I didn't want to do it...but it's the truth

I recently found out a new bakery was coming to an empty shop near me- like 5 minutes away near. I was super excited to check it out, I had dreams of it becoming a place to frequent, of my baby growing up getting treats there every so often. Of it being the awesome neighborhood bakery I've been hoping to find. They offer breakfast pastries, cookies, bars, cupcakes, cakes, dipped chocolates, and some other stuff. There's a cute back story to how the bakery came to be, too.
When I walked in with my baby in her carseat, I found it to be cute. I liked the color scheme a lot. As I was checking out the goods, I had a hard time deciding what to get, but settled on a lemon cupcake and a dipped chocolate. I took them home to enjoy there.

Well, they were ok. The cupcake was smaller than I was expecting, and tasted like something you'd get at the grocery store-not something I consider to be 'gourmet', and definitely not worth what I paid (I don't remember the price). The whole purpose in buying is to have something better than what I can make myself, right? The chocolate was ok, but I've had better.
I don't know if I'll go back. I'm a little curious about the breakfast pastries, but it'll probably be awhile, if ever, before that'll be happening.

I don't like writing bad reviews, it makes me sad and feel bad. I can only hope the owners don't read this (which, let's be honest, they probably don't.).

Cannoli

Cannoli, I'd never had it before this year and now I love it, when it's made right.
I've tried it from 3 different places, and surprisingly, my favorite was from the first place I went. It had the best flavor filling with the best consistency, and the shell wasn't soggy at all.
I tried Cannoli from Kneaders, Buca di Beppo, and The Chocolate.
Kneaders had soggy shell and no chocolate chips in the filling, it didn't have as good of flavor. Buca di Beppo was ok, but the filling wasn't the right consistency.
The Chocolate I went to was in Orem (I posted about it earlier), but they have a new location in West Jordan, way closer to me. I'll have to check them out again when I want to splurge!

Elizabeth's English Bakery and Tea Shop

I've been wanting to go to this particular place for awhile, but I finally got to go today with my husband and baby. It was so cute inside, had Queen Elizabeth on the walls, and British pastries and meat pies in the display cases. It's located at 575 S 700 E in Salt Lake City.
My husband got a ginger cookie, chocolate crisp and strawberry jam tart. I tried a bite of each, and they were all super good. I got a blueberry lemon tart and a chocolate fairy cake. They were both way good. I'm so excited to come back to this place to try more things!
Sadly, I left my camera in the car, so I don't have any pictures, but the fruit on the tarts looked so perfect and pretty that I almost thought they were fake!

4

I went to the Cocoa Bean for a 4th time with my niece last week, it was our last hurrah for the summer since we moved out of my in-laws house, and they're still there until their house is finished. I'm gonna miss my chat time with her, it was fun hearing about her friends and relating to some of her teenager situations.

As per my usual, I got the cocoa bean cocoa frappe (delicious as always) and 6 cupcakes (which I cut up and shared, I'm not a piggy!)Better Than Whatever, Death By Chocolate, Vanilla Vanilla
Grasshopper, Butterfinger, Snickerdoodle

The Better Than Whatever has chocolate cake with sweetened condensed milk under the vanilla buttercream frosting and Heath bar crumbles on top. It was very moist and VERY sweet.
The Death By Chocolate confused me. I thought there'd be more to it than just chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, it was good, but I was a little disappointed there wasn't ganache or chocolate chips or something in it.
The Vanilla and Grasshopper I've already posted about, so I'll skip them.
The Butterfinger was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and Butterfinger crumbles on top. You'd think that wouldn't give it enough Butterfinger flavor, but it did, it was yummy.
The Snickerdoodle had a cinnamon/vanilla cake with frosting reminiscent of the Mexican Chocolate cupcake (only it was vanilla and cinnamon), and reminded me very much of it's name-sake cookie.

There are a few more flavors I'd love to try, but I probably won't be able to visit again for a while, so until then I'll have to find another place to frequent (which shouldn't be too hard!).

