“It looks and tastes like an apple but has the skin and texture of a pear, and is a member of the pear family… Marks and Spencer says the fruit – dubbed a ‘papple’ – looks and tastes like an apple but has the skin and texture of a pear, and is a member of the pear family. It is being referred to as T109 until its official name is decided, a spokeswoman said. M&S fruit expert Shazad Rehman said: “This is one of the most exciting new varieties of fruit we have seen for several years. “We know our customers like to try new and interesting fruit and we hope this will be something they will really enjoy.” w/ photo

“Weighing more than two stone and crammed with over 40 different cuts of meat, this carnivore’s dream has been dubbed the world’s meatiest sandwich. The monster meat masterpiece took attentive chef Tristan Welch over four hours to create to mark the launch of reality TV programmer Man vs Food Nation on Food Network UK. Standing at a colossal 1.2ft high and spanning 24 inches wide, it’s estimated that it would take anyone hungry enough to take on the challenge over 10 hours to devour.” w/ photos

“Knock knock, who’s there? It’s the skins, let ‘em innnnnn. Delocated! started it’s third season this month on Adult Swim and it’s just as hilarious as ever. This week, Jon became obsessed with potato skins after buying a skins bar. He made all sorts of skins, Italian skins, Chinese skins, Greek skins, Mexican skins, but the one I was most interested in was the 6ft party skin. I’m sure the one on the show was just a prop, but I was instantly intrigued and excited to try and make one for real.” w/ photos + videos

“It always makes me happy when I can think of a new way to present the classic Italian flavors that I grew up with. I have had the idea to try and stuff rigatoni and make a baked dish that almost resembled mini cannelloni or manicotti for a very long time. The reason I haven’t made it was because I knew I needed to have the right person to help out and make this dish perfect. We finally got together this week, and the pasta came out great!” w/ photos

“With the world’s largest furniture fair about to begin, designers Ryosuke Fukusada and Rui Pereira ask “Do we still have an appetite for all this furniture?”… Using the same molding technique we created a new typology of object and at the same time a new tradition… “You can create your eatable living room and paint you furniture cakes with your favorite jams and toppings. In this way when the user gets full of his furniture he just eats it without creating disposals. And start all over again with a different recipe.” w/ photos

“What I love about wafflecakes is that they combine everything that I love about both pancakes and waffles while at the same time getting rid of everything I dislike. They’re crisp like waffles, you can butter them evenly and if you have a waffle cone maker you can make them in a minute and a half each without having to worry about flipping them! How awesome is that? If you’re fine with waffles and pancakes the way they are feel free to completely disregard this entire blog post, but from here on out I’m sticking with wafflecakes!” w/ photos

“Chocolate-lovers need look no further for a place to pay homage to their favorite treat after chocolatiers created a mouth-watering edible sculpture of an ancient Mayan temple. Chocolatiers have broken the world record for the largest chocolate sculpture after building a replica of the Kukulcan pyramid based in Chichen Itza in Mexico weighing an incredible 18,239lb – the equivalent of two adult elephants. It smashes the previous record for the world’s largest chocolate creation set in Italy in 2010 which weighed just 10,736.5lb. The mouth-watering six feet tall creation is 10ft by 10ft wide and took 400 hours for staff at Qzina Specialty Foods in Irvine, California, to make.” w/ photos

“The extravagant ice cream, listed as the Guinness Book of World Records’ most expensive dessert, costs a staggering $1000 and is covered in 23-carat gold leaf. So special is this sundae that customers eager to sample its delights must ring in their orders two days in advance to allow time for the rare ingredients to be flown in from around the world. According to Barcroft Media, around 50 people a year stop by to sample the unique flavour of the Opulence Sundae, often to mark special occasions such as anniversaries, graduation celebrations and sweet sixteen birthdays. Made from the finest Tahitian Vanilla ice cream infused with Madagascar Vanilla to intensify the flavor, the decadent dessert is then wrapped in edible gold leaf.” w/ photos

“Hi, I made this incredibly hard to eat dessert for you… good luck!” — kijijiallin

