Now, don’t those look delicious? You agree, you say? Well here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups ripe banana, mashed (2-3 bananas)

2 large eggs

1/3 cup plain yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup Fabbri Nocciola E Cacao delipaste (Nutella flavor)

Directions:  Preheat oven at 350 degrees

1) Combine softened butter and granulated and brown sugars in large bowl.

2) Mix in mashed bananas

3) Sift in 1 cup of flour along with salt and baking powder. Mix thoroughly.

4) Now mix in wet ingredients including: eggs, yogurt and vanilla

5) Mix in another cup of flour. Combine thoroughly.

6) Finally, add delipaste.  Mix thoroughly, giving the entire muffin a chocolate color and flavor.

7) Add mix into greased muffin pan or pan liners.  Sprinkle on slivered almonds for extra pizzazz.

Bake for 18-22 min. or until toothpick comes out clean.

Yield: 12 muffins

UMG/Flamenco was able to go to Dominican Republic last month for a coffee origin trip. It was a blast overall! We all learned a ton about coffee and a whole lot more about the island and its history.

Please check out our Flamenco Origin Trips Page to view pictures and videos. We will have some stories and more information soon. Enjoy!

UMG is now making our own gourmet scone mix. You can make delicious scones in as little as 15 minutes from the bowl to you display case. They smell amazing as they’re baking and taste even better. How’d you like to save $1000’s of dollars every year and double your bakery business? We know your sales will increase with the very first case you buy. If you’re paying .75-$1.00 (or more) a scone now you’ll save over $1000 dollars, enough to buy a Cadco counter-top convection oven with just 3 cases of scone mix and after that, the $1000 goes into your pocket every 3 cases. You control the flavors, you control the quality of ingredients. It’s so easy you can teach any employee to make them. Never again will you run out of scones at noon and turn away customers for the rest of the day. You’ll just bake more in 15 minutes!!! The smell will cause more sales and customers will drool as they watch you pull the fresh pans out of the oven. Don’t over order from your supplier because you might run out and then have to sell day old at half price. Don’t sell day old delivered product as fresh either. Bake bake bake, did we mention it was easy? Call us now for more info on the great mix and Cadco’s great new counter-top oven. Stop by the showroom and we’ll bake a batch for you to try. You will never regret baking your own. Stop by our booth at the Milwaukee restaurant show March 8th-10th and try them there too. I’m going to go eat another, darn they’re good.

Cheers, David

These International Paper hot cups come in 12oz, 16oz, and 20oz, have a universal lid for all three sizes, and their patent-pending Thermashield™ technology, combined with the overall durable construction of our cup provides better insulating performance than any other paper hot cup in the industry.

(For pricing or additional product information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

Thanks again to all of you that love your Fair Trade Organic coffees from Flamenco Organic Coffee Company.

Feel free to Contact Us for more information or Order Yours today!

Many of you may be familiar with our Italian product line Fabbri, which produces a variety of gelato and pastry ingredients. The most common application for these products, specifically with the delipaste, is to flavor gelato. Well, this weekend I went home with a few samples of the Pistachio Fine delipaste, some rose extract oil and a mind set on experimentation. I love baking and I really don’t do it often enough, yet I have all of these exotic and delicious ingredients at my fingertips. Well, I decided enough is enough. It’s time to start taking advantage of the Fabbri products and commence experimental baking.

On Friday, I found a recipe for Pistachio cupcakes and Rose Petal buttercream online. I tweaked the recipe in order to accommodate my flavoring ingredients and improvised on quantities a bit. I’m a true believer in “to taste” baking, at least with flavoring ingredients. This recipe is a chiffon-style cake and can be labor-intensive and/or tricky, but never fear. The end result is delicious and well worth the effort.
So here it is: 
Pistachio Cupcakes
36 regular cupcakes / 350 degree oven
*2-3/4 cups cake flour sifted
1-1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
**1/2 -3/4 cup grape seed oil (or vegetable oil)
8 egg yolks (approximately 6 ounces)
1/2 cup water
4-6 ounces pistachio delipaste
10 egg whites (approximately 10 ounces)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter

