Thursday, April 28, 2011

Shaved Ice

Four of the team member from Wilmington came to my work site for trainning. Every time when upper managements come to visit, my boss would take them out for dinner but never really invite research associates like me (since it can be costly especially with big appetite people like me). This time though, he inivited the whole group. We went to a Korean BBQ place in Santa Clara and ended the night with 4 giant bowl of shaved ice next door. My eyes glittered and mouth salivate at the site of the beautiful mountain of dessert.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Starbucks Cake Pops

Long time no blog! I'd been gone from this blog for a while, but I still been eating out a lot as well as cooking and baking much more now.

Anyhow, I'll try to update more now that I'm back. So a month ago, I found out Starbucks came out with a line of small dessert bites, which includes whoopie pies, lemon squares, mini cupcakes and cake pops. I'd been wanting to make cake pop for awhile so I was excited to find out Starbucks have some. I decided to go and get some to try.

Cake pops are cake crumbled up together and binded together again by frosting. They are rolled into a ball and pinned onto a lollipop stick. Then they are dipped into chocolate.

The first Starbucks I went to was sold out completely for the day. Geez, is it really that good? So I got even more excited and decided to go to another one nearby to see if they have any. Now Starbucks offers three flavors for these delightful looking treats--birthday cake, tiramisu and rocky road. By the time I got in line, I noticed that the store I went to only has two flavors left, birthday cake and tiramisu. I was totally fine with it because those two are exactly what I wanted. I asked the cashier which one she prefers and she said "the birthday cake one is the most popoular and my favorite". So I got one of that and the tiramisu as well since I looovvve tiramisu. I was so eager to try it, but I waited until I get home so I can snap some picture first.
After a few pictures, I took a bite of the birthday cake one. Boy, I was disappointed. Maybe the tiramisu one would taste better...took a bite of it and yuck, it was gross as well. They tasted nothing like what they were supposed to be. The birthday cake one tasted like mush of something that is not cake. The tiramisu was just straight up coffee...where is the mascapone flavor? Oh yes, they are super duper diabetically sweet. I guess that is perfect to go with black coffee; but still, what if someone eat that with say a caramel latte?

Sadly, I left the remainning pops on the counter, refused to take another bite. The chocolate was rubbery. I mean it, rubbery! You take a bite, and the texture is like rubber. You don't get that crunch from harden chocolate like say a truffle or those that covered a ice cream bar. Also, the cake was mushed so badly with the frosting that you cannot taste them distinguishly. Birthday cake did not even taste like vanilla, and tiramisu is just straight up coffee even though a tiramisu cake supposes to consist of lady fingers, coffee, rum and mascapone cheese.
I would never buy them again.