Costa Coffee…. You Purveyor of Autumnal Cakey Deliciousness!

 

Date: 01/11/12

Background: “Pinch Punch, First of the Month!” Happy November Everybody! With it being half term, it is high time my Mum does her family Christmas shopping, and because Birmingham is a very good place to shop, her and my Pa came and we ventured to hit the town! Coffee time meant Costa, and I simply could not resist this delicious looking muffiny treat!

What: Gingerbread Muffin

Where: Costa Coffee Shop, The Bull Ring, Birmingham

How Much?: £1.80 (To take away is £1.50)

What was Good: It was so cute! Seeing the gingery muffin topped with a sweet caramel fondant and adorable decorative iced gingerbread man, really made me NEED to buy this muffin! I saw it, I wanted it! Naturally with good gingerbread, the cake itself was soft, moist, dense but not cloy-y, with a subtle spicy ginger flavour. The golden syrup heart was a wonderful surprise! It was sweet but tangy and smooth, but in my opinion was not much! The highlight of this confectionary wonder for me was probably the impossibly cute gingerbread man decoration!! I am definitely one of cuteness and kitsch and it involved me doing lots of high pitched squealing!

What was Bad: Maybe the icing was a little sickly? Maybe… and also maybe there should have been more ginger in it…. But I am being incredibly picky!! Generally speak this muffin was delicious and I cannot wait to return for seconds!

Waffle-O-Meter:

Apologies for the poor quality image!

How does it compare?- Where it all began :-)

Date: 23/8/12

Background: This is quite an emotional *tear* moment. In Porthmadog, North Wales, me (Amy) and Stacey were on holiday with my parents. We had visited “Cadwaladers” on the first day of our holiday, but only consumed toasted sandwiches (yes I am aware these are not puddings… occasionally we have to eat savoury things by order of our pancreases) despite Cadwalader’s speciality being ice cream. On the Thursday of our holiday Stacey and I chose to have some pudding bonding time. Yes it was midday, yes we had only had breakfast an hour before, but after all “We are on holiday”. We both wanted a Hot Muffin Sundae (more on that in a future post) but as they were so popular they had sold out- these must be some AMAZING sundaes *EXCITEMENT*. Stacey chose a version of our new favourite pudding, Warm Waffle Sundae, and I made the boo-boo of choosing a very boring ice cream and sauce combo ( which was not even good enough to make it into our blog). As I hope you have read, our Ultimate “Gold Standard” Pudding is the Cinnamon Waffle Crunch from Frankie & Benny’s, and so we were naturally making a comparison between the two and “rating” them. Thus the “Did Somebody Say Pudding?” blog was born!

What: Warm Waffle Sundae

How much?: £4.50

What was Good: I think the mere ergonomics of Belgian Waffles creates the perfect shape to be served with ice cream and sauce. The little square sunken pits of happiness and joy within the cakey crispiness of the waffle makes the ideal space for the liquid melted ice cream to pool, so that when you cut open the waffle with your spoon it all oozes out. We watched the Cadwalader clan making the waffles on a waffle iron and so we knew that they were fresh. The caramel sauce was lovely and sweet, as you would expect, and complimented the dessert well, being soaked into the cakeyness like a sponge. The price in this instance was probably reasonable! Overall, although it did not quite match up to the “Gold Standard” pud, it certainly came close!

What was Bad: With there being 3 scoops of ice cream, Stacey found that actually it cools the warm waffle down too quickly, and so perhaps it would be better with just 2 scoops? Also, although the waffle was very tasty, chewy yet crispy, golden and wonderful, the Frankie & Benny’s creation still won in our opinion because it had the added flavour of cinnamon, which this pudding lacked. We also found that the squirty cream addition was pretty, but was too rich and did not offer any really flavour to the dish in general. Stacey thinks it should be perhaps pouring cream? What do you lovely people think?

Waffleometer:
 


(I feel as if I have seen this picture before……)