigorous tasting, we came up with some wonderful pairings! Here is a bit of pairing wisdom that I was lucky enough to pick up last week:

Barbara from Shy Brother Farms has a fabulous way of articulating what makes a good food pairing (of any kind) that she shared with me ~ it's when 1 + 1 = 3. Or, translated into the context of beer & cheese, it's when Beer + Cheese = Delicious Enhancement of Both Beer and Cheese That Becomes a Wholly New BeerCheese Entity.

I'm super excited to announce that the Tasty Show is having a party and you are all invited! All the details are below. Space is limited, so if you'd like to come please be sure to RSVP with your full name + names of any guests to dana@thetastyshow.com.

Last week I enjoyed a delightful evening with a couple friends during which we 'tested out' various pairing beer & cupcakes pairings. We sipped several brews ranging from the lightest blonde ale to a deep, dark oatmeal stout, and experimented with various cupcakes and pairing ideas. Rough times here at the Tasty Show, I know.

That said, I don't have a grand lesson or extravagant pairing idea to share in this post - mostly because our tests results are secret. The evening, which was hosted by the illustrious and creative Kickass Cupcakes in Somerville and featured artisan brews from Stone Cat and Ipswich Ale made by Mercury Brewing Co. in Ipswich, MA, was held in preparation for a very special Tasty Show event that is happening on April 16. I'm thrilled to report that with Sara from Kickass Cupcakes and Caitlin from Mercury Brewing Co. as our guides, we came up with some fabulous ideas! And Kickass Cupcakes will be developing cupcake recipes especially for the beer pairing. Details on the event will be posted here shortly.

The only conclusion that I am willing to share is:

The right beer & the right cupcake can make an incredible pairing, and while I'm not going to tell you what our star pairings were, there is absolutely no harm in running some tests on your own. If you're not sure where to start, go for tastes that usually match (a citrusy or fruity brew with a citrusy or fruity cupcake, a honey brew with a spiced cupcake, and so on).

Last Sunday afternoon, I decided to swear off sweets (with the exception of dark chocolate of 75% cacao content or higher) until Thanksgiving. Within 24 hours, I succumbed to a terrible cold. I'm convinced that they're related. My body is getting back at me for even considering such a denial. I think I just sneezed 40 times in a row. Thankfully, yesterday I ate two cookies and am starting to feel a bit better.

But that's not what I'm posting about right now. I've been trying to create 'the soundtrack of my life' in my head over the past several weeks. I haven't come up with a final track list yet. Either way, I'm not really posting about that either. What I'm really posting about is that:

1. I've been obsessing over the idea that chocolate should be paired not only with wine, beer, tea, and other liquids, but it should be paired with things that we experience outside the sense of taste. Like sound. I'm thinking music.
2. So after going to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Dan last week, I'm 100% sure that I'm right, and that pairing chocolate with music could be a fascinating and powerful experience.

I'm kind of a dork about the fact that I really believe that fine chocolate can be experienced like a story. A narrative with ebbs and flows of intensity and depth. That brings me back to the soundtrack of my life. As I mentioned before, I have not come up with a final track list. But earlier today when I was imagining this week's ideal set, I started thinking that I should put together a music and chocolate pairing and post it here. But if I try to match up chocolate with music by myself, the results will be dominated by my personal music preferences. So then I was also thinking that I should have a listening party at my house to test my theories.

But first, I need to have a pre-listening party to determine which songs might pair with which chocolates. (There are always reasons to have more parties.) On one hand, it seems easier to start with a bunch of cool songs and then match up chocolates that will go with them, but doing that would downplay the importance of the chocolate in the whole deal. Here's what I'm going to do:

1. Choose 8 - 10 chocolates (either high quality truffles or fine pure chocolate - not sure yet)


2. Invite 8 - 10 friends over to taste the chocolates one by one (sans music)


3. Create some sort of chart or card where tasters can first indicate if there are particular genres of music that would pair well with the taste experience of each chocolate, and then have the option to specify particular artists, or even a particular song that might make for a good pairing.


4. Then I'll collect everyone's thoughts and put it all together and create Phase II of this experiment, which will be the actual listening party.

And finally, my hope is that I'll organize a public chocolate and music pairing someday soon. That would be sweet. I already have it all planned out in my head.

ps. The totally fascinating pic above is of truffles made by Cosmic Chocolate, which I took while I was at the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon a couple months ago. Speaking of chocomusic, their website is pretty jammin'. Jamiroquai has never sounded so delicious.

If I was slightly more awesome than I am, I'd always post about things right after they happen. Sadly, that's not the case. You can only be as awesome as you already are. That's my excuse for not posting about this awesome chocobeer party I had like a month ago, like, a month ago.

Anyway, according to yours truly as quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times (also, of course, several weeks ago), all you need to have a chocolate and beer pairing are the chocolate, the beer, "a small bouquet of flowers, and napkins." A bizarre quote indeed. And also according to me in the article, these 4 items will entertain a group of 2 or 20.

