Cupcakes vs. Pops

How about a little controversy for a Thursday morning?

So obviously I love pops. Love love love. But I'm not going to lie, I love cupcakes too. And I love the trend cupcakes have followed -- become more gourmet, try innovative flavors, show up every-fucking-where -- and I think it's a similar one to what pops can do. After all, it seems everywhere else in the US of A has their own gourmet pop provider -- certainly NYC and LA, but also places like DC and other cities without acronyms.  But it's not big in SF... why not? Is it my beloved "always fall" weather? Are we simply behind on culinary trends? Is there an over-saturation of the cold food market due to too much gourmet ice cream (Bi-Rite, Humphrey Slocombe, Three Twins)? Why haven't pops caught on in SF the way cupcakes did?

Talk amongst yourselves.

In other news, agave totally blows. Okay, it's probably user error, but trying to substitute it for sugar in a watermelon pop lead to a sticky layer of agave sitting on top of the pop instead of staying mixed in. Yuck-o. I will continue experimenting with sugar alternatives. Right now, I'm using organic evaporated cane juice and sometimes honey, but I'm open to other things. Any ideas, health-nuts?

Last piece of news: Samples are due next week for the Oakland Underground Farmer's Market. Hooray! Of course, that's the one week I'm out of town (going recruiting back in Chapel Hill, mainly to see my old puppy) so Jessica is becoming pretty much the best person ever by taking my samples in. Let's hear it for Jess! Hip, hip... hooray!! Oh, and I made up new names for them! Tell me what you think -- just offensive enough? Samples flavors are (drumroll pleeease):

Strawberry Ginger Beer  (Red-headed favorite)
Cookies and Cream (Teddybear Massacre)
Mission Brown (Mexican Chocolate)

So good I could golf!

For your Friday afternoon popfix -- here are the Arnold Palmer pops I made last night.

Refreshing and not too sweet. Although next time I'm using more pulpy lemonade -- I gotta have my texture.

Pops never looked so good!

Ohhhhhhh so I did some good work this weekend. It was gorgeous and hot in SF on Monday and I had made two kinds of pops, replacing all the melted, deformed ones in my freezer. We're talking double chocolate pudding pops (all the way) and the perfection of cherry yogurt honey.

So here are some pictures of all the hotness -- had the aperture a little low (whoops) but hey, look how good half the people look -- sorry for the half of you (Monnn) who are a little blurry. I'll take gorgeous pictures of you latah.

Thanks for being my pop models, you girls are all the hotness. So says the blanket(s) next to us as well. ;)

ALSO, who is excited for the Forage Underground Market this weekend??!??!  I'll be there (as a very hungry customer) during the evening sesh, and maybe next time, as a vendor! One can only hope!

Melting is not our friend when the pop is not in the mouth.

Well I managed to overlook actually closing the freezer door all the way the other night -- it may have had something to do with all the wine I drank and the fact that Jess brought over mini cups of ben and jerry's. Leaving the freezer door slightly ajar tends to melt things inside, or at the very least, give them a nasty case of freezer burn. Whoops. So I'm cleaning out the fridge (after work hours, I swear) and then I'll start making fresh batches of pops. This cloud of melted pop sadness has a silver lining, however. If all the pops left in the old freezer are undesirable, then everything melting combats my innate hoarding mechanism and now I HAVE to throw them out and not feed them to you. Phew.

If you're free for some Dolores Park on Monday, put in your requests now. So far I'm looking to perfect cherry-yogurt-honey (and actually include sticks this time) and the decapitated teddy grahams and cream. But it might be time to try out a basil gimlet... Thoughts? Ideas?

Links:

Chilled Out via Kate

What you can expect in Dolo on Monday -- pops and loveliness