Thursday, December 20, 2007

New York City Dessert Reviews; Part Two; Vegan Treats Edition!

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

The dessert dissection continues! Many New Yorkers will tell you, there's no shortage of places to consume goods from Vegan Treats. Luckily, I took the opportunity to try a plethora of their sweets & the range of rating may be a surprise to you!

Once again, I'll keep it short & simple with excerpts directly from my notes & a star rating between 1 and 5. Be sure to check out Anatomy of a Dessert Review, so you can understand my process & the meaning of the ratings you see here.

Peanut Butter Bomb Brownie- A delicious peanut butter mousse, chocolate shell, & peanut butter drizzle a top a dense brownie, not for the faint of heart, this is dessert is intense! Peanut Butter Bomb is a specialty of Vegan Treats & you'll find it on cakes & cupcakes as well! 4 stars

Pumpkin Cake- This cake is nicely spiced & addictive, I enjoyed the frosting & found myself repeatedly going back for “one more bite". 3 ¾ stars

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake- Sometimes people agree to disagree. I liked the textured chocolate & peanut butter topping, but disliked the bland, gelatinous peanut butter layer & Ryan felt the opposite! Sure, this worked out well for us, but neither of us were bowled over by this dessert. 2 ½ stars

Brownie Cheesecake- At first bite, this is a dense dessert. After digging in, I found the brownie layer to be nice, but the cheesecake portion to be a bit bland for my taste. 2 ½ stars

Lemon Cupcake- The texture of the cake was chewy & lacking lemon flavor, luckily the frosting was quite nice, but not enough to make me love this dessert. 2 stars

Hazelnut Cake- While it has a nice fluffy hazelnut frosting & tasty fudgy center filling, I found the chocolate cake to be dry & flavorless. I would give this another try, it could be better on delivery day. 3 ½ stars (I was lucky enough to share this slice with my fellow jet setting blogger, Bazu from Where's the Revolution!)

Boston Crème Donut- Ooh, lovely fluffy donut with delicious chocolate icing! Unfortunately, I found the crème filling to be a bit strange & salty. 3 ½ stars

Oreo Cookie Donut- This has a nice cream filling, but the donut & topping seem to be lacking. Can I have the Boston donut filled with Oreo cream, please?! 3 stars

Cinnamon Roll- I found this to be a bit too dense & lacking that soft gooey center people expect of cinnamon rolls. The icing was almost cream cheese-like & while I enjoyed it, Ryan thought there was far too much of it. 3 stars

Lemon-Lime Cake- A nicely flavored lime cake, but texturally it's bit dense & chewy. The lemon & lime frostings were both fluffy & delicious! 3 ½ stars

Death by Chocolate Cake- This is no joke; chocolate cake with 3 different types of filling, all held in by chocolate ganache! The cake is clearly a catalyst for all of the other components, when it’s fresh, it’s good & moist, although not particularly flavorful, a day or two later, it’s dry. That being said, all of the fillings are delicious & flavorful & help to keep the cake moist. The ganache outer shell is nice as well, although not the star here. 4 ½ stars

Overall, I was impressed by the confections Vegan Treats has to offer. They're obviously made with care & the flavors are diverse & exciting. Best of all, they look fabulous, so anyone, vegan or not, would be attracted to them!

Check out the Vegan Treats myspace page for locations!
For more photos of the Vegan Treats I tried, check out my Flickr.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, how did you even eat all of that? Did you make several trips? Also, I like how you give 3/4s of a star, like on Star Search.

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

chocolate is not my favorite thing but dang, that death by chocolate cake looks rockin!

Calimaryn said...

So much chocolate, so little stomach room. If I did not procrastinate so, I would totally try to make a Death by Chocolate cake for the holidays. That looks unbelievably good.

Thank you so much for the review! And the beautiful pictures! Amazing.

Vegan_Noodle said...

And once again, you have me desperately wanting chocolate at 9am. How did you even go through all those desserts in one visit!! All in the name of science I suppose :-)
Can we expect a similar review of the vegan sweets in San Fran? Hope so!

Cakespy said...

DAMN! I am heading to NYC / NJ for my holiday blitz later today...you have definitely given me some new ideas! That lemon cupcake was so cute, too bad it wasn't as good tasting as it looked!

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

okay, seriously, that Peanut Butter Bomb Brownie is KILLING me - ahh!! and I don't even eat chocolate!! :0D

eek, the "cheesecake" was gelatinous?? doesn't sound very vegan-friendly, haha.

Sam said...

I would kill for that peanut butter bomb. Well, maybe not kill, but I would knock down innocent bystanders to get a bite of it!

