How about that alienation (alliteration?!) ?!
Greetings, Earthlings!
Ivana is currently being held hostage aboard our glorious vesicle of movement. (Yes, we really do mean vesicle). In order to ensure her safe return to your oxygen-laden atmospheres, kindly tell all of your friends to read this blog and leave tons of comments. We do not deem these demands to be unreasonable. If you fail to comply, we will be forced to terminate. What we will be terminating is still to be determined, but rest assured that it will be of tremendous consequence. That is all.
ALIENS!
Oh my – with Ivana currently OOS (out of service), the blog has been left to my care. (Ivana probably already knows this is a big mistake, but she has very low expectations for me, so as long as the blog still exists by the time she gets back, this experiment in autonomy will be a success… :P )
After a VERY long week, it’s time for me to blog about everything that I should have blogged about like ummm… 2 weeks ago? So many colorful apologies (ROYGBIV, anyone???) for my absence from the world-wide web, but it’s ok!
Ooooooooooookkkkkkkkkaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Why, you might ask??
Because dear thedesserter readers à get ready, to go 4 for 4 from 4T4F! That’s right! Not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 4 blog posts in 4 days from 4T4F. In case you’re having trouble understanding, that means I’ll be posting 1 blog post every day for the next 4 days… woah… I guess at least we’ll know why if I’m failing out of school! (Technically, I think I told Ivana I would write 5 posts over 5 days, but 4 fits so much better with the our motif!)
On another note, 4T4F needs to stop watching commercials for automatic trimmers and other assorted kitchen utensils while writing blog posts, or else the next 4 equal payments of $19.95 plus shipping and handling she will be paying will be for a new laptop. (Please note: quality laptops cost more than $79.80 plus S&H.)
But I digress.
On to the foodstuffs.
Sweet in the Back Bay location is a novelty cupcake / cake store (or maybe I should call it a café?) It’s sort of wedged between two brown-colored buildings (very descript, I know…) a few storefronts away from a Chinese restaurant. It’s one of those little places you can easily walk by without even noticing, and that you don’t really know about unless a friend of a friend of a friend went there and told you it was excellent.
And that is how Ivana and I wound up making a snack-stop at Sweet in Back Bay. (Pictures abound on Ivana’s blog post.)
But in all honesty, it wasn’t that excellent.
The inside is quite quaint, and you can get your dessert(s) served on a small round plate with a doily and enjoy it in the comforts of the store’s simple 1950s-esque “this is what an indoor porch would look like” type area, or you can get your dessert(s) to go in a pretty brown box with a ribbon of your choice. There were a lot of unique and diverse cupcake choices you could pick, and the workers were all really patient in waiting for Ivana and I to choose what we wanted (seriously – our combination is fatally indecisive.) For all intents and purposes, Ivana and I left the Sweet with our cupcakes to go completely satisfied with life (or at least with our purchases). But once we got back to Ivana’s room and embarked in what we expected to be an adventure into deliciousness, we were really disappointed.
Here’s why:
~ Macaroon
I decided to start off with the Macaroon cupcake because it looked intimidated by the other cupcakes that had like a good 3 inches of frosting height over it, and it was actually not that bad. Of the 4 cupcakes we got, I would have to say that the Macaroon was the best. The cupcake part could have been a bit lighter, but it was complemented very well by the chocolate frosting on top (I believe Ivana called it a dark chocolate ganache… all of those big cooking words…).
In 4T4F world, chocolate frosting is judged on 2 criteria:
(1) Chocolate-y-ness. I’m the kind of person who pours the entire bag of hot cocoa powder into a cup with minimal water, so all I’m going to say is that if it doesn’t taste like chocolate, it’s probably not chocolate. This was definitely chocolate.
(2) Smile-friendliness. If it sticks to the front of your teeth like an Oreo cookie, the chocolate frosting is doing something wrong. My teeth do not need to be hugged by a brown substance of questionable make-up…. ‘nuff said.
For the Macaroon cupcake, these two criteria were met, and I was happy (for now).
