[Cupcakes Business: Packaging, Sales, Etc.]

Or make a chocolate ganache and/or a white chocolate ganache, dip each of the cupcake tops upside down into your choice of melted ganache, turn them upright quickly, after a few minutes shake some sprinkles over them to make them look festive, and let them sit until they harden. They travel much better that way than a fussily (is that even a word??) frosted cupcake, and can be wrapped with less concern.

Eileen

←

Ganache! Eureka! I hadn't even thought of it (one seldom thinks of five-year-olds and ganache at the same time). But that would be perfect.

[Cupcakes Business: Packaging, Sales, Etc.]

Maybe there's a sturdier frosting one could use? I usually don't use anything except buttercream or cooked frostings, but I'm not speedy enough to get cooked frostings spread over an entire batch of cupcakes before the frosting congeals. And buttercream, as you can tell from my whining, doesn't wrap well no matter how long it has to dry.

[Nasty Little Habits]

French-fried green beans at TGIFridays.

Krispy Kreme custard-filled fudge topped doughnuts.

I go to McD to eat the fries ... I only order the other food to get a nutritionally balanced meal.

so much chocolate ... so little time

[Cupcakes Business: Packaging, Sales, Etc.]

I have a school fundraiser bake sale to do in ten days ... review of the forums seems to make clear that cupcakes are a big hit with the elementary school crowd. But how do you wrap cupcakes (individually or in small for sale packages) so the frosting won't smear all over the inside of the wrapper?

so much chocolate ... so little time

[Bake sale impaired]

I have a bake sale in two weeks. Planned to make my trusty crunchy peanut butter cookies, and mini loaves of pumpkin bread, but now my head is spinning. I see ... mini monkey bread loaves...

But how do you transport iced cupcakes? All of our stuff has to be wrapped - how do you wrap individual or a half dozen iced cupcakes without the icing smearing all over the place?

so much chocolate, so little time ...

[Peanut Butter Decadence]

I know this is weird, but when I was in kindergarten, my best friend's mom used to make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with potato chips. Yes, the potato chips were layered on top of the jelly, inside the sandwich. Everyone I've ever told about it makes this face: , but I tell you, they're wonderful. Don't try this on artisanal bread, though - cheap supermarket bread is the gold standard.

[Settle the dust, please]

LOL! Sooo many wonderful replies ... and chefpeon is dead right about sifting into a genoise. I was really surprised at the difference in flour weights ... clearly, this also explains why two of the sibling combatants named in the original post using the same recipe for potato rolls turn out very different batches - one, with rolls as light and fluffy as air, and the other, with dense, chewy rolls just like Grammy used to make. (The third doesn't bother to make the rolls - she enjoys watching the competition between the other two.)

Not that this is going to make copy editing any easier (now we have the when-to-sift controversy to solve), but all of you have contributed to family peace.

[Settle the dust, please]

My sisters and I cannot settle our differences of opinion about sifting flour before (or after) measuring. In a small scoop, here are the positions at issue:

1. If you're in a hurry, don't bother. Otherwise, do it.

2. If the recipe says sift, you have to sift. And when the recipe says sift ingredients together, you have to do that too. Otherwise the whole recipe is a disaster.

3. The original reason for sifting flour and other dry baking ingredients was because there used to be more vermin in food (did you not read The Jungle in junior high, for crying out loud?). The sifting/screening kept the big bug parts out of your food, and that was it. If one reads the molecular gastronomists correctly, sifting commercial flours these days doesn't make enough difference in volume to greatly affect a recipe, at least for a home baker.

This was a silly ongoing argument until we started compiling a cookbook of family recipes to pass on to the kids, who are now adults, and doing adult things like having grandchildren and cooking for said grandchildren. The sifting argument has turned copy editing discussions into the seventh circle of hell.

Does anyone have a Solomon-like solution to this? Or are you an aspiring molecular gastronomy expert who can point us to the answer?

[Who Keeps the Tips: Waitstaff or Owner?]

FYI, restaurants can keep a percentage of all credit card tips, and started doing so at least 15 years ago. It's "justified" by the restaurants having to pay credit card processing fees. In right-to-work states, it's tough luck for the servers. In one major restaurant chain I worked for, the percentage was deducted from the servers' paychecks, and most of the servers didn't even realize what the deduction was for. Tip in cash whenever you can.

[Who Keeps the Tips: Waitstaff or Owner?]

We ran into a situation the other night at a restaurant we frequent regularly.  The waitress (who is usually our server, it's not a big place), told us that it was her last night - she's moving to another city.  Our service was very good (as it usually is with her), and our normal tip is 20%.  When she brought the bill, she told us not to bother with a big tip because the owner always kept the tips anyway.  Ok, so we left a substantially lower tip than normal on our credit card, and then tried to give her a cash tip separately.  She turned that down.

Here's our problem.  Because she's quitting for geographical reasons (or so she said), and also because she turned down the discretely-offered cash tip, I don't think the whole line about the owner keeping the tip was necessarily "sour grapes" brought on by something between the waitress and the owner.  We generally tip servers who do a good job well, and it really sits unwell to think that the servers aren't getting the money.  Now we're debating whether to go back to this restaurant.  I don't know of any way, other than asking another server at the restaurant next time we're there, to find out if this is true, but I also don't like the idea of patronizing a place that may be ripping off its servers.

So, should we return?  What would you do? 

If it makes any difference, it's in Virginia.

←

[Specialty shops in Chicago]

As for shopping, nearly every retailer known to man and woman is on the Mag Mile (or one block west). Just start at the river, and walk north. As for food ... don't miss Fox & Obel in Streeterville (east of Michigan Ave, just north of the river). Great specialty food store - and a lifeline for transplanted Chicagoans who miss Dean & DeLuca. Also, if you are in pastrami withdrawal for any reason, visit Ashkenazy Deli in the Gold Coast. (Manny's will do, too, but they don't have homemade halvah.) Skip the long lines of tourists at Uno and Due, and head for Gino's East or, better yet, Giordano's on Rush, south of the Peninsula hotel. And don't fret if you don't have time to make it through Navy Pier, unless you don't have a hometown Haagen-Dazs scoop shop and need a fix. For breakfast, there is there's always Lou Mitchell's (who knows how many Chicago politicians you'll see eating their morning eggs), but I always loved the Original Pancake House off Rush Street - even if they did let Matthew Modine crash the line one Sunday morning. Try the chicken-apple sausage - awesome. And if Cereality is still open in the Loop, that's a fun trip. But please, please try Gold Coast dogs, with the works. However, Alex is right - skip the beef. If the Italian deli is open in the basement of the Hancock, near the north end of the Mag Mile, try the bocconcini, and have the little lemon roll cookies for a snack.