“A salty provision can really go a long way on a hot spring day in the city. Luckily I had these pretzels around my neck to keep me going… I attempted dog tags on the right but they didn’t exactly come out great, and the big circle was supposed to be some sort of a medallion. I need more patience. Also, if you can properly pronounce ‘pretzlaces’ after a few beers, you’re a better man than I.” w/ photos

“It was made by Charm City Cakes for a wedding and no Nazis were harmed in it’s procurement. It did not melt any faces either. I don’t know about you, but I would risk being melted just to get a slice of this cake. Just look at that golden delicious biblical confection. I bet it holds the ten commandments of geekdom within it’s sugary insides.” w/ photos

“Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a taco on a bun, but unless you hollow out the bun a little bit you’re always going to come across the same problem you have when eating a sloppy joe, which is that you can never actually keep enough of the meat inside the bun to give you a decent bun to toppings ratio. I think from now on I’ll just stick to keeping my taco filling inside a shell rather than on a bun since that seems to work a lot better – except, of course, when you’re eating a hard shell taco and you take a bite only to have the shell break apart and everything fall out anyway. That’s the worst…” w/ photos

“Overall I was pretty pleased with how my lasagna burger turned out. The patty ended up weighing in at a little over a pound, which might have been a bit excessive, but then again it had to be long enough to fit on the hoagie roll. I mean, I guess I could have just eaten half of the burger and saved the other half for later, but where’s the fun in that?” w/ photos

“All in all this ended up being one of the most enjoyable blogging experiences I’ve had thus far. It was crazy how many times Qdoba customers stopped us to ask questions like ‘what IS that!?’ while the quesadilla was in the process of being made and then again as they saw us eating it. I think it’d be hilarious if Qdoba ended up adding this as some sort of limited time only special menu item or eating challenge, but until then it looks like you’re out of luck if you want your own seven layer quesadilla from them. I guess you could always buy seven regular quesadillas and stack them on top of one another, but at $6.99 per quesadilla that could be a bit pricey. If you REALLY wanted one though I’m sure they’d be willing to cut you some kind of deal on it.” w/ photos

“EpicMealTime ain’t got nothing on this fool from the far, far east!”

“Well, I have a chicken recipe for you today. It’s not fried chicken, but it’s still crispy and delicious. It’s made with Cheez-It crackers! And it not only tastes great, it’s easy to make, it only has four ingredients, and it’s kid-friendly to boot. I just love it when a recipe has everything going for it, and this one definitely does.” w/ photos

“Now, the popcorn chicken part of this thing is easy. You can get popcorn chicken pretty much anywhere. The tricky part is cooking your waffle perfectly. As you can imagine, waffle cone makers aren’t exactly made to be used with actual waffle batter, so I ran into a couple problems. The main problem is that if the waffle batter is too thick or if you cook it for too long your waffle will break apart when you try rolling it into a cone… Once you finally make the perfect waffle cone, fill it with popcorn chicken and drizzle it with syrup it’s quite a treat. This is another one of those foods that I can totally imagine vendors selling at state fairs all over the country this summer.” w/ photos

“My fruit-loving friends, we have an abundance of fruity options. The now-ubiquitous kiwi is often overlooked. We want something newer, flashier, with more bling!… Baby kiwis are a cousin of the larger kiwi, and are about the size of a grape, or a grape tomato. Imported from Chile in early March, from New Zealand in mid-March to April, or domestically from California or Oregon growers in September to mid-October, you’ll find these in the produce section, in a 6-ounce clamshell package for about $3.50.” w/ photos

“It took a group of five dough punchers to complete the bread and butter challenge and set a new Guinness World Record. The traditional Easter treat, which contained over 145lbs of flour, weighed a whopping 26 stone and measured a gigantic 7ft 10ins when completed. It was equivalent in weight to that of 2300 regular-sized hot cross buns. The event took place at Greenhalghs bakery in Bolton, Greater Manchester, where it took ten people to carry the baked treat into a custom-made oven. Manager Stuart Hartlebury, 43, said: ‘We made it in the traditional way, using all the traditional ingredients but the hard part was rolling it out. ‘Making the bun was most enjoyable and to achieve the world record is quite an achievement. ‘I feel fortunate to have participated in making it and I’m very proud. ‘It has been a big effort from everyone at Greenhalghs bakery, so we’re all really pleased.” w/ photos

