Too Sweet, Too Sickly :-(

Date: 24/8/12

Background: The last official day of our holiday in Porthmadog, my parents (Honorary Blog Contributors) still hadn't visited Cadwalader's, the Ice cream parlour franchise, on the high street. So we all went to relive the moment that “Did Somebody Say Pudding?” was born… which was yesterday .

What: Hot Muffin Sundae

How Much?: £4.50

What was Good?: It looks, and sounds divine! Who can possibly say that a hot muffin, piled with vanilla ice cream, hot chocolate fudge sauce and chocolate pieces, served with whipped cream and a “Cadwalader’s” wafer doesn’t sound simply marvellous? If you do not think this sounds stupendous then sadly I do not think we are on the same wavelength. The flavour of the sauce was nice and, as mentioned in our previous blog hot cake with a hot sauce and cold ice cream is usually a WINNNNNNNNNNNNNNING combination.

What was Bad?: As it turned out, this pudding was a big disappointment . As the title suggests, the final thoughts of it were that it was TOO sweet and TOO sickly. There was a vast quantity of the sticky sauce, and as it was slowly solidifying due to the copious amount of cold ice cream, it became more of a difficult task to actually consume the monstrosity. There was an almost bitter aftertaste, speculation perhaps but maybe these muffins were shop bought? They certainly did not taste home made. In our opinion you would expect for a pudding costing nearly £5 that the main muffin-y component would at least be home made. The worst part was that even for myself (Amy) and my pudding veteran parents, the sickly feeling lasted for a good 2-3 hours and was so sweet that it gave at least 3 of us a ‘sugar hangover’. It was a pudding that we all struggled to finish.

Waffleometer:

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……)