Menu for December 14th

Seasons greetings to all!

This week Ybor City Saturday Market will be hosting Art in the Park. A fantastic event that brings out local artists, young and old. There are also lots of vendors selling some great stuff for the holidays. At our festively decorated booth we will be selling more of our creamy and delicious mint cream chocolate Yule Logs and crispy chocolate hazelnut snoballs.

$2 each

We’ll also have some delicious S’more Pops, marshmallow dipped in homemade chocolate ganache and dusted with graham cracker crumbs, and our Key Lime Crunch pops, chocolate coated marshmallow topped with crunchy key lime flavored candy. 

As always, we try to have a healthier alternative for the calorie conscious and this week’s option is our Sugared Cranberries. Fresh tart cranberries bursting with flavor rolled in chocolate, sugar or cinnamon sugar is a nice treat that won’t hit your waistline as hard.

Another new addition to the booth this week is our Christmas Bark. Crunchy pieces of peppermint, butterscotch and maple peanut candies and chewy gumdrops are immersed in soft fudgey Ghirardeli chocolate. Finally, it wouldn’t be Christmas without gingerbread so we’ll also be selling our light and fluffy Lemon Gingerbread cake.

Christmas Bark

This will be our final appearance at the Ybor City Saturday Market in 2013 as we’ll be out of town for Yule and due to my husband, Paul’s commitment to the Wounded Warrior Navy team, we will be in Hawaii in January for training and competition. A heartfelt thanks to all of you who donate your frequent flyer miles and to Hero Miles for making this trip possible! Barring acceptance for the new season, Comfy Confections will return to Ybor City Saturday Market January 18th. Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday season!

Menu for November 23rd

Anyone else tired of the camel?

Happy Friday all!

Apologies for the delay in posting but I have been a baking fool this week. In the spirit of the holiday my moist and luscious pumpkin bundt with cinnamon glaze and apple cinnamon popovers topped with cinnamon sugar have made a comeback.

Pumpkin bundt w/cinnamon glaze

I have also experimented with some old flavors and will be presenting apple pockets and pecan pockets. A flaky crust filled with sweet juicy apples, cinnamon and sugar and crunchy pecans surrounded by gooey maple and molasses flavored goodness. $1 each.

My further experimentation with homemade marshmallow yielded some unexpected results. It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that while I make a mean yorkshire pudding and my ropa vieja have brought people to their knees in awe, I cannot for the life of me, make Jello. It’s the damnedest thing, even my teachers in culinary school couldn’t understand it. So when I decided to incorporate Jello flavors into my homemade marshmallows I already knew I was in for a fight and fight I did. The end result is my fantastically chewy chocolate dipped mint and vanilla marshmallows. These of course came out exactly how I wanted them to and I couldn’t be happier!

$2 each

However, I also found myself with lots of marshmallow cream that tasted fantastic and smells like Fruity Pebbles but just wouldn’t stiffen enough to be dipped in chocolate. So I decided to sandwich them between two chewy homemade chocolate chocolate chip cookies to create a delicious and gooey delight. Whoopie Pies are made with cake and cream and I adore them. I never knew they existed until we were transferred to Maine 4 years ago but there is just no way I could get the cream to hold in the heat of the Florida sunshine even now in mid-November. Instead I’ve made Yippee Pies which are available in two sizes, $2 for the smaller ones and $5 for large, and in original vanilla, strawberry, orange, mixed berry and pineapple.

$2 each

$5 each

Once again we’ll have gifts available for purchase for the holidays now through the end of December.

The weather is looking beautiful so come on out to the Ybor City Saturday Market tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans and Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish readers. Safe travels to all.

October Happenings and a New Venue

Greetings and salutations!

After a brief hiatus, Comfy Confections is gearing up for the holidays at our new venue, the Ybor City Saturday Market. Your favorite mini apple pies will be available this weekend as well as our new Pumpkin Crunch Mini Pie blending autumn spices with velvety pumpkin flavor and the crunch of toasted pecans.

Not the exact pie but you get the idea

Also returning is an experimental dish that made a big hit at the Art and Soul Food Festival last month. Our decadent Chocolate Espresso cake, described by one customer as “flavor that just punches you in the face” will be available this weekend in mini bundt form.

Have some cake!

We’re also starting the celebration of one of our favorite holidays with an assortment of Spookies. Starting from $3, you can take home a box of delicious homemade sugar cookies shaped as coffins, headstones, witches, cauldrons, brooms, spiders and webs, cats, bats, moons, candy corn, haunted houses and ghosts. For those who aren’t feeling the spirit of Halloween we also have a nice assortment of Harvest cookies featuring Oak and Maple leaves, apples and pumpkins for $5.

Also not the exact cookies but you get the idea

Finally, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a cause near and dear to Comfy Confections, we are offering the Neapolitan Booby cupcake. A rich chocolate and vanilla cupcake with a bold raspberry jalapeño icing (or strawberry icing for those who prefer a more subtle fruit flavor) presented in a pretty pink paisley cup can be yours for $3. All proceeds for the Neapolitan Booby cupcake will go to the Moffitt Cancer Center.

Do I need to say it again? 😉

So join us at the Ybor City Saturday Market this Saturday from 9-3 and Sunday at Stained Marketplace for the Art & Soul Food Festival from 11-4pm.

