Borak's Back with Bombs and Boston Creme

Our buddy Borak made a return appearance to cake hour and brought some goodies from Whole Foods.  This time he went for aesthetics in addition to flavor or so it seems. Included were what would seem to be effort intense concoctions that we called bombs. The yellow one was lemon and the other, well, obviously chocolate.  He also opted for a Boston Creme Pie which everyone should know is not a pie at all but a cake. 

Whole Food Offerings!

Its' a bomb! Were you expecting one?

Triple cake delight!

He scored on all three counts as the bombs, which were filled with the respective flavored mousses, were very good. Who can resist chocolate mousse anyway?  The thick chocolate frosting was great and made for a very chocolate experience. The lemon mousse was covered with a cake layer and then a glaze. How they got the design they made with the cake layer to be so symmetrical must have taken some doing. It sure made it look nice and pretty.

Lemon Bomb! Looks a little like a brain!

Choco-bomb! Pretty ribbon!

Boston Creme wrapped up and ready to go!

 You can't complain about the Boston Cream Pie either. The recipe is great and they likewise made a good attempt to make it as appealing to look at as possible.

Creamy inside!

Lemon mousse inside!

If it weren't for that thin layer of cake it would be gluten free>

We learned of new products that were available for the world of research.  Apparently some people left Corning plastic ware and set up their own business in Shirley, MA of all places. Since Corning plastic lab ware is now stupidly expensive we can't wait to see how much less the locals in MA will end up charging.  Then again there are so many other companies offering this stuff that you have to give credit to the entrepreneurs who decided to found a business making things that a whole host of larger business already make. But if they can do so economically, heck, we'll bu something from them!
We are also checking out the specials for some other lab necessities and some savings. With the cake and the products it was a lovely visit...but for the bit about the bra, oy!

What has this got to do with a bra?

If you're looking for a good cake...

....this is a good cake.  The box, of course, is the clue. We are always expecting something good when it is from Gregg's. This is a cake we have had before though not for awhile. We're not sure what it is called but we think it is Heath Bar Cake or something similar.  It is basically a four layer chocolate cake, with a toffee flavored whipped cream frosting, a crushed chocolate cookie type coating around the edge and the swirls of whipped cream and a pile of crushed Heath Bars on top.

There's that box again!

Hey, good lookinG!

Whipped cream swirls around the wreckage of Heath Bars!

You're probably thinking it's one heavy cake but that's where it surprises. In fact, because the frosting is whipped cream based it is lighter. As you come to expect the cake is very fresh and together with the icing it does not weigh you down.  The toffee flavor and the crushed candy bars adds to the taste and easily makes this a cake you crave more of.

Heath Bar Candy Mountain

It's lighter than it looks!

The cake hour now has standard sizes to offer people named after the constant requests of certain individuals for specific cake sizes.  One can now specify a QG piece, a Mashiko piece, a Lisa piece or a Zoltan.  They range in size from a sliver to a health portion that would satisfy the day's caloric requirements. How about a nice Zoltan slice?

DD for VD and some random Turkish Delights

Just last week we finally featured the ubiquitous Dunkin' Donuts at Cake Hour. This is something that seems painfully obvious but for some reason we've never had DD before.  Little did we imagine that we would be doing it again so quickly.  However as today is Valentine's Day we were treated to festive valentine donuts. These were either in the shape of a heart or were sprinkled with mini-hearts or sprinkles in valentine colors.  How sweet! The sprinkling of the donuts with seasonally colored mini-candies is common and each time the product is referred to as a "festive" donut. So a festive fall donut will have sprinkles that depict fallen leaves and a festive Easter doughnut will have Easter eggs. You get the picture? Hence the heart shaped sprinkles this time around which as you can see folks were eager to bite into.

DD for VD

We were not sure what Oven Toasted Goodness referred to

Festive Valentine Selection

We heart them too!

Vanilla frosted...

...and chocolate frosted by skimpy on the filling!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Something to sink your teeth into!

The big disappointment was that even though many of the hearts shaped donuts were solid. i.e. lacking the donut hole, they were not creme filled. This was very much regretted by the aficionados of creme filled donuts and we might suggest that DD consider tossing in some filling for what we are sure will be the upcoming festive St. Patty's doughnuts.

