Top Scallop?!

My favorite Top Chef contestant ever, once said on the show
'...this is Top Chef, not Top Scallop...'
so in honor of the new Top Chef Las Vegas premier night Mr. Byte and I decided to honor said favorite contestant with...you guessed it....scallops for the dinner viewing.
I was just IMing with an old friend - (who HAPPENS to work for Google - and i HAPPENED to mention that I can't figure out how to post my pictures in order...yeah he was no help! kidding D! :) ) and realized I never posted up the 4 pics that I took still with the same horrible camera phone. So - we're veering a bit from cupcakes here...whats that you said? that its going away from baking all together? well friend - to keep it eligible for a 'baking' post ... i whipped up a lil desert as well ;)

Enjoy!

Bay Scallops with A Garlic and Shallot infused wine reduction (aka wine sauce) over fluffy Jasmine grain bed (aka Rice)

Scallops post pan - pre-sauce with some seasoning

aaaaand....some pâte à choux

filled with chocolate pastry cream and some messy but yummy drizzles to finish it off!

MS Cupcake Club - First Assignement!!

DISCLAIMER- All photos were taking my my camera phone - so they're not fabulous :(
and please excuse the train wreck spelling - yes, I did just see that I wrote "Moose" to describe the frosting" rather than editing I figured I'd leave my first blog post ever in its pure for for historical purposes :) !!!

Ok - I just can't figure out how to edit photos and post them in order. so look at them backwards for now :)
so - above you see all the steps that are documented.
at the end of the day I'm not a huge fan of these as cupcakes...they're more of a candy to me. maybe if they were a larger size? "Mr. Byte" however - loves them! Hope you enjoy!

I will say - the cake is delicious, nice deep chocolate flavor. great moist crumb!
the Caramel - DELISH!!!! more of fa caramel chew rather than a sauce. But a bit too soft to eat as a candy. make sense? Either with or without salt - I'm not afraid of making caramel anymore! super easy and yummy! I'll do this again for sure!
Frosting...more of a moose type of consistency. not super sweet and has that really rich chocolaty taste. which is perfect for this combo with the sweet caramel. but, in my heart, I'm a butter cream type of girl! again - Mr. Byte really loved this!

a nice pretty shot all done!

and a nice shot of the caramel-ie inside!!!


ready for their close up!



I turned my back to get the fancy salt to garnish and came back to this mystery wrapper! 'Mr Byte' was that you????


Step 3...turn it all over to big red!


Step two..melt it on my make shift double boiler


Time for frosting - step one...GOOOD chocolate!


Carmel filled cuppies


all smooth and just added some flur de sal


and we have caramel folks


starting to turn that yummy amber color
just about there
bubbly bubbly bubbly
and caramel bubbling away




Sugar and water - beginning stages of Caramel
And please note the coffee maker on and ready to go in the background :)

Ingredients all set out and ready to go!

'Big Red' all done mixing wet and dryDry Ingredients ready to go

Cupcakes from Months Past

Margarita and Pina Colada Cupcakes for Kelly's Beach Party Bachelorette in July

Premier Post

So After many suggestions from my facebook page, friends and family, and after discovering my initial blog name was taking....Its my pleasure to introduce to bring you a sort of combo name winner....Baking Bytes...get it, bytes....bites....digital....eating....:) so - Thanks to Teri D. an old friend from high school...she' gets 1/2 the credit for the 'bytes' concept.
I'm sticking to "Baking" rather than more specific Cake, or Cupcakes...so that I'm covered for other culinary adventures in the sugary rhelm.

So - I'm looking forward to participating in the Martha Stewart Cupcake Online Baking club with Eat My Cupcake. In advance, thanks to everyone for their patience as this whole process (blogging, online baking club etc) it's allll new! so suggestions welcome and expect grammar and spelling train wrecks! It's all a part of my charm! :)