Tennessee Food Round Up


This is a round up of all the weird, wacky and delicious things I ate and saw while I was in Tennessee (and the few interesting things in Aruba).


We had Full Service BBQ catered for our rehearsal dinner. The BBQ sauce was very good. Full Service operate out of a small old gas station!


It was a nice coincidence that my wedding photographers studio was a stones throw away from The Cupcakery and Cities Cupcakes.
It was in a posh looking strip mall

 The cupcakes were good but they were a little simple for the price

 I chose a Summer Crush

and a Pink Lemonade

 I prefer Cities Cupcakes

 I love their frosting shots! I had a Savannah (the smores one)

 They have a lot of flavors but only bake a selection each day

Carmel was excellent

Miami (Lemon) was very good. I also had an Orlando but my sister ate it without taking a picture.


We got my wedding favors from Schakolad!

They have everything!

Alex tried a chocolate covered pretzel. My dad and I got some of their gelato. The one we went to did a $1 special of one item each day of the week. The day we went was a $1 for a scoop of gelato.

This isn't a good picture. We had a nice box of 3 chocolate truffles with a gold bow for our wedding favors.

There are a lot of chain restaurants where I was in Tennessee (the local places are all great BBQ joints) but I never get to go to these places so it was great! I did find a few gems though. I had this really great Monte Cristo sandwich at Cheddar's.

and Strawberry Lemonade

Not as exciting but very good Raspberry Swirl cake at Starbucks

Update: I forgot to add these 2 pictures from Sweet Celebrations. The roast beef sandwich with jus was so tasty.

They have a wide selection of desserts. This cupcake was really cute.

One of my favorite places we went was the Apple Barn in Pigeon Forge. They make pies, candy, wine, jams and pretty much sell every apple knick knack you can think of.

The extensive case of jams

We went to the Cider Bar and had apple snacks. The apple donuts were very good!

Apple Pie

Fried Apple Pie

Apple Dumpling

 Now for the more weird and wacky. This isn't wacky but I love the rocking chairs at Charlotte airport.

 Bubblegum pudding?


Cake flavored ice cream? yes please!

Cheeseburger potato chips? Not so sure about those.

No guns allowed inside!

This was in Aruba. Jackie Chan shampoo!?

The food selection in Aruba was catered towards Americans which is ok since I don't get this stuff in the UK. Fried bananas at Texas de Brazil

Please, no more meat or I'll explode.

But there's always room for banana pie!

Fried ice cream at Sawasdee

It was good but could have been hotter on the outside. Food there was pretty good too.

My favorite of the trip fried Oreos at Iguana Joe's

I went back on our last night for just dessert. I'm going to lay off the fried foods for awhile I think...

· chocolate, cupcakes, donuts, ice cream, pie, snacks, yummy places

World Cup USA Party


I had a last minute small world cup party at my house to watch the USA v Ghana game (let's forget they lost). I made Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Swiss Meringue Buttercream, onion rings and pink lemonade. These were American things I could think of at the last minute to make. I almost made my own salsa and guacamole but decided to buy from Waitrose at the end. We did have Pimms which is English not American but it's my favorite summer drink.

I got place cards from Paperchase in Red, White & Blue for a last minute decoration

This is the first time I made onion rings and I thought they came out really good!

I think I made too much food for just 4 people!

Finally a chance to use my cupcake card holders!

Even though we lost it was a beautiful day and we had a good time!

Click here for the Peanut Butter Cupcake recipe and here for the Onion Rings


· cupcake paraphernalia, cupcakes, snacks

Onion Rings


I thought onion rings would be a fun, quick and easy snack to make for the USA v Ghana game. Onion rings are also a good American snack! This is the first time I'd made these and I was pleasantly surprised. They were really nice and I was able to make them 30 minutes before everyone came and put them in the oven to heat them up when we were hungry. They didn't get soggy either.

Onion Rings
adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients
2 large onions
oil for deep frying (I used vegetable, the recipe says groundnut)
2 egg yolks
1 tbs oil
150ml milk (I used soy)
1 egg white

1. Sift the flour into a bowl with a pinch of salt and make a well in the center. Drop in the egg yolks and the oil. Mix to a smooth batter with milk and beat well. Cover and stand in a cool place for 30 minutes (I put it in the fridge).


2. Slice the onions into rings about 1cm wide. Put the oil in the pan no more than 1/3 full and heat to 190 C. I turned my electric stove top to 6 or 7. Whisk the egg white until stiff and fold into the batter. Dip the onion rings into the batter in batches and fry until golden brown. About 3-4 minutes.


They'll get nice and crispy and the onion will taste sweet. I served with BBQ sauce and ketchup

· snacks

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