“The term ‘French toast’ implies that the pieces of bread are dipped in egg before frying. Although the sides of my bread looked like they were battered, the top and bottom halves of the bread that faced outward from my burger clearly weren’t and were simply grilled instead. Maybe they only battered one side of each piece of bread and those two sides just happened to be facing inward, but I definitely wouldn’t call what I got ‘French toast.’ Again, the burger itself was good, but if I had simply ordered the French toast as my meal I would have been extremely disappointed with it. The one other good thing I’ll say about the French Toast Burger from Hamburger Mary’s is that it wasn’t anywhere near as disappointing as the egg sandwich that Curt ordered or the egg, spinach and feta cheese scrambler that my wife chose. The scrambler was completely tasteless and the amount of feta mixed in with the eggs was sparse at best. Then again, their menu did only describe the amount of feta in the scrambler as ‘a bit,’ so maybe the fact that there was barely any of it at all is the norm.” w/ photos

“Footage of the world’s longest Shish Kebab, which measured a staggering 11-foot.”

“I cannot take credit for this but we use a great Italian bakery at work and my boss requested they make the giant cannoli’s as a great way to present the minis. This looked so good on the buffet. I wonder what they used as a cannoli tube for the large ones?” w/ photos

“An astronaut has teamed up with experimental food scientists and a space nutrition expert to devise a menu for space tourists. Helen Sharman worked with the Robin Collective and Professor Brian Ratcliffe on the project, as part of National Science and Engineering Week. The space menu takes into account the need to boost antioxidants to combat radiation and the fact that tastebuds are dulled so flavors have to be stronger. Ms Sharman said: “Like the best works of science fiction, the menu includes wonderful flights of fancy but raises the key challenges facing chefs catering for leisure travelers leaving Earth’s orbit… The menu includes Amoon Bouche – some of the strongest cheese ever made; Take Off Tortilla – which prevents crumbs floating in zero gravity; Mars Breakfast Bar – a dehydrated breakfast bar; and Pot Roast a Pollo – a space age pot noodle based on a full Sunday roast dinner.” w/ photo

“The squares of deep fried lasagna turned out WAY larger than I originally envisioned them in my head, but overall they ended up looking pretty awesome, and on top of that they tasted delicious. If I made them again though I’d probably try stuffing some small pasta shells with the meat and cheese instead and then battering and deep frying those, just to turn the deep friend lasagna into more of a hand held snack instead of the larger squares that I ended up with.” w/ photos

“This is EXTREMELY hard to masturbate to.” — chinaser121

“It tastes out of this world…”

“I had some leftover sweet potato tater tots (which Carl thinks, and I agree, should be called sweet po-tater tots) that we weren’t going to eat. I should have figured that if we weren’t impressed with them, then covering them in chocolate might not be an improvement. But one can’t always predict such things.” w/ photo

“Long story short, my grilled cheese turned out awesome and the wonton wrappers were a nice substitute for bread. With grilled cheese sandwiches I sometimes feel like unless I add three or four pieces of cheese all I’m really eating is two pieces of fried bread, but thanks to the thinness of the wontons the flavor of the cheese comes though way easier. On top of that, this is actually a pretty decent light alternative to a regular grilled cheese sandwich. You know, if you’re into that whole eating healthy thing.” w/ photos

“For the deep fried beer cheese soup I pretty much just followed the exact same procedure that I used when I made deep fried Baconnaise. This process consisted of spooning the soup into an ice cube tray, freezing it overnight and then wrapping the frozen cubes in wonton wrappers and tossing them into my deep fryer. As expected, the deep fried beer cheese soup tasted delicious, but biting into the cubes was a little messy.” w/ photos

“I wanted to come up with a recipe that could be prepared a little more quickly and easily, and I think I’ve done just that with my Reuben Mac & Cheese. I mean, Reuben sandwiches on their own are great, and macaroni and cheese is great, so why not combine the two? So, with that I claimed Swiss as my cheese for this year’s blog and got to work combining it with some pasta, corned beef, sauerkraut and a few other ingredients to create my Reuben macaroni and cheese. And what better way to serve it than inside of a giant loaf of hollowed out rye bread?” w/ photos