cerealjoe | Entries tagged with gali hunts down cupcakes

The quest continues... abroad. This time it's the Parisian and traveller's edition.

Meet "muffin au chocolat blanc" from a shop on Rue Saint-Dominique. I kind of like that street, I love the whole Invalides area, if I were to go crazy and decide to move to Paris that's where I'd want to live. It's close enough to everything but not full of tourists. But as I say, I'd have to be rather mad to want to move permanently to Paris (and full of money too).

The guy at the shop obviously had seen a lot of people like me, used to the lonely chocolate muffin. Usually there isn't much choice but here, boy oh boy, he rattled off five different kinds of muffins that involved chocolate. I almost wanted to ask what the fruit options were.

In conclusion, that muffin was rather nice. The white chocolate was completely toasted at the top (the big black blob in the photo), it was like getting injected with pure sugar, yes it was a tad too sweet. The inside of the muffin was rather good though. Plenty of large chocolate chunks too!

( now on to the traveller's edition + randomness )

Quand tu te rends à la gare matin et soir, tu commences à te rendre compte de certains trucs... comme le fait que le gars qui a mis au point les bornes de compostage était un crétin.

Franchement, un billet, il n'y a, a priori, que quatre surfaces sur lesquelles il pourrait être composté, on est d'accord, pas vrai? Alors pourquoi doit-on en moyenne insérer le billet 30 fois et le retourner dans tous les sens pour qu'il soit accepté par la machine comme étant dans le bon sens et pour qu'il soit composté?

*insère le billet dans un sens* *ping - mauvais sens, play again*
*retourne billet et insère le billet* *ping - mauvais sens, play again*
bon... plus que deux possibilités
*fait faire un 180° au billet et insère le billet* *ping - mauvais sens, play again*
ah... la loi de Murphy quand tu nous tiens!
*retourne billet et insère la seule face qui n'est pas encore passée par la machine* *ping - mauvais sens, play again*
mais elle est con ou quoi la machine?
*rebelote et on réinsère le billet dans tous les sens* *ping, ping, ping - toujours le mauvais côté*
*retourne le billet, fait faire des 180°, prie au dieux des machine de compostage, fait une petite danse... on ne sais jamais* *tchlack! miracle! compostage du billet*

Ca a un côté jouissif de voir les gens se débattre avec ces machines... car avec mon petit abonnement, qui coûte la peau des fesses, je n'ai rien à composter!

D'ailleurs, si on retire ses billets moins d'une heure avant le départ du train et bah ils sont déjà précompostés! Je crois qu'en fait quelqu'un à la SNCF s'est rendu compte qu'il en fallait du temps pour composter les billets alors pour que les gens ne ratent pas leur train à cause du compostage, et bah ils font ça.

Et sinon il y a aussi la chasse aux bornes de compostage dans les petites gares. C'est que les designers de la SNCF sont aussi doués dans le domaine du positionnement de ces petites bêtes. Dans les petites gares, une borne suffit... alors où peut-on la mettre pour faire chier les gens? Et bah loin, très loin du passage sous-terrain qui mène d'une voie à l'autre! Loin de l'entrée de la gare aussi!

Speaking of trains, the cupcake/muffin hunt continues abroad! Here is a chocolate chip muffin from a place at Gare de Lyon.

Verdict: it wasn't half bad. There was no banana backtaste, it wasn't too sweet, there could have been more chocolate chips... but it was the proper amount of fatty. Yes, the fatter the better. Or something like that.

Dear world,

I hope that you remember all my pay-forward/help-fellow-traveller-in-need karma thing if ever I need some help later on. No really, I think you should.

Lots of love,
Me.

In other news, the hunt for cupcakes continues abroad.

And in other other news, let's learn some local French. Here they use some different words for common things... as shown in the photo below. I suppose this is the equivalent to an "ophtalmologue" but it seems that they also do the work of an "opticien". The other difference that made me giggle was "ordinateur portatif". I don't know why but "portatif" sounds funky, I almost want to use that from now on instead of "portable".

The airport muffin has become a tradition now! This time they didn't have the usual chocolate one but rather an apple/berry one.

I think I'm losing my sense of taste because I couldn't find anything apple related in the way the muffin tasted but there were a lot of berries! And there was no banana back-taste I dread so much!

Once again, the airport muffin did not disappoint but did not impress too much in the constant quest for cupcakes/muffins.

A rather unusual 'Gali hunts down cupcakes (in Helsinki, most of the time)' and a 'Gali is a damn sentimental fool'. I did say before that I wouldn't buy anymore regular store muffins and that was a lie. It was my before-last day in Helsinki, my flat was still full of crap, I had tons of stuff to take to the donation drop-off, tons of recycling and trash to take out and I wanted something sweet. In the end it was a choice between a doughnut, a red berry mini-tarte and some muffins. The muffins won.