The Chocolate

I forgot to post about this when I went, I was too busy writing about my first trip to the Cocoa Bean. On that same day, my friend and I went to a place called The Chocolate. Now, with a name like that you would assume they'd make specialty chocolates and truffles and things like that, but no. It's a bakery. A uniqueish bakery. Random first impression when walking into the cafe: wow, what a low doorknob. Seriously, the doorknob was WAY low. Then the first smell you get when you walk inside...not baked goods, but old mothball lady smell (to be fair it IS a really old building). They have cute little set ups in different rooms so you can sit and chat with friends whilst enjoying your goodies, but we didn't take advantage, we were full from cupcakes, and it seemed like too much indulging to get treats there too and consume them (along with it being a bit pricey). I did buy a cannoli though, since I've never had one before and had been randomly craving them since I was pregnant, plus they looked yummy (and had a chocolate drizzle on top with crushed pistachios on the ends).Since I don't have anything to compare it with, I'll just say it was really good and had the perfect ratio of creme filling to crispy shell to chocolate. I'm planning on trying more cannolis in the future so I can know where to get the best ones.

Cocoa Bean revisited

Since my last posting, I've been to the Cocoa Bean 2 more times with one of my nieces. She fell in love with it too, especially the drinks. She got the Love Potion Frappe both times, it tastes like chocolate covered strawberries, so good. I got the cocoa bean chocolate once more, and just tried the Mint Truffle. It was ok, but I wasn't a huge fan, I mean if I'm gonna ingest the calories, they've gotta REALLY be worth it, you know?

I really wish I knew how to make one of these frappes at home though, I want them way more than I should, and way more often than I want to drive to Provo for.
On the first trip I got these (sorry the pic isn't the best):Love Potion with pink frosting, Coconut Lime with green frosting and Ultimate Brownie.Love Potion is so good, I've already stated that in an earlier post, the Coconut Lime was... ok, and the Ultimate Brownie was delicious!
The Coconut Lime was Lime cake with Coconut frosting. The frosting MADE the cupcake, the cake alone was sorta bizarre tasting, though not awful. If you got a good ratio of frosting to cupcake it was really good.
The Ultimate Brownie is brownie with cheesecake cake and mini marshmallows and chocolate frosting on top. I'm not a cheesecake person usually, but this was an awesome cupcake!

On my most recent trip I got these:

Madagascar Vanilla Vanilla, Mexican Chocolate and Grasshopper.

I didn't eat the Vanilla one, though I had a crumb and taste of frosting, VERY vanilla and very sweet, another one of my nieces said it was the best though, she really enjoyed it.
The Mexican Chocolate was good. Mexican Chocolate, as I understand, is chocolate with cinnamon. It had a very warm flavor, I don't know how else to describe it. I really enjoyed it, and it was a pretty chocolate cupcake with ganache and cinnamon/vanilla frosting sprinkled with shiny mini chocolate chips on top. The only downside was the weirdish dry feel in your mouth when you've had cinnamon, but it wasn't strong. I tasted most of the cinnamon in the frosting, but it wasn't overpowering, it was just right.
The Grasshopper was yummy, though I did scrape a little frosting off, it seemed to be too much for me. For those who don't know, grasshopper is a mint chocolate flavor. This had chocolate cake with mint frosting. It was really good, I believe it had a bit of ganache under the frosting, which I wouldn't have minded more of.

I was hoping to get more followers, but maybe in time that will happen (providing I post more often).

That's all for now.

DQ

I had to post about this because so far, it's my favorite ice cream treat, and with it being summer, we ALL are into ice cream, right?
It's the Midnight Truffle Blizzard at Dairy Queen, and it's a chocolate lover's heaven. Vanilla soft serve, mixed with fudge so it's chocolate ice cream, with fudge swirls and truffle pieces throughout. It makes my mouth happy, even if I do have to exercise a little extra to eat it. I think I crave it more than once a week, but I don't give in, luckily for my waistline.

I'm really interested in gelato, I've never had it before and heard it's super yummy, and since we moved I've found 2 shops pretty close to us and I can't wait to try them out to find out which one's best. Stay tuned.

Let me know what your favorite ice cream treat is and where you got it, and maybe some suggestions of places to check out for ice cream/gelato/frozen custard (mmm, Nielson's Frozen Custard!)