Anonymous said...

ok, so, a couple years ago i had the good fortune to go to both atlas cafe in ny and vegan treats in pennsylvania. the stuff at the actual bakery (which is cute as hell) was soo much better. the boston creme donuts in bethlehem were amazing. they don't age well, and i'd imagine the pastries sold at atlas are at least a day old...

bazu said...

It's not even 8 in the morning, and you have me craving sweets! I want that peanut butter bomb- I love the PB mousse that vegan treats makes...

I have a (pretty blurry) picture of that hazelnut cake we shared! http://flickr.com/photos/bzms/1895970303/in/set-72157594396776574/

It was so good seeing you last night!

Natalie said...

Dang...Death by Chocolate looks killer, no pun intended! That adorable little lemon cupcake wasn't tasty? That would make me cry, I think. I'm going to check out Molly's Cupcakes tomorrow, it was ion Cupcakes Tkaae the Cake yesterday.They got some good Yelp reviews and one straight nasty one.

Emilie said...

DAMn. Those look amazing. The peanut butter bomb brownie is especially intriguing. I really really want to try that sometime!

urban vegan said...

I adore Vegan Treats...we have them in a few locations here in Philly and I think I've tried--and enjoyed--everythign they make. My favorites are the PB Bombe, Oreo Cake and their cinnamon sticky buns.

Unknown said...

awesome! now I know where to look when I finally get to visit NYC.

Anna said...

Wow, NYC looks like vegan dessert heaven! Being able to get desserts while out and about is one of the things I miss most since going vegan. There aren't too many available here! Perhaps one day we will catch up...

Banana-head Pancake said...

Wow, delicious. Where did you find the Peanut Butter Bomb in nyc? I only know Vegan Treats at Red Bamboo and my fave is definitely the Strawberry Shortcake.

Anonymous said...

you never seize to amaze me, melisser! they all look dangerously fabulous :) happy holidays!

Ashasarala said...

I am quite jealous. What I wouldn't give to travel from restaurant to restaurant to taste test all the fabulous vegan desserts! But my rating system wouldn't be fair because anything that has a ton of sugar gets a five in my book.

Anonymous said...

Dessert review? A woman after my own heart!

You left a comment on my blog about putting liquid-y chili in stuffed cornbread, and while the batter is pretty thick and can stand a little liquid, I would say drain it a bit.

julie hasson said...

Love reading your dessert reviews Melisser. I just wish I could have been there taste testing with you. Everything looks so good.

When I was in DC recently, I had an awesome vanilla cake at Sticky Fingers Bakery. If only I could get that recipe.

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

You're so lucky-- Vegan Treats are soooo delicious!

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

katie- It was multiple trips! I'm sugar crazy, but I'm not suicidal.

ppVegan- It WAS rockin'! I need to make a version of it.

calimaryn- Thank you! You should totally tackle a Death by Chocolate cake in the future.

Amanda- I didn't do them all in one visit, it was over 2 weeks! hehe. Sadly, there's no treats to review in San Francisco!

cakespy- Thanks for stopping by! I had high hopes for the lemon cake, sadly they were dashed!

veggiegirl- The bomb is all about the peanut butter mousse! Yeah, the cheesecake was a very strange texture to me.

Sam- It's worth knocking down a few folks!

Sugar Crash- You know, it's so frustrating the way a cafe will keep a baked good for far too long. I tried to take that in to account, as I can tell VT makes killer baked goods. I hope to have the chance to visit the storefront in the near future.

bazu- Don't you always crave sweets? I know I do!

Natalie- The Death by Chocolate is seriously good. I should come to Chicago & well make our own.

Emilie- Head to NYC or Bethlehem PA, you need PB bombs! hehe.

urbanvegan- I want to try the goods at the bakery, I'm sure they're awesome there!

Celine- Let's go to NYC together, hehe!

Veganista- It *is* nice, when the desserts are good. Sadly, where I live doesn't have many vegan dessert options that taste good.

Banana-head Pancake- Check out Atlas Cafe for the largest selection of Vegan Treats. Cake Shop on the LES has them as well.

stonielove- Happy Holidays to you too!

Ashasarala- It's always a treat to try new goodies! I'm sure you wouldn't rate them *all* a 5!

Rachel- Thanks for stopping by & thank you for the cornbread-chili info!

Julie- I wish you had been there with me as well! I'd love to try some of YOUR desserts. I need to check out Sticky Fingers someday, I had forgotten about them!

CCVegan- They are quite good! I wish we had them where I live (or maybe it's for the best that we don't)!

Anonymous said...

woah. that death by chocolate cake looks amazing. i want to try that.

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

kristen- You need to try it, it was awesome!

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