I should also mention that the cupcake was garnished (I don’t think that’s the right word… but at least I tried!) with some coconut shavings that smelled very coconut-y. The coconut-factor was almost overpowering, but a good chocolate frosting can make up for anything, and I suppose in this case, it did.
4T4F Final rating: 4.1 out of 5… note to self: don’t shove the entire cupcake down your mouth next time.
~ Sweet-cake?
This was your typical vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting. Honestly, right when this cupcake hit my tongue, all I could think of was chalk. The cupcake tasted like chalk. (Ask me how I know…) The cupcake part could have been a lot lighter, and I could have done without the powder-y texture. As for the frosting, it wasn’t as sweet as I thought it would be, considering how super-generous they were in dolloping it on top, but it had a very grain-y taste that went through my mouth like chalk in a flower (think about that analogy for a second or four).
Nevertheless, presentation points are in order. There was a lot of detail in this simple, plain white cupcake. There was a round layer of frosting between the cupcake and the frosting mountain that had white sprinkles carefully placed on it, which did not go unnoticed.
4T4F Final Rating: 1/5 (but only because I take effort into account)… I hate to say it, but Betty Crocker does it a lot better.
~ Snickerdoodle
A snickerdoodle cupcake with vanilla-tasting frosting, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. There aren’t very many ways you can go wrong with snickerdoodle. The first time I made cookies from scratch, they were snickerdoodle flavored and they came out really well, considering how my cooking abilities are… limited.
Nevertheless, if there’s one thing I know from this trip, it’s that Sweet can make the simplest things, mess them up, but still wrap them in pretty packages (ok… I’ll admit, that was a bit harsh...). The outside of this cupcake was really hard. I like my cakes soft and moist and fluffy, so I was most assuredly not a fan. The frosting was the same frosting used for the sweet cupcake, but this time, it didn’t taste as chalk-y. I think this was over-powered by the crunchiness of the cinnamon and sugar on top of the cupcake. Pause as I get on my soapbox. Eating cupcakes is not an extreme sport. My teeth do not appreciate the work-out. Seriously.
4T4F Final rating: 1.5 / 5
~ Banana Cream
I hate trying new things, so for me, this chocolate cupcake with banana cream frosting instead of the traditional vanilla was a step outside of the box. I liked the banana chip on top of the frosting, although I felt like it was more for decoration than for actual enjoyment. (Think about those edible figurines you can get on birthday cakes… did you actually think they really meant edible when they printed that on the label? Mmmm…. No.) The chocolate cupcake was really disappointing though, the top was a bit hard, but not as hard as the snickerdoodle cupcake, and the banana cream frosting tasted like this one time when my older brother told me to eat this bowl of “cake batter” ice cream after he had secretly mixed Elmer’s glue into it… It was sort of dough-y and not very banana-y, and altogether quite unpleasant. Finishing the Sweet escapade with his cupcake was a real let-me-down.
4T4F Final Rating; 2/5 and a thanks for playing card.
So here’s the bottom line:
I do not recommend Sweet… not even to my friend of a friend of a friend who wants to spend money on chalky, glue-y cupcakes heaped with 3 inches of frosting…
Now that tirade is over… here is your list of 4 things for today. The rest of this post was on food, so I thought that your 4T4F could be on something fun, and since I saw someone get a speeding ticket while walking to class this morning, here are your 4T4F for Wednesday, March 3, 2010 (To the owner of the Silver Hyundai Sonata with the New Hampshire license plate, this especially is for you):
4 Things to Say When You Are Appealing a Speeding Ticket –
1. Sorry.
2. You were boxed in between a truck and another large vehicle, and you accelerated to get out of a potentially unsafe situation.
3. I’m really sorry.
4. You were trying to prove that not all of you has a terminal velocity of 40 mph.
In all seriousness, please do not drive at excessive speeds above the speed limit. I may not be the most in tune pedestrian, but I don’t like stepping into the crosswalk with an impending sense of doom, and Ivana doesn’t like that people are putting her dessert-buddy in danger.
oh and I know I already listed 4 things, but here’s a 5th one for you all to ruminate over:
5. The Truth?
Happy Eating!
J
-- I thought I would try something new instead of Cheers… but I don’t know how I feel about this one… XD --
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