And I'm a sentimental fool because those are actually candles from my birthday 'cake' (which was made out of a Nutella jar). I had kept them all this time in those test tube vases I had and it would have been a waste to just dump them.

( 3x2 more photos, muffin and candle review )

I knew that there was a reason why Cafe Carusel was one of my favourite spots in Helsinki for a quiet Saturday morning read! They finally brought the cupcakes back! I already wrote about the cafe here and back then they just had the usual cakes and pulla. This time they had two kinds of cupcakes! I chose the funky dried flowers one.

Doesn't that look great? Basically it was just a small muffin with heavy cream frosting and dried flowers but honestly when is the last time you had that kind of thing? I certainly can't remember my last time...

Surprisingly enough the muffin part did not have a banana aftertaste! And there was some jam inside (see photo under the cut), I couldn't figure out the taste and I had forgotten to read the little tag in my excitement. Obviously it was rather small, like most things in Cafe Carusel. It was the size of a regular Finnish coffee cup and it cost 4 euros. Yeah, 4 euros. Then again, a small sandwich costs almost 7 euros there but you pay for the view and the awesome chairs and for 2.20 euros you get unlimited tea!

( four more photos of cupcakes, books and chairs )

Conclusion: a day later I can still feel the excitement of seeing those cupcakes. Dried flowers on a cupcake beat any of those cute sugar made ones, they actually have much more taste.

I'll definitely be going back there next Saturday (then again, I'm almost always there on Saturday mornings) and I'll keep my fingers crossed for more cupcakes!

This morning I continued my quest for muffins/cupcakes in Helsinki and I headed out to Cafe Carusel. I remember eating a muffin there about two years ago but this time around there were absolutely no muffins in sight. So I opted for a huge pulla and it was really, really, really great!

Now Cafe Carusel is really popular right from the early morning on week-ends, I arrived there at 9 o'clock sharp and there were already people waiting! I suppose it's because only the first thirty people or so can get the comfy leather chairs and tables next to the windows. It was quite lovely, I think it's one of my favourite places in Helsinki. We even once spent mid-summer there because everything else was closed and it was raining and therefore we didn't want to go see the bonfires on the islands close by.

Conclusion: no muffins/cupcakes but amazing place!

Note: the shot of the book I was reading is mainly for

bad_habit, although this one isn't really difficult!

( +7 photos of the walk from Kamppi to Cafe Carusel )

So world, what's up? Has the axis gone a bit wonky these days? No really. Why am I enjoying eating ridiculous amounts of softy food like yogurt and porridge? Why am I considering making some dish involving boiled potatoes when I cannot stand boiled potatoes on most days?

And most importantly why the hell did my ubuntu installation fail? I haven't had something like that happen to me since trying to install fedora years and years ago! All was fine for a bit and then at the end I got this random "installation failed" message. Well up in your butt too!

Right. Even though my porridge and potato problem is not solved yet, I tested another muffin the other day! It was a strawberry jam muffin from the Stockmann bakery. I should point out that's the only thing I bought there during the "crazy days". Yes, it counts, the price sticker had a little yellow smiley face on it and therefore it counts! I'm feeling so much more Finnish already... give me a couple more years and I'll actually buy something more important there and in ten years' time I'll be queuing in from of the shop at 7am.

Anywho, let's look at this muffin.

It was very lovely and moist and the strawberry jam wasn't too sweet but as for the muffin from Cafe Esplanad, there was a banana taste that just wouldn't go away! I bet the banana stuff gives you this moistness or something. Still, I'd rather not taste banana when I'm eating a strawberry muffin, if you catch my drift... sensory overload.

Conclusion: Stockmann bakery - 3.5/5 - because of that banana taste and a bit too greasy for my liking.

I really want to find pretty cupcakes though. Where can they be hiding? I found this cute Easter themed baked good the other day and from far it looked like a cupcake and I was already so happy... but then I came closer and it just ended up being a tartelette kind of thing with a yellow chick on top. So disappointing!

So Helsinki, where the hell do you hide your pretty cupcakes that can be bought? (and hopefully that aren't made by Fazer or some other giant)

Right. Now back to Doctor Who. The Daleks still make me feel uncomfortable. Somehow I'd much rather do other stuff than watch the episode. And maybe later I'll go out for a potato salad.

Gah. This is so weird. What's there to crave in a potato salad? I don't like potato salad, it's usually gross... but man, I'd love to have some right now. Can I just blame Eyjafjallajökull‎ for that? Bad Eyjafjallajökull‎, bad!

(I'm totally naming my next pet that. It will be "Eyja" for short. Eyja is a pretty name.)

Time for more cupcakes/muffins in Helsinki adventures. I think it's only appropriate that I try some at the airport since I seem to visit quite often. I didn't find any cupcakes at the fancier cafe I went to and the wi-fi connection there sucked so I ended up at the main Robert's Coffee.

