Heart Cookies from "The Sweet Tooth Fairy"
Seventy million Americans celebrated Valentine’s Day in a restaurant last year, according to National Restaurant Association statistics. Although nationally, close to 63% of restaurants feature a special Valentine’s Day menu or add-on service, Magleby’s, a well-known Utah county restaurant, does not.
“From over 30 years of experience with Valentine’s Day,” said Magleby employee Richard Parkinson, “we’ve discovered that it’s best to keep things simple.”
Parkinson said their Springville restaurant averages about 200 customers on a regular day. On Valentine’s Day that number soars to between 800 and 1,000.
Magleby’s customers can expect to find the standard favorites on the Valentine’s Day menu, including their fresh halibut and famous chocolate cake. Although the restaurant does not share its recipes, Parkinson did say that one of the secrets to creating the trademark cake is butter. No shortening, margarine or other form of fat is used in the cake or frosting.
Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah, http://www.thanksgivingpoint.com/calendar/events/valentine_dance/ValentineDinnerDance.html offers a Valentine’s Day dinner and dance, a tradition begun in 2003. Along with dinner, the cost of the evening includes a live band, a candy station and a photo booth. “A lot of our guests come every year,” said event planner , “so I feel like our dinner dance has become a tradition for most couples who attend.”
The dinner menu includes a double entrée of grilled New York Steak with herb butter and pan seared chicken breast with Marsala cream, served with buttered spaghetti squash, baby carrots, and Yukon gold mashed potatoes.
Executive Chef Jason Merryweather shared the recipe for “Seasonal Mixed Greens with Orange Pomegranate Vinaigrette, also on the Valentine’s dinner menu.
Seasonal Mixed Greens with Orange Pomegranate Vinaigrette
Orange Pomegranate Vinaigrette
- 1/2 c. sugar
- 1/2 c. water
- 6 oz. pomegranate juice
- Juice from one orange
- 8 oz. vegetable oil
- Zest from 2 oranges
- Salt and pepper
Place sugar and water in small sauce pot. Heat over medium-high heat and make simple syrup. When sugar is dissolved and mixture comes to a boil, add pomegranate and orange juices. Reduce mixture by one-fourth. Remove from the stove, place liquid in a mixing bowl and cool. Add orange zest. Wisk in vegetable oil slowly and season with salt and pepper.
Mixed Greens
- 8 oz. mixed greens
- 2 fuji apples, cut into quarters, seeded and sliced
- 1 fresh pomegranate, peeled, seeds reserved
- 2 oranges, peeled and sectioned
- 4 oz. bleu cheese (Maytag or buttermilk bleu)
- 1/2 toasted pecans.
Combine all ingredients and toss with vinaigrette. Divide into 4 to 6 servings.
For those who would prefer chocolate for dinner, The Sweet Tooth Fairy http://www.thesweettoothfairy.com/Locations.aspx might be just the place they are looking for. Along with a variety of cupcakes, truffles and cakebites, the Utah-based company owned by Megan Brown is offering a special sugar cookie kit in February.
“There’s nothing quite as nostalgic as a sugar cookie,” Brown said in a recent interview. She said frosting sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day is a childhood memory she wants to create for her four children.
For those who would like the tradition without the mess, “we’re selling Valentine Sugar Cookie kits,” Brown said, “so you can celebrate the artist within you and make fun and lasting memories with those you love.”
Brown shared the recipe for “Valentine’s Day Trifle” — one of her favorite Valentine’s Day foods.
Valentine’s Day Trifle
Red Velvet Cake mix, plus ingredients to make it (eggs, oil, water)
1 (12 oz) container of frozen whipped topping (such as Cool Whip), thawed
1 (8 oz) container sour cream
1 (3.4 oz) box of unprepared chocolate pudding mix
2 cups sliced strawberries
1 can of whipped cream (such as Reddi-wip)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (you can use white chocolate, milk chocolate, semisweet chocolate chips, or even chopped chocolate bars, or chocolate curls)
1. Prepare cake as directed on box. Allow to cool and cut cake into about 30 1″ squares.
2. In a bowl, fold the sour cream and unprepared pudding mix into the thawed whipped topping. Set aside.
3. Line a large trifle dish with 1/3 of the cake pieces. Spread on a layer of chocolate pudding mixture. Add a layer of strawberries. Repeat layers 2 times smoothing out the top layer of chocolate pudding mixture on top. Top with strawberries, and a light sprinkling of chocolate chips.
Homemade food traditions will also highlight Valentine’s Day for the Meredith and Nathan Simpson family of Alpine, Utah.
Valentine’s Day will begin with breakfast. Meredith said her three young daughters will love the breakfast she plans to serve: pink heart-shaped pancakes smothered with unofficial Magleby’s buttermilk syrup, whipped cream and sprinkles. A raspberry or strawberry (think pink) yogurt smoothie will top it off.
Although Magleby’s does not share its buttermilk syrup recipe, an unofficial recipe found on many Internet food blogs is pretty close to the original, according to Magleby’s employee, Richard Parkinson.
Before they were married, Meredith turned her parents’ basement family room into a “Café Love” — complete with a small, round, candlelit table for two and walls featuring photos of her and her husband-to-be, Nathan.
The menu featured a delivered heart-shaped pizza along with a 7-layer bean dip and chips. Meredith said the memory will be celebrated by including a heart-shaped pizza in this year’s Valentine’s Day dinner menu.
As far as dessert goes, Meredith highly recommends The Sweet Tooth Fairy. “They have the best cupcakes ever,” Meredith said. “The cupcake to frosting ratio is perfect. They are hands-down the best cupcakes in Utah, or anywhere else for that matter. The cakebites are “to-die-for.”
Imitation Magleby’s Buttermilk Syrup
Ingredients
1 cube butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. corn syrup
½ tsp. baking soda
Instructions:
Bring first five ingredients to a boil in a fairly deep, heavy cooking pot. Add baking soda. Boil 10 seconds and remove from heat immediately to avoid boil over.
A version of this story was published in the Deseret News , both online and in print (Deseret News on Feb 8th, 2012, Section C, Page 3).