Indonesian Bakery Creates the World’s Most Elaborate Wedding Cakes

LeNovelle Cake, a family-run bakery in Jakarta, Indonesia, specializes in epic wedding cakes. From fairy-tale castles to glazed cathedrals and pagodas up to 7 meters tall and complete with detailed turrets, pillars and balconies, these guys can turn the most outlandish architectural design into a magnificent cake.

The world-famous bakery was founded in 1993 as a neighborhood cake business selling birthday cakes to friends and family, but it slowly grew and in 2004 it started selling wedding cakes under the LeNovelle Cake brand. Their designs have been getting more complex every year, and today they can have up to 24 people working 12 hours a day for over a month to complete just one of their sugar-coated masterpieces.

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This Cotton Candy Pizza Makes Pineapple Topping Seem Mighty Delicious

If you thought pineapple was the worst thing to put on a pizza, you were very wrong. A restaurant in Japan is offering pizza topped with cotton candy and seasoned with honey sauce. Sounds “devine”!

Schmatz Beer Dining, a German-themed restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, is changing pizza as we know it. Instead of classic ingredients like prosciutto, peppers or tomato sauce, it uses spun sugar as the main ingredient for one of its pies. And if you’re thinking that this is probably just a pizza-shaped dessert, you’re wrong again. The bizarre dish consists of a thin-crust pizza dough pie, cheese and cotton candy. The ketchup is replaced by a special honey-based ginger sauce that is poured over the cotton candy, melting the candy floss and allowing the sugar to really get into the pizza.

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Fire Paan – The Hottest Street Snack to Ever Come Out of India

Paan has been a part of Indian cuisine since Vedic times, and today, many varieties are served at street stalls all across the Asian country. But with competition as fierce as it is, paan vendors are constantly working on new types of paan, the most impressive of which is definitely fire paan – a flaming hot snack that is literally set on fire.

Found at nearly every street corner in India, paan regularly consists of a mixture of spices, mukhwas, dried fruits, and sugar wrapped inside a betel leaf. According to Ayurvedic medicine, paan can cure a variety of ailments, including coughs, colds and headaches, but it is also used a breath freshener and a virility booster. Fire paan is basically a regular paan that just happens to be on fire when it goes into your mouth.

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Would You Spend $25,000 on the World’s Most Expensive Taco?

Tacos are generally low-cost fare in Mexico – you can buy one from street stalls for as low as 10 pesos (¢50) – so how can one cost as much as a fully optioned family car?

Juan Licerio Alcala, the executive chef at the Grand Velas Los Cabos Resort, a luxury vacation destination in Baja California, and the creator of the world’s most expensive taco, says that the mind-blowing $25,000 price tag of this delicacy is justified by “the technique and the harmony that you will lift from the plate”. That’s a pretty vague explanation, but he assures those interested in sampling his creation that “it’s worth it”.

But if you don’t feel like taking Licerio at his word with 25 grand on the line, maybe the list of ingredients will give you a better idea of what you can expect from the world’s most expensive taco. To make the opulent dish, the Mexican chef takes a corn tortilla speckled with 24 carat gold flakes, which he then fills with Kobe beef, langoustines, Almas Beluga caviar and black truffle brie cheese. Then, the taco is dressed with a salsa based on Morita chiles and Kopi Luwak coffee, before being sprinkled with some edible gold flakes.

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Raw Cookie Dough Shop Proves Big Hit in New York

We all loved eating raw cookie dough when we were children, but apparently a lot of adults like it too. DO Cookie Dough Confections, a small shop in Greenwich Village, New York, sells roughly 1,500 pounds of safe-to-eat raw cookie dough every day to people willing to spend over an hour in line for a chance to relive their childhood fantasies.

28-year-old Kristen Tomlan, the founder and CEO of DO Cookie Dough Confections never outgrew her craving for raw cookie dough. She always wondered why there wasn’t a place where people could enjoy their favorite treat, and started contemplating the idea of opening up her own business on a vacation, when she and a few friends stopped at a cookie shop, but instead of buying baked treats, they opted for a tub of raw cookie dough, which they ate in the car.

In 2014, Tomlan almost died after an allergic reaction to an antibiotic left her in a medically induced coma for three weeks, just a couple of months before her wedding. This near-death experience made her realize that life is short and she should follow her dreams. She first started her raw-cookie dough business online, and after getting coverage on a couple of popular websites, she and her husband had to rearrange the furniture in their apartment to accommodate commercial freezers. She soon quit her job in branding to focus solely on her business.

