It's Food Related...Kinda.

One of my favorite trashy shows is Bridezillas on WE. It's basically a reality show of Brides who've gone completely bonkers trying to plan their "big" day. I think I love it because as insane as life makes me, I'd never act the way these ladies do. But gosh darn it, sometimes I really wish I could let go and just go bonkers too!

I've watched many episodes over the years but his is perhaps the best scene I've ever seen and yes it does involve food ;)

Enjoy!

Sweet Boston Or Why My Customers Rock!

I have a fairly large sweet tooth or as one friend use to often say about me, "Leah has a high tolerance for butter, salt and sugar. It's like a holy trinity for me :)

I, of course, love anything cute and packaged well. So it comes, probably, as no surprise that I adore cupcakes. They remind me of being 8 years old and the days when I was invited to backyard birthday parties. They make me think of carefree days and how wonderful my childhood truly was. I was a very happy kid. Or maybe they are a close enough approximation of my childhood nickname, "Muffin". Apparently my Dad called me that ("Peach" came later) because I was cute, small and warm.

So when I had heard about a new cupcake place opening up in the city, I got really excited. But given my ever expanding waistline and my crazy work schedule chances were good I wasn't going to get a chance to try it out anytime soon. Bummer, but oh well.

Lucky for me, I have wonderful store customers and a dear, dear, dear one came by when I wasn't in the store and left cupcakes from Sweet for us to try. I did try and share them with the one staff person on with me today but she claimed to have an upset tummy, oh well...I did try, right? ;)

The box for the cupcakes was clever. It was sized perfectly for the goodies but it was reminiscent of a happy meal box. The shape was familiar and fun to carry but it was super cool with the plain brown cardboard that I felt kinda cool swinging it along as I walked home.



The cupcakes were small compared to the others I've had at places like the Buttery in the South End. The Buttery cucpakes are so huge that four of these minis would make one entire Buttery monster.

The presentation of the cupcakes was cute and they looked very polished. The frosting was piped out and the final touches dainty and tasteful. I think I got a box with: vanilla, chocolate, carrot cake and mocha (or maybe spice cake).


The cupcakes had waited two days in my fridge before I got a chance to sample them. So they were a bit dry. I have to say, I'm not sure when it became such an issue keeping cupcakes moist. It seems to be a refrain I hear a lot about cupcake places in the area. I remember as a kid always having moist cupcakes. I do think we use to put a bit of oil in the batter but still. A bit of canola in the batter might keep these cupcakes from getting too dry over time. I think it's hard to always buy bakery goodies the day you need them i.e. planning treats for someone's birthday so being able to keep cake and have it taste good even a day after purchase is important, well, I think it's be important at least.

Back to the cupcakes. I like the size quite a bit. They were the small perfect three bite treat. I like the frosting on all of them quite a bit. It wasn't a heavy overly buttery frosting. The vanilla frosting even with it's specks of vanilla reminded me of duncan hines can frosting and that's not a bad thing. I didn't like that the carrot cake cupcake had a vanilla frosting. I like cream cheese with my carrot cake and was disappointed that they didn't do a cream cheese one for the carrot cake.

Overall, I liked the favors a lot and even dry they were nice cupcakes. I like the vanilla the best because the flavor was sweet and very simple. The spice cake or maybe mocha cake one just kinda confused me and the chocolate one was a bit too milk chocolate-y for me. I tend to like my chocolate dark. But make no mistake, I eat every single crumb :) Like I said before, I liked them!

It was a nice treat and such a wonderful surprise to receive from a Jean Therapy customer. I'm so blessed to have such sweet store patrons!

Tatte Cookies

For this month's Daring Baker Challenge, I had to get XXX at Trader's Joe. On my walk back from the C-line train, I saw that a new bakery had gone into an old bakery space. The old bakery was fairly good. But they kept really strange hours and were starting to look a little run down.

The new bakery had taken the space and made it over in raw wood, fresh paint and outside patio seating. Nice! I had to stop in and check it out. Especially since I wouldn't have a bakery to visit once inside my 'hood, grrr!

I went in and all the goodies were laid out so nicely. I did notice that most of the stuff seemed very nut oriented and I do mean nut! The tarts and pies were piled file with cashews, pistachios, hazelnuts and silvered almonds. And the individual treats seemed very brioche oriented. Plain, chocolate, halva, poppy seed, savory brioches, you get the idea. It was late in the day around 6pm so perhaps all the other stuff had been taken but I was surprised not to find a single fruit tart or cookie in the bunch.

I went ahead and bought to types of brioche to try. I tried the halva and the chocolate brioche. The brioche was buttery and yeasty, clearly expertly made but the execution of both was a little bit clumsy.

The chocolate brioche had a hard chunk of chocolate at the very buttom on it's center. Hmm, it was almost like a jelly donut but not quite. The hard little lump did nothing to make the brioche anymore tasty. It would have been better if the chocolate had been either chunked up or grated into the already risen dough and baked. The halva made the other brioche gummy and sticky. And I mean really gummy and sticky. The halva flavor made it almost taste like a peanut butter brioche. It was like brioche taffy. To get the flavor of halva they could have used sesame seeds and honey instead of using the halva candy.

I like the place well enough to give it a shot again. I'd like to sit outside and enjoy some coffee and a nice afternoon treat but I think next time it will need to be only if I see anything there without nuts or brioche.

Tatte Cookies