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.

Anatomy of a Dessert Review.

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

From time to time you’ll see reviews of desserts I’ve consumed while on the road. To fully understand my ratings on desserts, I thought I should give you a view in to my process for tasting baked goods & what I believe makes a high quality item. Anyone who’s been on a tasting with me can tell you, I move slowly, love to discuss every detail, & often I take notes!

When tasting a dessert, I like to taste each component on its own, be it the cake, frosting, filling, etc. I note the flavor profile, the depth, & texture of each section; I then taste the item as a whole to see how everything works together. In my opinion, the perfect dessert needs to be delicious as separate components, but also work together to be a truly outstanding treat. I find my scrutiny is especially intense with cakes, as many times a portion will be too dry or lacking in flavor, while the other portion is perfectly fine or even good. In baked goods, I like depth of flavor, but not too dense & moistness with a bit of fluffiness. I like rich & decadent, I’m not afraid of triple chocolate or a sugary sweet buttercream. I also enjoy fruit flavors, sharp & tangy, smooth & creamy, although I do tend to gravitate towards a cake versus a pie or a crumble versus a tart!

While in New York City, I had the chance to sample desserts everyday. I plan to review them all over the course of a few posts & have decided to employ a rating system of 1 to 5 stars. Rating systems vary vastly from person to person, so here’s some insight in to mine!

5 stars- Wonderful! Craveable! These are the items my dreams are made of & they dance in my head whenever that sugar craving sets in!
4 stars- Delicious, something I’d recommend to others & would consume again.
3 stars- A nice dessert item, not spectacular, but solid; I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat this again, but probably wouldn’t turn it down either.
2 stars- Flawed & lacking in multiple facets, not something I’d consume again & would advise others against.
1 star- Inedible & just downright BAD. These are the items that make people think vegan food is “weird” or “gross”; they should be outlawed!

I hope you enjoyed a look in to the madness of my mind. Stay tuned for my upcoming New York City dessert reviews, as well as future thoughts on confections around the globe!