The muffin was a standard chocolate muffin but I do have to give it some points because it was rather moist and not too sugary. It also greatly amused me that it seems all dishes and cups at the cafes in the airport are Iittala (no that's not a mistake, there are two i's at the start there). I guess it's a good ad for them.

( show of moistness of muffin and coffee cups )

Conclusion about this one: 3/5, it was small and rather bland but it's really passe-partout so I guess that's why they picked such a recipe.

For this third part, I went to a place I rather like in the morning, Cafe Esplanad, mainly because the comfy long tables where you can sit on couches are not taken then.

There was only one kind of muffins but that's ok, those muffins are huge!

As you can tell, the top is covered with chocolate. It's not a thick layer as on the Arnold's muffins and it's not too sugary. The inside was a bit more meh for me... you can clearly tell that there was banana in there. It's not that I don't like bananas but for some reason I associate banana flavour in baked good with underbaked stuff.

It was good otherwise, not too dry, not too moist, not too sugary but still with that banana flavour.

( inside of muffin )

Sure, Cafe Esplanad is a bit expensive, the muffin and a pot of green tea came up to a tad less than 8 euros... but the inside is nice. I highly recommend the back space because you get to see everyone on in the cafe but you can also sit close to the windows and people watch everyone walking on Esplanadi.

( and you can check yourself out in the large mirrors there )

Yep. So I'd say that the Cafe Esplanad muffin was the best so far mainly because of the location.

Part 2 of the "Gali hunts down cupcakes" quest. This was actually done in two parts.

When thinking of bakeries around the Helsinki city center, two come into my mind right away: Frambois (the French bakery with overpriced pains au chocolat and other things, stale most of the time, I'm French I'm sorry it's in my nature to criticize everything...) and Cochon. Now Cochon, I've never been there, mainly because it's really close to Esplanadi and if I'm going to go out for a cup of coffee and some baked stuff, I'm going to go there instead of a cafe inside Forum. So I thought, "heck, let's give this Cochon a chance" and the conclusion is that there are no muffins or cupcakes there. So... Part 2.1: fail. Also, I didn't really like the atmosphere there so I didn't stay and didn't try any of their stuff.

Since I was already in Forum, I went to a place where I knew they had muffins: Arnold's. Basically it's like a small overpriced Starbucks clone that doesn't really resemble Starbucks (there is Robert's coffee and Wayne's coffee for that). They had about four different muffins and I went with the one that sounded like a sugar bomb: Double chocolate (or maybe Double chocolate fudge, can't quite remember).

It was, surprisingly enough, not that sugary. The inside was really lovely, and there were bits of white chocolate fudge inside (see photo below) and the moistness level was good. The chocolate shell was a bit too much for me... it took me two days to finish off the thing.

( pic of the inside )

So overall it wasn't bad at all. I'll give a miss for the moment to the other muffins because things like "Banana fudge" just don't sound appealing. Conclusion of Part 2.2: Arnold's has muffins... they're alright.

I mentioned before my new quest: find the best cupcakes or muffins in Helsinki. I started on it today because the store bought muffins did not really count. Everyone should be really, really proud of me because it's terrible out there, there is tons of wind and snow and it's really cold and I still walked to Bulevardi from Kamppi and back just for this!

I went to Cafe Ekberg on Bulevardi which is a lovely old-style coffee place. It's the first coffee place I went to in Helsinki when I arrived so it seemed to me as a great first outing. Perhaps it was also a bit cheating because I already know their carte and I know what they have to offer.

Conclusion: no cupcakes and no muffins at Cafe Ekberg! The quest continues.

I did spend an hour and a half reading an article on decision making in engineering design, ate a cinnamon bun and drank lovely green tea.

( cinnamon bun and check )

I did not go into the Ekberg bakery even though it's right next door, that will be another installment of the "gali hunts down cupcakes" quest! Arrrggghhh... I don't have a cupcake icon, someone point me to one or something!

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Page Summary

Funnins muffins.
J'ai de ces pensées profondes le matin à la gare...
Still easily amused.
Gali hunts down cupcakes: airport edition II
The hunt for cupcakes: the coffee/toffee edition.
Gali has found proper cupcakes in Helsinki!
Cafe Carusel: no muffins but lots of sunshine.
Hunting down cupcakes during the crazy days!
Cupcake hunt at the airport
Cupcake quest - Part 3
Cupcakes - Part 2
Cupcake quest: Cafe Ekberg

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Where is Gali(nette)?

aka The day we caught the train

Entries tagged with gali hunts down cupcakes

Funnins muffins.

J'ai de ces pensées profondes le matin à la gare...

Still easily amused.

Gali hunts down cupcakes: airport edition II

The hunt for cupcakes: the coffee/toffee edition.

Gali has found proper cupcakes in Helsinki!

Cafe Carusel: no muffins but lots of sunshine.

Hunting down cupcakes during the crazy days!

Cupcake hunt at the airport

Cupcake quest - Part 3

Cupcakes - Part 2

Cupcake quest: Cafe Ekberg