September « 2008 « I Heart Dessert

Archive for September, 2008

Sweet Shop

September 28th, 2008

Just found these cute new items at Shana Logic. And here’s the offer code for 10% off your purchase: indie.

Glass Candy Corn Earrings – $12, For all the candy corn lovers!

Chinese Take-out Necklace – $18, This necklace is so cute and just makes me laugh when I see it. It’s kind of hard to see with the white background, but the fortune cookie has a little white fortune paper coming out of it too. It’s all about the details!

Cupcake Love Necklace – $10, Cupcake + Sparkles = Awesome

Oreo Cookie Necklace – $15, Mmmm oreos.

Cupcake Hat – $35, Wow! A cupcake beanie! Love it.

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Dean & DeLuca Fall 2008

September 21st, 2008

Yay! I just got the new Dean & DeLuca Fall Catalog. They have a lot of new items, especially for Halloween. As always, Dean & DeLuca have the most mouth-watering pictures…here are some of the ones that have caught my eye:

Fall Cupcakes – 9 for $55, Three each of Pumpkin with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing, Cinnamon with Mayan Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Vanilla with Vanilla Frosting.

Pumpkin Truffles – $36, These truffles are filled with white chocolate ganache with a hint of nutmeg and wrapped in dark chocolate. The flavor sounds so interesting!

Caramel Apples – $48, I love caramel apples and nothing says Halloween quite like these caramel & chocolate dipped ones.

Pumpkin Cake – $120, This cake is too cute! It has six layers of vanilla spiced cake with praline butter cream and also a layer of chocolate fudge.

Apple Crate Cake – $200, This cake is almost unrecognizable! It really looks like a crate with apples inside. No wonder it costs so much.

Green Tea Truffles – $42, The color of these green tea truffles definitely caught my eye.

Chocolate of the Month – $180-$720, I’ve heard of monthly wine clubs, monthly coffee clubs, even monthly fruit clubs, but a Chocolate of the month program is definitely something new and more my style. You now have the opportunity to try a new assortment of chocolates each month and have them delivered right to your doorstep. There’s a 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month program.

The Ultimate Chocolate Truffle: La Madeleine Au Truffle -$350, The description says its a “1 oz. fresh tuber melanosporum dipped in a dark chocolate ganache“. Ok, I know what you guys are asking…what is a tuber melanosporum? Well, that’s just the scientific name for a Black Truffle. And it’s not to be confused with chocolate truffles. Although in this case this Truffle is in a way a chocolate truffle, more like a chocolate truffle truffle. Anyway, Black Truffles are those very expensive fungi found in France by specially trained pigs or dogs. I’m not sure how you would even eat this ultimate truffle, just bite into it? And I’m also curious about the taste…I like chocolate truffles and I like Black truffles in dishes, but the two together seems like a pretty odd combination.

Posted in dessert, shopping | 2 Comments

Kean Coffee & SusieCakes

September 20th, 2008

I finally got to Kean Coffee today! I’ve been wanting to go to Kean Coffee for a few weeks now after reading all the positive reviews about it on Yelp. My friend told me he tried it for the first time yesterday, so I decided to take a trip there today and I also dragged my friend back there, but he didn’t mind since he claimed that the coffee was “really good”. The place was packed and super busy, but I guess that’s just a good sign that people really like the place.

I ordered a Caffe Napoli Latte (hazelnut & white chocolate flavor), which was one of their house specialties. My latte was filled to the brim in a big white coffee cup and I was pleasantly surprised by the lovely latte art in the foam. Apparently, latte art is done by all the barristas and it is their signature finishing touch. I’m a sucker for details! Anyway, my latte was just the way I liked it…sweet and not too strong.

I’m not an avid coffee drinker, so usually coffee for me is pretty much coffee flavored milk with a lot of sugar haha. I must be a pretty weak coffee drinker, because after I had my latte the caffeine was hitting me hard and I was really jittery. Overall, I really liked Kean Coffee and its nice to know there’s a coffee place that takes pride in making a great cup of joe.

To my delight, there was a bakery called SusieCakes right next to Kean Coffee! Of course, I had to stop by and check it out. SusieCakes is very reminiscent of Sprinkles, even down to the font of their store name. They had a large assortment of cakes, cupcakes, dessert bars, and other goodies. Right when I entered the store, there was a tray with samples for their 6-layer Chocolate Fudge Cake (very yummy by the way). It’s always a plus to get samples!