* Sift flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder into a bowl.
* Separately, combine oil, egg yolks, water, and pistachio delipaste. Stir to combine. I ended up adding the delipaste to taste (close to ½ cup when all was said and done). Pistachio is a very delicate flavor, so don’t be afraid to go a little crazy.
* On a low setting, start to beat the dry mixture and slowly add the wet. Increase the mixer speed to high and beat until pistachio cream is incorporated. Mixture will be very sticky, but only for now. No worries.
* In a separate bowl, whip egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy. With the mixer on medium speed, add cream of tarter. Beat on high speed until stiff peaks form.
* Scoop a cupful of the stiff egg whites into the batter and stir to combine. This should lighten up the batter.
* Transfer the remaining egg whites to the batter and gently fold until there are no more streaks of egg white.
* Scoop into cupcake cups and bake at 350 F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
*Tip: Cake flour is a must for chiffon. All-purpose won’t give you the same delicate texture.
**Note from the baker: When all was said and done, these cupcakes turned out a bit dry. Next time around I will add more oil. Hence the 1/2 cup-3/4 cup.

Rose Petal Buttercream Frosting
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons Rose oil extract, 3-4 tablespoons of milk
1. Beat butter until creamy, scrape bowl.
2. Add 2 cups of sifted powdered sugar, one tablespoon of milk and rose oil, beat until combined.
3. Add more powdered sugar (One cup at a time) along with milk (one tablespoon at a time) as needed to get to whatever consistency/sweetness you wish to achieve.

Assemble
1. Frost cooled cupcakes lightly with buttercream.
2. For pistachio garnish, grind up pistachios in a small food processor. Take up some of the ground nuts into your hand and press the edges of the frosted cupcake into the mixture.
3. Otherwise top with edible rose bud or edible rose petal.

Original recipe: http://cupcakeblog.com

Ah yes, the show season is soon to be upon us. For starters, Upper Midwest Gourmet will be showing off our duds again this year in Milwaukee Wisconsin at the Wisconsin Restaurant Associations annual Expo to be held at the Airline Center in downtown Milwaukee on March 8th trough the 10th (Mon-Wed). Go to www.wirestaurant.org/expo/ for more details on this show and to register. As in the past years, UMG has a boat load of FREE PASSES for Wednesday the 10th, the last day of the show. Please contact us direct at 612-728-7208 or contact Kevin direct at 612-250-8277 or Kevin@umgcoffee.com and we will mail you the tickets. You will need to register them once you have the ticket code. This can be done the day of the show at the door. This year we will be highlighting our new line of Ce Organic and Fair Trade, all natural flavoring syrups, our new International Paper Insulated Hold & Go Hot cups, Angela Marie’s Mega Marshmallow Munchies crisp rice bars, Pacific Foods Organic Simply coffee & tea ready to drink products, Deep River all natural chips and snacks, and our new Flamenco Organic Coffee Direct coffees. We will also have a new espresso machine on hand for your review, use and sampling of our espressos.

This is one of those shows that our staff ALWAYS looks forward to because of the amount of you that take the time to visit with us there and the many new customers we are lucky enough to meet each year. Of the many food & coffee shows that we show at, this has always been the best run and most fun to attend so I encourage you to try to make it if you can, you will not be disappointed!

Coffee Fest Minneapolis, MN, June 04 – 06, 2010

We are very excited to announce that the folks at Coffee Fest have scheduled one of their 2010 show right here in Minneapolis this year in June. Coffee Fest is still one of the better coffee focused shows in the industry so we expect nothing less at this show. We among many other local, regional and international companies will be showing. This Upper Midwest region of the country is finally getting the recognition we have so rightfully earned in the coffee world so this show should be full of useful information for any café owner in this market. As more details come in, we will continue to pass them on to you so please stay tuned or go directly to www.coffeefest.com for more details and to register for this show.

We always love to see our customers at every show we attend so please do come and say hello at one or both of these shows. Upper Midwest Gourmet will also be announcing our annual picnic/open house very soon so please stay tuned for that date to be made.

