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Friday, January 20, 2012

marketing magic & food thoughts

The other day, I made some faux-devil's food cupcakes. I fudged the recipe a little bit (once I have it final I'll share) and they came out lovely. Served with a beautiful ganache frosting, they were nothing but delightful.

What has me musing, though, is not so much the cupcakes I made. It's thinking back to my childhood, to the massive chocolate muffins my mother would bring home from Costco. Muffins that taste remarkably like devil's food cupcakes.

It shouldn't surprise me, really, considering everything we hear about how unhealthy muffins can be and the fat content and the sugar craziness and how intensely evil muffins can be from nutritional press. How is it though, that companies get away with calling a cupcake a muffin. Because there's no frosting? Because it's packed with other muffins?

Because it's what consumers want to hear. We want to hear the word "muffin", because that says "it's not terrible for you" not "this is dessert and should be treated as such". We want to hear muffin because that gives us free license to eat it almost whenever we want. The marketing people play right into that. Entirely.

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On another note, I made the most delicious dinner the other night. Pork roast, rice and curried veggies and lentils. I changed the recipe up a touch this time (less lentils, more vegetables) to suit the meal, and again, amazing. I've been trying to change up some of my meals a little more, mix up side dishes and try to integrate different things more often.

What blew me away though, was how amazing a forkful of lentils and pork tasted together. Like OMG food heaven. Those flavours were destined.

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One more food related note: I'm currently falling a little bit in love with pancakes. There's something to be said for a recipe so simple that I can make it without even thinking, with only one measuring cup and sprinkles of the other bits.

I love the recipes that I get to know that well.

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