I settled for the Red Velvet Cupcake which was $3, which is 25 cents less than Sprinkles, but I noticed that the cupcake was a tad smaller, so I guess it evens out to be the same. The cupcake was really good, moist, and not crumbly at all. I’m sorry Sprinkles, but I think SusieCakes takes the cake for this one. There was one thing that I didn’t like and that was the consistency of the frosting. The frosting had good flavor, but it was quite goopy. Getting the cupcake out of the bag was a big mess since the frosting was just too sticky and melted, so it got all over my hands. I think that frosting needs to have a thicker consistency, so that it actually stays on the cupcake and won’t fall off as you’re trying to eat it.

Despite the frosting fiasco, SusieCakes is definitely one of my favorite cupcake shops now. But, don’t get me wrong, Sprinkles still has a place in my heart and it will still be my go to cupcake shop since SusieCakes is a little out of the way for those last minute cupcake cravings.

Caffe Napoli – I love latte art.

Coffee & Cupcakes are a great combo

From far away you’d think it would say “Sprinkles”…

Inside SusieCakes

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Birthday Indulgences

September 15th, 2008

Yesterday was my birthday and the entire week leading up to it, was just filled with stress. I was stressed out planning a joint birthday party that we didn’t really pull together until the very last minute, but in the end it all worked out and on top of that I had some weird ailment which was a combination of sinus/ear pressure and ear/headaches…on a side note I felt like my head was going to explode on Saturday when I was driving to the mountains and the elevation just heightened the pressure and pain even more. Anyway, I’m much better now (Sudafed and Advil are my best friends) and I was able to celebrate my birthday yesterday the way I like it…lots of sweets, food, and shopping! I totally overindulged yesterday, but hey what’s a birthday without forgetting about everything and just enjoying life, right? So, yesterday I started off my day with a Starbucks Java Chip Frappucino and as I was standing in line, I happened to notice this cute pink cupcake staring back at me in the pastry display, it had birthday cupcake written all over it, so I bought it haha. Sometime during the day, I also had a piece of my large Mrs. Fields Cookie that a friend gave me, by this time I was already on a sugar overload. Dinner was definitely my favorite part of the day, my boyfriend and I went to this restaurant called Savannah, its a “contemporary American restaurant featuring regional cooking with a Southern accent”. One word: delicious. We started off with the Maine Lobster and Crayfish Bisque, which was really good and it came with a side of these freshly fried garlic potato chips, definitely my favorite part of the dish. You have to dip the chip in the bisque, it’s a must. Next, for our entrees we both ordered the Prime Colorado Rack of Lamb. It came with a side of Savannah potatoes, asparagus, & a sweet garlic jam. I love lamb, and this was definitely one of the best I’ve ever tried. AMAZING! Just perfectly cooked and seasoned. On to the next best part of dinner…dessert! We ordered a hot Scharffen Berger Chocolate Souffle which was baked to order. The presentation was nice, they brought the souffle to our table, scooped out a little hole, poured hot chocolate sauce inside, then a dollop of freshly whipped cream, and then one more pour of the chocolate sauce. It was rich, but so so good! I wish I could have eaten more of it, but the lamb had filled me up. So, that was the end of my wonderful overindulgent birthday…can’t wait until next year!

Birthday Cupcake

Giant Mrs. Fields Cookie

Lobster & Crayfish Bisque

Bisque with a side of garlic chips

BEST lamb ever.

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Souffle – chocolate heaven!

Posted in dessert, food, life | 1 Comment

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

September 6th, 2008

So, the other day I made ice cream for the very first time. My cousin has an ice cream maker and always raves about how he makes really good ice cream, so I said, “Let’s make some!”. I was really excited and we got all got the ingredients to make cookies n’ cream ice cream. My cousin told me about the very easy 3-2-1 recipe he uses…3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups heavy cream, and 1 cup of milk, plus 2 tsp. vanilla and about 6 crushed Oreos. So, step one was to combine the 3-2-1 ingredients and vanilla, but, we made one fatal flaw…we added the crushed Oreos to the liquid mixture as well. My cousin being the so-called ice cream expert that he is, totally forgot about the important fact that you shouldn’t add the cookies until the very end when the ice cream mix is already in it’s last stage of freezing in the ice cream maker. Of course, this was my first time so I had no idea and just went along with it. So, what happens when you add the Oreos in the beginning instead of at the end? Well, you end up with grey cookies n’ cream flavored ice cream, with no oreo pieces to be found anywhere. Sad day. Well we learned our lesson, and we will never ever make that mistake again! For those of you who want to make cookies n’ cream ice cream the right way, here’s the recipe:

Cookies n’ Cream Ice Cream (3-2-1 recipe)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla
6 crushed oreos

Directions:
1. Combine the sugar, cream, milk, and vanilla in a bowl or pitcher(this makes it easier to pour).
2. Pour the liquid mixture into your ice cream maker and follow your ice cream maker directions
3. Mix in the crushed Oreos during the last stage of freezing
4. Then just follow the rest of your ice cream maker directions

Crushed Oreos