Market appearance

This week Comfy Confections makes its debut at the Outdoor Market of Stained Marketplace in Ybor City. We’ll be selling slices of fresh baked apple pie made completely from scratch and mini apple pies that fit in the palm of your hand. We’ll have our special homemade Jaffa cake slices and mini cakes infused with a creamy orange liqueur and coated with a luscious chocolate ganache and some delicious Millionaire’s Shortbread derived from the people of Australia.

Don’t forget to try our awesome line of cookie cups! This week we have the Frappuccino Cookie Cup, a mocha cookie cup filled with delicious caramel made entirely from scratch; our Chocolate Lovers Cookie Cup, a chocolate chocolate chip cookie cup filled with fresh chocolate ganache and our Euro cup featuring a sweet sugar cookie filled with Italian hazelnut spread and topped with bits of English toffee. We’re also introducing a taste of Fall with our Autumn Cookie Cup, a gingersnap cookie cup filled with pumpkin spice flavored marshmallow whip and dusted with nutmeg.

Finally, for those of you watching your figure we have a range of fat free and low fat items. This week we’ll be selling 90 calorie Apple Oatmeal muffins and mini cakes and 100 calorie Banana Crunch mini loaves.

So join us Thursday August 22 through Sunday August 25 from 8am to noon at Stained Marketplace 2106 East 15th Avenue, Tampa. We take cash and credit cards and advance orders are always welcome.

FALL TASTING EVENT CANCELLED

Good morrow to all!

Unfortunately, restrictions at the location this event was planned has caused us to cancel the tasting for the time being. However, if you’ll check the schedule tab you’ll see Comfy Confections can now be found as a vendor at the Outdoor Market held at Stained Marketplace in Ybor City. Cash and credit/debit cards are accepted and any orders placed with us can be picked up at our booth. You can also try some free samples if you can’t make up your mind what to buy although I warn you, the tasting of samples won’t make your decision any easier and may prompt you to buy more;)

We’re in negotiations to set up in other locations and events in the Tampa Bay area so watch this space for updates!

Comfy Confections comes to Tampa Bay this Fall!

Good afternoon and Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there:)

Apologies for the hiatus but as we all know sometimes life grabs us, takes us for a ride and won’t let go until it’s done. Now that things have calmed down I’m focusing hard on jumpstarting my cafe. Picture it, you enter a large amber lit room colored with deep rich earth tones, artwork from local artists adorning the wine and pumpkin colored walls and mahogany shelves. Your ears are met with the sound of music originating from one of any number of world cultures as you choose a seat among plush couches and chairs in the corner or dining sets reminiscent of a French bistro. The menu is an array of delights that would please the palate of anyone missing the comforts of home or with a taste of adventure. Such is the experience that is The Comfy Cafe. Of course this is only a concept, the actual cafe does not yet exist but is the reality my husband and I are pushing for. At the moment however, we will have to start super small, even smaller than the food truck we hope to expand to on our journey towards the cafe. No, right now, in it’s infancy, The Comfy Cafe is known as Comfy Confections.

Scratch Apple Pie

Comfy Confections is a cottage law business operating in the Tampa Bay area of Florida and in keeping with the international comfort food theme, we will be offering delicious desserts and breakfast items that are familiar to Americans of old such as my famous apple pie from scratch, lemon tarts and spiced banana nut cake. We will also be offering cuisine that the rest of our cosmopolitan customers will enjoy just as much such as Omm Ali, Amaretto stuffed peaches, Green Tea cake and Italian sesame cookies.

Omm Ali                                                                                               (Eggs, cream, nuts, raisins, cinnamon and filo dough = YUM!)

 

Green Tea Cake

There will also be selections for those with an adventurous palate and a love for fusion cuisine. These include my savory Japanese inspired rice pockets filled with sweet strawberry, mango and marmalade preserves and a salute to the King, the natural peanut butter and baked banana filled Elvis Pockets drizzled with Foster sauce.

Fruit filled Mochi goodness

We hope to be operating out of the Fresh Market at Wiregrass in Wesley Chapel, the Ybor City Saturday Market and one other location in New Tampa this Fall so watch this space for locations, schedule and menu. Unfortunately, do to restrictions by Florida Cottage Law, we are unable to take orders online or ship out of state. However, if you do wish to order for a pick up in person we will have order forms available once the business gets underway. We will do custom orders and if you have an event in the Tampa Bay area that is looking for food vendors, please feel free to contact us.

Chow for now!

Tuesday Table

Afternoon everyone!

Apologies for dropping off the face of the earth already.  The ole ball and chain and I have just completed our transfer from Maine to Florida and have been busy settling in, unpacking and all the fun stuff that’s involved with moving as well as preparing for the hurricane that wasn’t.  Well, ok, it did get a bit wild here for a bit yesterday but what’s a Tornado Warning or two among friends;)

Anyway, no recipe today however I did come across this nifty little video on Buzz Feed.

I don’t know Chinese (which I believe this is) but it appears to be a demonstration of how you can use the suction in your average water bottle to separate an egg yolk from the white.  Although not exactly practical, it is pretty cool to watch:)  Chow for now!