We thank you all for your continued support and patronage. We are nothing without our great customers and we are driven by your support to continue to improve our services and offerings to you!

See you at the shows!

All of us at Upper Midwest Gourmet would like to wish you, your family, your friends, and your staff a very Happy and Healthy New Year in 2010! We truly believe that your success creates our success and we promise to continue to support and serve you as much as possible!

Please always know that we are just a phone call or email away. UMG has been on the cutting edge of the coffee shop and cafe industry for almost 20 years! We have seen the latest and greatest fads come and go, but there are a few constants that will always remain the same. Coffee drinks and blended beverages are your bread and butter because  of their great profit margins. I agree with my previous statement, but I’ve learned that to be truly successful offering retail sales and food is a must.

One constant that makes any businesss successful is a self-motivated staff with ambitious goals along with a desire to always work hard no matter if it is within their job description or not. This is something amazing that I witness everyday working at UMG, but also something that is very obvious in many of the most succesful cafes that we work with. Striving to always be better is something that rarely breeds anything, but success.

Our guarantee to you, our customers, in this new year and decade is that we will continue to strive to always be better. In fact, we will be taking a coffee origin trip to Dominican Republic to meet our Flamenco Direct Relationship coffee friends and their families in February. This will give us a better understanding of all aspects of coffee production, but will more importantly build a stronger relationship with people we care about, just like our customers. We want you to know that there may be other companies that sell similar type products, but you will never find a company with more personal dedication to their customers than us.

We aren’t just a Midwest distributor of coffee shop products or just a Fair Trade Organic coffee roastery in Minnesota or just a gelato equipment and ingredient company. We are so much more than all of those titles and all we want is a chance to prove that to you this year!

Please Contact Us if you have any questions about what we can do for you.

Thanks for your support!

Who else thinks Charles should be trying out for the Vikes next year?

Newco OCS-8 Coffee Maker

* The quality and durability of a commercial machine in a home model.
* 8 cup thermos carafe with patented brew through pour lid.
* High quality polycarbonate construction.
* Easy pour over feature for brewing coffee.
* Pour and serve allows you to get a cup of coffee while brewing.
* No temperature or water volume adjustments.
* Markings indicate water needed to make corresponding number cups of coffee.
* Filter basket swings open for easy insertion of filter.
* Audible beep and automatic shut off after brew cycle is completed.
* 1500 watt heating element for fast brewing.
* Lead free construction.
* Color is black.
* 7 1/2″W x 10″D x 15 1/2″H.
* Bunn Filters sold separately.
* Sold As: 1 ea.

Newco Warranty:

* 1 year limited.
* Lifetime technical support.

The Newco OCS-8 carafe holds temperature for 4-6 hours. The patented self sealing, dual action brew through and pour out lid is an industry standard. The OCS Brewer uses a high wattage heating element for fast brewing up to ten pots per hour. The near boiling temperature is ideal for hot tea or specialty coffee.

Newco OCS-12 Coffee Maker

* The quality and durability of a commercial machine in a home model.
* 12 cup stainless steel thermos carafe with patented brew through pour lid.
* High quality polycarbonate construction.
* Easy pour over feature for brewing coffee.
* Pour and serve allows you to get a cup of coffee while brewing.
* No temperature or water volume adjustments.
* Markings indicate water needed to make corresponding number cups of coffee.
* Filter basket swings open for easy insertion of filter.
* Audible beep and automatic shut off after brew cycle is completed.
* 1500 watt heating element for fast brewing.
* Lead free construction.
* Color is black.
* 7 1/2″W x 10″D x 15 1/2″H.
* Bunn Filters sold separately.
* Sold As: 1 ea.

Newco Warranty:

* 1 year limited.
* Lifetime technical support.

The Newco OCS-12 carafe holds temperature for 4-6 hours. The patented self sealing, dual action brew through and pour out lid is an industry standard. The OCS Brewer uses a high wattage heating element for fast brewing up to ten pots per hour. The near boiling temperature is ideal for hot tea or specialty coffee.

(For pricing or additional product information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)