In addition we just happened to have a random box of Lokum aka "Turkish Delights" hanging around. This one was even marked "finest" and "double roasted pistachio rich!" Was this a step above the Lokum we had previously tried? Not really! The box may have been pistachio rich but each piece was pistachio poor.  This is not what we have come to expect from "Authentic Turkish Delights"!

Only the finest!

Where were they hiding those pistachios?

Misleading label

But they WERE authentic!

This time the carrot cake is from Gregg's...

...so it was certainly something to look forward to. Never mind that this was the third carrot cake in about a month. Who came up with the idea of putting carrots in a cake anyway? It's not like you can taste them.

We love it when we see this box!

Carrot cake, again??

Love the frosting and the walnuts!

It has become a classic, however, and when it is done correctly with the multiple layers, the cream cheese frosting and the walnut garnish it is very good.  The Big T made a great one back during student cake month in 2010.

Lot of layers!

If you look closely you may see a carrot!

This Gregg's version is along those lines. It is big cake with multiple layers and the cream cheese frosting between the layers and slathered on top.  The outside of the cake is not frosted which helps give it the signature look. As usual, being from Gregg's, it was very fresh and hit the spot for those craving cake.

DD Day Arrives

This is New England.  In Braintree, MA  there is DDU. This is Providence where there is the DD Center. You would think that at one point there would have been a DD Day at Cake Hour but somehow it got overlooked.  If you don't know what DD refers to then you haven't been around here very long. (In Germany it is the license plate code for Dresden, but I digress.)

DD for Dresden on a license plate

DD is Dunkin' Donuts which started in New England and can now be found world wide.  We saw them in Prague, London, Paris and hear they are now making their way into China. Up till today, though, they had not been featured or served up at cake hour. Today we fixed that oversight and brought in the doughnuts. DD's motto is 'Time to Make the Donuts" but for us it was time to eat the donuts.

New England's DD

A couple of six packs

The motto!

The person procuring them opted for a selection of some classics but mainly some unusual ones. There was the festive heart shaped donut for upcoming Valentine's Day.  Chocolate Frosted, Vanilla Frosted, Caramel Frosted, a jelly donut and a few other varieties including a chocolate donut filled with sugar creme. We had some debate as to whether this was a reverse Boston creme donut but concluded that the outside should not be dark.

A premium selection

Not a basic doughnut in sight

Frosted and filled finishes!

In the interest of sampling several nobody really opted to eat a whole doughnut. So we cut most of them in half and left them on plates so folks could try different types. Undoubtedly we are probably the only people in history who ate a dozen doughnuts like in such a way. Boy are we losers.

Festive Valentine's Doughnut

Reverse Boston Creme??/

Sugar Creme filling reminiscent of Hostess Cupcakes

Who else would slice up a dozen donuts!

We also discussed President John F. Kennedy's famous speech in Berlin when he said "Ich bin ein Berliner."  This was expressing solidarity with the citizen's of then West Berlin who were living surrounded by Communist East Germany.  The problem is in German when you say you are from a city you drop the definite article. So if he wanted to say I am a Berliner the correct phrase would be "Ich bin Berliner".  By adding the the definite article "ein" he made reference to the other meeting for Berliner which is a fried pastry filled with jam.  So the citizen's of Berlin heard the American President say "I am a jelly doughnut."  Fortunately everyone was gracious enough to get his meaning.

The Berliner President Kennedy was NOT referring to!

PRE VD Cake that was more than it seemed!

We were a little surprised to find that today's homemade offering was a lead in the next week's Valentine's Day celebration. In a delightful gesture one of our grad students baked a cake and decorated it with heart motifs and a personalized message to the LRC.  What a sweet idea! (In more ways than one.)

Festively decorated

Looking good!

Leaning tower of cake!

Watch out for the toothpicks!

Her selection was a classic yellow cake with a classic chocolate frosting. We accept the fact that it was not made totally from scratch as it were, and we certainly are not going to be judgmental here.  As a student who would expect anyone to start from the basics when there are boxed cakes and canned frostings around.  As the effort shows one can create a great cake and be creative in the process.

As a first attempt at a layer cake, upon closer inpsection,one can see that things were a bit askew. It even required some stabilization with tooth picks to prevent and unwanted collapse so you had to watch that you did not end up swallowing one. That did not stop it from tasting good or being very much appreciated.  Still after the pictures were taken, we sort of saw something else in the cake.  Can you see it too?

I think we killed it!