As you stroll down the snacks aisle of the supermarket, instead of grabbing the same old chips, treat your crowd to something special.

For more than a decade, chips have been exploding in flavor. Although most supermarkets give shelf space to the three or so biggest sellers, bagel chips, bean chips, pita chips, potato chips, tortilla chips and rice chips have gone from plain to Pepperoncini (an actual flavor from Kettle brand chips).

For decades, potato chips were available in the U.S. in Original (lightly salted), Barbecue and Sour Cream; perhaps you’d find Salt & Vinegar.* Then, artisan chip makers like Route 11 broke through with flavors like Chesapeake Crab, Dill Pickle and Mama Zuma’s Revenge (habanero).

Kettle Brand works in overdrive to come up with a trending new flavor every year. Its current selection of 18 flavors (not including Krinkle Cut flavors) offers Maple Bacon, Red Curry and Spicy Thai potato chips.

Now, even megabrand Lay’s makes chips in Dill Pickle and Flamin’ Hot, plus Chile Lemon, Garden Tomato & Basil and a host of others.

Food should taste good makes tortilla chips in 19 flavors, from Cheddar to Kimchi (and yes, plain chips too). Photo courtesy FSTG.

THE NEW CHIP IN TOWN

Stacy’s Pita Chips began plain, as most brands do. Today the original Simply Naked Pita Chips are joined by Cinnamon Sugar, Garden Veggie Medley, Italian Harvest, Multigrain, Parmesan Garlic & Herb and Salted Caramel.

Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, Stacy’s has released its newest flavor: Fire Roasted Jalapeño Pita Chips.

Real jalapeño chiles are baked into the chips. The subtle jalapeño kick builds after a minute or so, and made us reach for a beer.

The chips are available in grocery stores nationwide for a suggested retail price of $3.99.

For more information, visit StacysSnacks.com.
 
 
*Although potato chips were born in the U.S.A., the U.K. was an early pioneer in flavored potato chips. Here’s the history of potato chips.

Angel cake, cheesecake, olive oil cake, pound cake, sponge cake: all are highly receptive to a garnish of citrus segments (or, depending on how you look at it, a citrus fruit salad).

In addition to cheery color, if you use the citrus as a base you can place a smaller piece of cake atop a larger amount of fruit.

Go for a blend of color—rosy blood oranges, pink cara cara oranges, conventional oranges, pink or red grapefruits (with perhaps some white grapefruit for contrast). You can also add some kumquats and something from the Mandarin group: clementines, satsumas, tangelos and tangerines.

Cut some of the fruits into disks, and supreme others into segments. “Supreme” is the term that refers to removing the skin, pith, membranes and seeds of a citrus fruit and separating it into segments (wedges). Here’s a YouTube video showing you how to do it.

One note: You may not want your cake sitting in the citrus juices. If so, be sure to drain the citrus well—but save those delicious juices and drink them or add them to a vinaigrette.

Create a colorful citrus garnish for plain cakes. Photo of olive oil cake courtesy Frog
Hollow Farm.

A mandarin is erroneously called “mandarin orange”, but the two are separate species. Even Produce Pete calls clementines and mandarins “oranges,” so do what you can to spread the truth.

There are three basic citrus types—citron, mandarin and pummelo—from which all modern citrus derives via hybrids or backcrosses.

While they look like small oranges and are often called “mandarin oranges,” mandarins are a separate species that includes the clementine, mineola (red tangelo), murcott (also called honey tangerine), tangelo, temple and satsuma, among others.

If you’re making cake cupcakes for Super Bowl feasting, you can ice them with your team colors. McCormick has the recipes for all the NFL team colors.

McCormick suggests adding the color to a 16-ounce can of white frosting, but if you have a picky palate, you might prefer to make your own buttercream or cream cheese frosting (here are the recipes).

Both sets of team colors require regular food colors and a box of McCormick NEON! food colors. The New England Patriots red also requires a bottle of black food color.

So get mixing and surprise your family and guests with something sweet, with our hopes that the day will be even sweeter when your team wins.
 
FROSTING TIPS

While it’s easy to frost a cake with half of each frosting color, McCormick offers these tips for cupcakes:

 
FROSTING VS. ICING: THE DIFFERENCE

The difference between frosting and icing is that icing is made with confectioners sugar’ (also called icing sugar and 10x sugar). But the two words are used interchangeably by those not aware of this nuance.

Soup and crackers was a popular dish at my mother’s table: animal crackers, oyster crackers, Royal Lunch Milk Crackers*, saltines, Uneeda Biscuits* (water biscuits) and Ritz crackers made frequent appearances. Our favorites were Nabisco’s Triscuits and Stoned Wheat Thins, imported from Canada.

The gourmet cracker market didn’t exist then. Sesame seed breadsticks were a rare specialty that we had to seek out in Italian markets in Little Italy. The handful of gourmet food stores and cheese stores sold the bland yet purportedly elegant Carr’s Water Biscuits, imported from England, and long flat rectangles of Middle Eastern lavasch.

But today, there are more fancy crackers than we could desire, serving up interesting flavor profiles and alluring appearances. You can find some in supermarkets, some at natural grocers like Whole Foods and some at specialty food stores. Look for:

Then, enjoy them with a bowl of soup, a plate of cheese or a craft beer, with or without an accompanying spread.
*Uneeda Biscuits and Royal Lunch crackers were Nabisco products that were discontinued after Kraft Foods acquired Nabisco.
  

These itty bitty cupcakes (about half the size of the photo) will delight kids and adults equally.

The Valentine Collection from Baked By Melissa—a pioneer in tiny cupcakes—includes three varieties. Packaged in a gift box with a pink ribbon, the Valentine Collection includes:

 
The round ball at the top is a chocolate-covered pretzel, adding crunch and a hint of salt to the sweet cupcakes. The cupcakes are bite-size: slightly larger than the diameter of a quarter, one or two bites.

In the words of Melissa, a little cupcake equals a lot of love.

The cupcakes, which are kosher-certified by OK, can be shipped nationwide and can be pre-ordered starting today. A 25-piece gift box is $25, plus shipping.

Shown here about twice the actual size, the cupcakes have the diameter of a quarter. Photo courtesy Baked By Melissa.

The Valentine gift box, tied with a pink ribbon. Photo courtesy Baked By Melissa.

CUPCAKE HISTORY

Before the advent of muffin tins, cupcakes were baked in individual tea cups or ramekins. The first reference to the miniature cakes dates to 1796, when a recipe for “cake to be baked in small cups” appeared in the cookbook, “American Cookery.” The earliest documentation of the term “cupcake” was in “Eliza Leslie’s Receipts cookbook” in 1828. [Source]

Cupcakes were convenient because they cooked much faster than larger cakes. It took a long time to bake a cake in a hearth oven; cupcakes baked in a fraction of the time.

Muffin tins became widely available around the turn of the 20th century, and offered new convenience to bakers. Paper and foil liners were created for easier removal of the cupcakes from the pan.

They evolved into children’s party fare, but in the last decade have taken a more sophisticated turn. First, some younger couples began to choose “cupcake trees” instead of conventional wedding cakes. This prompted a flurry of cupcake articles and recipes, and ultimately the opening of boutique cupcake bakeries nationwide, offering everyday treats.

Each Baked By Melissa cupcake has 70-90 calories, but that’s a workable daily treat. An average-size cupcake from Crumbs, Magnolia, Sprinkles and the like will run you 450 calories or so (here’s a calorie comparison).