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Brazilian Scientists Bake Bread Out of Cockroach Flour

With food shortage expected to become a major problem in the next decades, many experts believe that insects could become a major source of nutrients for people in the future. We already have plenty of insect based recipes and restaurants have begun putting bugs on their menus, but we need an effective way of using them as replacements for staples of our current diet, like wheat. Well, a couple of Brazilian food scientists have make a breakthrough in that area after successfully turning a species of cockroaches into flour and using it to bake bread.

Andressa Lucas and Lauren Menegon, two engineering students at the Federal University of Rio Grande, in Brazil, have developed a flour made from cockroaches that contains 40% more protein than regular wheat flour and can be used to make all kinds of baked goods. It also contains lots of essential amino acids, as well as amino acids and lipids. And before you start acting all disgusted, the flour is not made from bugs like tho ones crawling through your kitchen at night, but of a species called Nauphoeta cinerea. They are sourced from a specialized breeder, where they are produced according to the hygiene requirements of the ANVISA, the Brazilian health surveillance agency, and fed exclusively on fruits and vegetables.

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Fail Chips – Pre-Crushed Potato Chips That Don’t Leave Your Hands Greasy

For years, companies have been researching ways to best package potato chips to prevent them from being crushed, but one company is actually crushing them on purpose so that you can just toss them in your moth directly from the bag, without touching them with your hands.

I’m not yet sure if Fail Chips are an actual product or just a promotional stunt, but the concept behind them is actually pretty cool. Most potato chip fans will tell you that the best part of a bag are the crushed chip bits at the bottom. They’re super salty, super seasoned, and best of all, you can toss them in your mouth straight out of the bag, without having to lay a finger on them. Well, somebody decided to make the best part of the bag the whole bag. They take full-size chips, crush them into small pieces, package them in colorful bags and sell them as tasty snacks.

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Cat and Dog Paw-Themed Ice Cream Is Now a Thing in Japan

From jellyfish to miso ramen, Japan has some of the most bizarre ice cream flavors in the world, but a frozen treat that’s supposed to replicate the texture and smell of soft cat and dog paws is a bit too much, even for the Land of the Rising Sun.

Japan’s longstanding fascination with cat paws is not exactly new. To many Japanese feline lovers, cat paws smell like nice things (right from caramel crepes, to wheat and sunflowers) and their soft, smooth texture is considered mysteriously soothing. Cat paws are so popular that a couple of years ago, a company came out with a hand-cream that not only left the users’ hands as smooth to the touch as a cat’s paw, but also made their skin smell like it too. But now, the organizers of the 2017 Japan Pet Fair, are taking this obsession one step further with two unique ice creams designed to have the texture and flavor of cat and dog paws.

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Honk Kong Supermarket Sells Individually-Packaged Strawberries for $22

Looking for an original Valentine’s Day gift? How about a special Kotoka strawberry hand-picked in Japan that comes pre-packed in a special gift box? It’s said to be very tasty, and it only costs $22.

City’super, a supermarket chain in Hong Kong, has come under fire recently for selling what many have called “the most expensive strawberry in the world”. Priced at 168 HK dollars a piece, these Kokota strawberries are apparently hand-picked to ensure that only the finest specimens hit the market, and flown in from Japan. They come individually packaged in plastic-covered paper boxes, complete with a straw nest and Styrofoam “sock”, to emphasize their exclusivity. Photos of the ridiculously expensive “designer fruits” have been doing the rounds on social media in Hong Kong and mainland China, with most people declaring themselves appalled by the display of decadence.

The supermarket, which advertises itself as a “mega lifestyle specialty store”, has responded to the negative feedback by saying that the retail prices of its products are based on a number of factors, including purchase price, transport costs, market conditions and product exclusivity. City’super representatives also added that the supermarket was merely trying to offer “more choices of premium fresh produce to Hong Kong customers”, and that the Kotoka strawberries were intended as special Valentine’s Day Gifts. After all, who doesn’t find a $22 strawberry romantic.

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Virginia Brewery Creates Oreo-Flavored Beer

Virginia-based  brewery the Veil Brewing Company has taken the dessert beer category to a whole new level with its innovative “Hornswoggler” brew, a a chocolate milk stout aged on hundreds of pounds of Oreo cookies that even has icing chunks in it.

They say Oreos go best with milk, but the guys at the Veil Brewing Company apparently decided prove that beer works too. And they hit it out of the park. After launching the Oreo-flavored brew on January 24, the 64 cases available sold out almost instantly. The company then sold what little they had left as on-draft at the brewery, in Scott’s Addition, Richmond. That didn’t last very long either, and now the brewery is getting bombarded with questions about the next batch.

