Dunkin' Donuts: Big Dunk Chocolate Chocolate Kreme

I was surprised to see Dunkin's new huge donuts for P20. The Boston Kreme looked attractive but since I don't like bavarian cream much, I opted for the Chocolate Chocolate Kreme donut. Why two chocolates? Because the dough, aside from the filling, is chocolate, too!

Verdict? Bleagh. Dry, dry, dry and tasteless dough. Kreme's the usual high transfat, low chocolate flavor stuff you've always found inside.

No wonder I only like the Choco Wacko and Black Raspberry Filled donuts!

Durian Jam

A friend from Davao kindly gave me a bottle of Durian World jam. It's not as intensely durian-y as I would like. Perhaps it's made from hybrid durian instead of the native sort? I like the bitter notes and intense durian taste of the native variety as opposed to the Thai imports or hybrid varieties.

Aside from spooning the jam directly into my mouth and using it as a spread for bread, I like to use it to flavor a cup of brewed coffee. Add some non-dairy creamer and you have the cheap man's version of Blu-Gre's durian coffee!

I tried mixing it in to flavor plain yogurt but I don't care much for the effect. Durian jam and yogurt don't seem to go as well as yogurt with bananas or mangoes or even strawberry preserves from Baguio.

I'll try this one of these days

The Coffee Beanery presents:

The Orange Place Hotel-Kamias, (26 Kamias Road, West Kamias, Quezon City) 425-1398
Monday to Sunday 10am-9pm

The Orange Place Hotel-Santolan, (312 Santolan Road, cor. J.Abad Santos, San Juan, Metro Manila) 726-6712
Monday to Sunday 10am-9pm

West Avenue Branch (158 JL Fortune Promenade Bldg.,West Avenue, Quezon City) 4070308
Saturday 11am-12mn
Sunday and weekdays 11am-11pm

Today the available cakes are Devil's food cake, Chocolate caramel and Swiss Alps* at Kamias. And at West Avenue instead of the last, it's Double chocolate cake.

Does anyone know if the coffee and/or cake is good? With so much chocolate cake you're gonna have to take your coffee black.

Will report back if I ever do get to eat here.

* Have you been wondering what sort of cake Swiss Alps is? It's been bugging me so after a long, tedious search, I see this archived paragraph from BusinessWorld in 2001:
"Cravings Sweet temptations for August include Swiss Alps, a light sponge cake covered with white chocolate in alternate layers of black and white chocolate peaks. Available at Cravings branches in Katipunan Ave., Wilson St., Greenhills, Edsa Shangri-La Plaza Mall, Robinsons Place Ermita, Robinsons Galleria and Greenbelt Mall."

Double Flushing

Are people generally unaware that fresh water is scarce and must be conserved?

I hate it when you leave a toilet stall after flushing the toilet bowl and the next one right after you goes in and flushes it before doing her business. It's just been flushed for goodness' sake. What is wrong with you?!

Tea with powdered juice?

Drinking hot tea with lemon juice or other sour citrus juice is pretty common.
I wonder if anyone has ever tried hot tea with powdered juice? No need to add sugar since powdered juice already has lots of it!
One of these days I'm gonna try this even if the hot water would destroy the Vit. C in the juice.

Crepe for cake

Last night I wanted privacy to read a long document. I went to a food strip intending to try Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf's pistachio sans rival which I had been curious about for so long. Unfortunately, it wasn't available and neither was My Little Oscar at Figaro. Starbucks didn't have any cakes I wanted so I decided to have a dessert crepe at Cafe Breton instead. I'd only tried one of their savoury crepes the one time I'd eaten there.

I was planning to try the butter and sugar crepe that I had once read about (it costs only P84+) so it would have been a lot cheaper than the cake I wanted. Then I saw the black cherry preserve and thought it would be a better option.  Desert crepes cost P40 for the crepe plus whatever the sweet stuff cost (I think apples were the cheapest option). However, what I got was a smear of preserves on top and not a filling


The black cherry preserve didn't taste as good as the cherry pie filling used in danishes at French Baker so I was disappointed. Also. they probably use the same batter for sweet and savoury crepes and my crepe tasted faintly of white pepper so it was a bit strange.

I guess I should have splurged on the Chicago cheesecake at CBTL instead. With the 5.5% service charge at Cafe Breton, my cheaper option only saved me around P16 anyway.

Hot Cocoa

I wonder why commercial hot cocoa mixes smell so good? I'm thinking Swiss Miss here since it's the most affordable and the most common one I've tried. Whenever someone else makes a mug, I sniff in envy and even if I make a mug of my cocoa-from-scratch, I have to say it doesn't match. I've tried several hot cocoa recipes (Alton Brown's for example)

Hot chocolate may taste richer but they're a pain to make.

Might as well post the recipe here:

Ingredients

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred)
• 2 1/2 cups powdered milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper, or more to taste
• Hot water

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate evenly. In a small pot, heat 4 to 6 cups of water.

Fill your mug half full with the mixture and pour in hot water. Stir to combine. Seal the rest in an airtight container, keeps indefinitely in the pantry. This also works great with warm milk.

Let's see how this works out! I have a feeling it might turn out to be a microblogging site with short, boring posts and no pictures but who knows? Might as well try it. Many would say it's about time anyway.