Wednesday, October 26, 2011

San Francisco Likes Cupcakes

So today is day 6 of my return from Europe.  It's probably also about day 6 of FAILING at going back to eating healthy.  (Random fact; i don't eat carbs during the week lol.  Which explains my bingey weekends now, huh?)

Why did i fail today?  Because on my lunch, i ran out to do some errands.

And i walked by and saw this.


 And I continued to walk about half way down the block before  i stopped and realized what it was that i saw. Cupkates.  I had heard of them, but had never come across them.


So i did what any normal person would do.  I stared at the truck for a few minutes trying to make sure that my eyes were not deceiving me.  But nope.  Those were cuppycakes staring at me.


 It took forever for me to decide on a flavor.  They had seven and i could only justify one!  :(  I wish i had a partner in crime in the FiDi for these things.


Finally, I settled on Salted Caramel.  And took pictures of it outside the steps on Market Street. I would add "like a weirdo" at the end of the sentence, but i think SF is used to much worse.


I actually waited until after lunch to eat it.  And OMG IT WAS SO GOOD.  >.<  Hands down the best chocolate cake recipe in a cupcake i have tasted.  I want to break into Cupkate Headquarters and steal the recipe!  It was super moist and delicious.  And the butter cream was not over whelming or chalk full of butter.  A much better recipe than Kara's.


I stalked them online a little and found out that they have actually started setting up down the street from me every Friday.  So i may have to go back....

xoxo,
Anna

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Europeans Don't Like Cupcakes

So before I left on my (awesome) European vacation I decided it would be really awesome if i had cupcakes in every country that i went to. 

One small problem with my plan.  EUROPEANS DON'T LOVE CUPCAKES LIKE I DO.  :(   I only found them in one place -- London.  And that was by sheer coincidence.  So instead of a post full of cupcakes, you will get a post full of European pastries and sweets that i shoved down my throat.  And oh man, did i eat a lot of everything.   

London, England
The first (and eventually last) stop on our journey was in London.  We went shopping (and by that i mean window shopping because the dollar is crap) at Oxford Circle and i saw this adorable little stand when we wandered into Top Shop.  So we bought three mini ones and ate them that night with some cider, haha.  They were yummies.  And this is the point in the trip where i got all excited and thought that id be eating lots and lots of cuppycakes. 





Amsterdam, Netherlands
This is the point in the trip that i realized there would not be lots and lots of cupcakes.  They arent big on cupcakes, they are big on waffles.  Seriously.

I googled cupcakes shops and found two.  One we went to was not a cupcake shop.  The second we never found and I made us waste time.  -.-   So that's when i decided to just eat any pastry i could find instead lol.

They actually have a ton of shops like this; half pastry half ... pizza?  Strange i know.  But walking around we tons dozens of shops like these.  They were adorable.  I tried some special waffle cookie but was not impressed.  Don't tell them that though.





St. Goar, Germany
Since Amsterdam crushed my dreams, as soon as we got into Germany I bought this muffin in a cup.  LOL. muffin cake?  It wasn't very good.   Nor was the desert we had at dinner...  This was actually the theme of my time in Germany, to be frank =x.




Munich, Germany
There were no sweets here.  :(  Just salt.  Lots of meat and salt.  The closest thing that i had was a giant pretzel as big as my head.  No joke.


Hopfgarten, Austria 
No sweets there.  :(

Venice, Italy
I love, love, love this city.  It's gorgeous. It was my first taste of Italy.  And their espresso, and their gellato... and of course the pastries.





Rome, Italy
I don't even know what this was.  It was superrrrr light and delicious.  It was almost like cheese cake but not.  I wanted to find the cook and ask him what the recipe for their sauce was though, cuz it was amazing.


But this was the hands down best gelato that i had in Italy.  They put whipped cream in the middle.  >.<  To die for.


Florence, Italy
Napolean ice cream cake!  Full disclosure:  So drunk that i don't even remember if this was good or not.  Good old wine....  This gelato was just all right.  Tiramisu.  Should have stuck with something more sweet!




Lucerne, Switzerland
I had some kind of nutty cinnamon roll in Switzerland.  They called it Schnecke.  Switzerland felt a bit like Ikea though.  I am not sure why.  




Paris, France
My oh my.  I can say that you have lot lived until you have had a chocolate croissant (pan au chocolate) until you have had one in France.  I will pay 2k just to fly back one day and eat them 24/7.

I didn't get to eat a crepe, which made me sad.  But i had macaroons.  And bread. We bought a baguette and made fools of ourselves. Don't judge.











Writing this post has made me sad.  I want to go back and eat all the things again!

xoxo,
Anna

P.S.  I might have gained like 8 lbs on this trip. LOL.  Now you know why.