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Pop-Up Restaurant in Finland Lacks Kitchen, Lets You Order from Other Restaurants

The “Take In” restaurant in Helsinki, Finland, is currently in the news for its ingenious service. Instead of cooking the meals in its own kitchen – which doesn’t exist – it allows patrons to order various dishes from a selection of 20 other restaurants in the city.

Sponsored by American Express and Wolt, a popular food delivery app, Take In is a pop-up restaurant that opened at the beginning of November 2016, and will run through April 2, this year. As you’ve probably already guessed, the name “Take In” is a clever play on words, as in take-out eaten in a restaurant. It sounds like a dumb concept, I know, after all, the whole point of ordering take-out is to avoid going to a restaurant, and if you’re going to dress up to go out, you might as well go straight to your favorite restaurant instead of ordering food from it somewhere else. But here’s the idea behind it – when you go out with a group of friends and you can’t decided where to go for dinner, because everyone wants to order something else, Take In is the perfect solution. You can have a pizza, while your buddies enjoy Japanese, Chinese or even a gourmet burger.

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New York Restaurant Serves $2,000 Pizza Covered in Edible 24K Gold

Pizza has long been regarded as the food of the people; It’s cheap, easy to make and tastes amazing. But that doesn’t apply to all pizzas. For example, a restaurant in New York City serves a pizza that only the 1% can afford. It’s priced at $2,000 and comes covered in strips of edible 24K gold.

The Industry Kitchen restaurant in New York’s South Street Seaport was inspired by the nearby Financial District, which attracts the wealthy from all over the world, to create the “epitome of decadence” pizza. It’s officially called ‘the fance’za’, but epitome of decadence sounds much more appropriate. This outrageously expensive treat consists of a black pie made with squid ink, Stilton cheese imported from England, Foie Gras and truffles from France, Ossetra caviar harvested from the Caspian Sea, edible flowers, and lost of edible 24K gold strips and flakes from Ecuador.

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Swiss Company Creates Chocolate That Makes Menstruation More Comfortable

In an effort to make women’s period more comfortable, Swiss confiseur Marc Widmer has come up with a special chocolate that he claims can ease cramps and has a calming effect on consumers.

Called Frauenmond (German for “women’s moon”), the Swiss chocolate created by Widmer’s company, Chocolate with Love, contains 60% cocoa and 17 different herbs from the Swiss mountains. Widmer, a famous pastry chef with loads of experience at top hotels in Switzerland, says he came up with the idea for Frauenmond three years ago, after meeting a peasant family from Grafenort who brewed a tea to alleviate female period symptoms, from the same 17 plants he uses. Interestingly, their tea was also called Frauenmond.

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This Man Gets Paid $4,000 for Slicing a Leg of Spanish Cured Ham

Florencio Sanchidrián has been slicing Iberian ham (jamon) for the last three decades and today his name is synonymous with the Spanish delicacy. The 55-year-old is regarded as the world’s best ham slicer in the world, and he charges accordingly for his services – a reported $4,000 to slice a leg of ham.

Born in the city of Avila, Spain, Sanchidrián trained as a professional bullfighter in his youth, but eventually put his red cape away and moved to Barcelona to work as a waiter. One day, he started cutting ham and simply fell in love with it. He started taking jamon slicing courses, and before long, he was winning slicing competitions as well as national and international awards. Florencio is now known as an ambassador of Iberian ham around the world, and he tours the five continents “with a leg of ham under his arm” at least once or twice a year.

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Tokyo Restaurant Will pay You $438 if You Can Eat This Giant Bowl of Ramen in 20 Minutes

If you love ramen and want to get paid for eating lots of it, I suggest visiting the Umakara Ramen Hyouri restaurant, in Tokyo, Japan. They will pay a cool 50,000 yen ($438) to anyone who finishes their giant bowl of delicious ramen in under 20 minutes, Easy money, right?

Well, they don’t call these things eating challenges for nothing, so it’s definitely not a walk in the park. In fact, in the three years since the Japanese restaurant introduced the challenge, only nine people have managed to finish the gargantuan dish in the allotted time. Legend has it that they didn’t eat for a week afterwards and never spoke the word “ramen” again. Nine is not that many, but at least it’s doable right? And here’s an extra incentive: if you think that 20 minutes is just not long enough to gobble this delicious monster, Umakara Ramen Hyouri is also willing to pay $236 to whoever manages to eat it all in 30 minutes.

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