That said, I pulled together most of the above items (minus the bouquet of flowers) to host a chocobeer party at the office of my friends/clients at Street Attack in Boston. And we had around 20 people or so, so I guess I was right. There were 6 different kinds of chocolate and 7 different kinds of beer. I paired each chocolate with a different beer - some pairings were based on past tastings, others were being tested out for the very first time. I stuck with Belgium for all, and featured Cote d'Or chocolate and several Belgian beers (and one Belgian-style that's made in the US):

Ommegang + Cote d'Or Milk: Ommegang is the Belgian-style beer that's made in the US. I've talked about this pairing a lot before. It's not new, but it's so good that I incorporate it to my chocobeer tastings as often as possible. The combination is just incredibly complementary. The sweetness of the beer connects with the warmth and caramel flavor of the chocolate. Ommegang makes an excellent beer pairing with sweet milk chocolates in general.

Westmalle Tripel + Cote d'Or Lait Intense: This was something of a non-pairing. The beer and chocolate didn't really clash, but didn't complement each other in any way either. It's almost like they were ignoring each other. I wouldn't recommend this pairing at all. Totally boring. Separately though, they're each quite delicious. The problem when you put them together is that the Trippel is too light and tart to meet the chocolate halfway. One taster mentioned that the Trippel has some floral qualities that would pair well with an Earl Grey-infused dark chocolate. Interesting idea. I haven't tried it.

Westmalle Dubbel + Cote d'Or 54%: The Dubbel, with a lower alcohol content than the Tripel, has a heavier mouthfeel and sweeter flavor. It's flavor is deep and soft. It was an awesome pairing with the 54%. The two mellowed each other out. The pairing was smooth and pleasing.

Rochefort 6 + Cote d'Or 70%: Another Trappist ale with a similar alcohol content to the Dubbel (around 7.5 ABV), the Rochefort 6's flavor profile did not mesh with the dark chocolate we tried it with. The beer was spicy and tasted a bit like root beer. The pairing was bizarre and random. One taster pointed out that it would be a fabulous pairing with white chocolate. I could definitely see that. It'd be like a rootbeer float. But here's the thing, a few tasters really liked this pairing. They felt that the beer mellowed out the bitterness of the chocolate - I was totally shocked, but it just goes to show that everyone's tastebuds are different.

Lindemans Raspberry Lambic + Cote d'Or 86%: I've talked about this awesome pairing so many times that I'm completely sick of writing about it. See an indepth description of what this pairing is like in this previous post. A big hit at the party, that's for sure!

Delirium Tremens + Cote d'Or Orange: I chose this pairing because the Delirium has an orange, piney taste to it that I hoped the orange bar would connect with and potentially mellow out a bit. Overall it was an excellent pairing. The beer, which has quite a bite to it, softened when it was combined with the chocolate. The orange came through both the beer and the chocolate beautifully. Deliriously delicious!

Overall, the Ommegang and Dubbel pairings are my top picks. And I continue to be convinced that mixing good chocolate and tasty alcohol is one sweet way to make friends. Check out a few more photos on flickr.

ps. I created the super cool stylized pic at the top of this post on befunky.

I really like sweets and try to incorporate things that are sweet into every facet of my life. I do a lot of events for my clients at my main gig, and sweets and chocolate often make their way into my client work in one way or another. So this past weekend, I was at an event that I organized for one of my clients, English tea boutique Whittard of Chelsea, that featured desserts made with Whittard's green teas. The recipes were developed especially for the event by the pastry chef at Boston's revered South End Buttery.

Lee Napoli, the Buttery's pastry chef, was kind enough to supply the event attendees with all of the recipes for the green tea dessert menu that she created. The Green Earl Grey truffles were really fabulous, and demonstrate a concept in truffle-making that can be replicated with many different kinds of flavors and interesting ingredients. Here's the recipe that she gave me for the truffles:

Green Earl Grey Truffles

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup Whittard Green Earl Grey tea leaves
• 1 pound chopped dark chocolate
• cocoa powder

Place tea leaves and heavy cream in a medium saucepan. Scald heavy cream and tea. Remove from heat and cover with plastic wrap. Let the tea steep in the cream for 30 minutes. Strain out tea leaves and rescald cream. Pour hot mixture over chocolate and whisk until chocolate is fully melted and smooth. Chill chocolate mixture to set.

Scoop chocolate mixture with teaspoon or mini ice cream scoop. Roll each scoop in cocoa to finish.

A quick note on scalding: Scalding is when you heat a liquid - most often milk or cream - until it almost boils. Here's the best practice for scalding from my own experience: Use cream that's at room temperature or close to room temperature to minimize the potential for burning (big temperature differences will give you a higher chance of burning). Use low to medium low heat and stir pretty much constantly. The cream is scalded once small bubbles appear at the edges of the surface.

Steeping the tea in the cream is a flavor infusion method that can be used as the basis for lots of fun experimentation in truffle-making. The recipe above uses Earl Grey green tea, but you can infuse many different flavors into your truffle ganache by steeping the raw ingredients in the cream as it scalds. Here are a few of the ingredients that I've infused this way:

• black tea
  
• lavender
  
• apples (but this one's tricky, because the acidity of the apples can curdle the cream if the apples are too tart, or if the cream is heated too quickly.)
  
• cardamom pods
  
• coffee beans
  
• dried chili peppers and cinnamon bark
  
• vanilla beans
  

Recipe above provided by Lee Napoli of the South End Buttery.