Confetti Cupcake Pop-Tarts: a terrible error

You might remember my previous Pop-Tart experience, but it is safe to say I have learnt nothing from that, as when I was in the grocery store the other day and noticed new Pop-Tarts then it was inevitable that I would buy them. Especially because they were covered in rainbow sprinkles. 

I present - Confetti cupcake flavour Pop-Tarts!

Confetti cakes, which are just white cakes with rainbow sprinkles in the cake and in the frosting, are fairly common here. You can get "Funfetti" mixes in the supermarket (I like the name and their rainbow-ness). They are highly colourful, but very mild in taste. So I figured it would just be a mild sweet flavour and I could totally polish off 8 Pop-Tarts. And how wrong I was.

The photos don't really explain the icky "birthday cake flavour". A lot of things are cake flavoured here, I have eaten birthday cake oreos (mint ones are far superior) and cake batter oreo ice cream from JP Licks (very batter-y in flavour and far superior to actual birthday cake oreos). However, these Pop-Tarts were a complete failure, filled with nasty cake-y flavour cream and bland sugary-ness. I swear I could feel my tongue drying out from all the sugar (like an osmosis thing?). So I took the bite that you can see in the top photo, broke a piece off for the second photo, then tried to make myself eat another bite, gave up and had a nice bowl of Weetabix (from Wholefoods, which also sells Nandos sauce! Joy!). One week later I accepted that I didn't want to eat any more cupcake Pop-Tarts and that I didn't know anyone who did. No more cupcake Pop-Tarts for me, I gave up and threw them out.

Shame I'm missing out on those eight vitamins and minerals. And all those weird colours. It would be nice to start each morning with a rainbow.

Pi Day ramblings (mostly about donuts, as always)

Pi day at MIT was a bit of a disappointment. I did not find any pie. I think I kept missing it. 314 pies were given away to students in Killian Court around lunchtime. There was a dorm dessert competition too. Maybe next year I will have a more pie filled Pi day.

In lieu of pie, here is a picture of my breakfast at the Friendly Toast in Kendall Square on Saturday. It's circular, so I feel that gets me Pi day points.

The Friendly Toast has a friendly breakfast

It's two yummy m&m pancakes! The m&ms go all melty and delicious. Mmmmmmmm.

The Friendly Toast was pretty great, and I had pancake leftovers for supper on Sunday! Win!

In other dessert news (I am treating Pi day a lot more like pie day), I can also report that the donuts are more rainbow at the airport than in my regular haunts, and that there is a giant Dunkin' coffee cup in terminal C at Logan Airport. Here is photographic proof.

Note rainbow jimmies on the airport Boston Kreme donut. Partial brave explorer for scale on cup. 

Mmmm...sprinkles. I mean jimmies.

Update: Now (15th March) I see Pi Day activity posters EVERYWHERE! 

Farewell donuts

I am giving up, or at least severely cutting back on the Dunkin' Donuts. Mainly because they are bad for my waistline, my wallet and my midmorning mood (Hello, Sugar crash!). So having decided to give up the donuts on anything but a special occasion (e.g. fancy white kreme filled heart shaped Valentine's donuts), my only reason for going to Dunkin' Donuts was to buy my nice iced coffee morning treat. However, I was basically unable to go into Dunkin' Donuts to get an iced coffee and not buy a donut or two. They have those big signs that you get in fast food joints advertising "combos" (1 bagel and a coffee $4!, 2 donuts and a coffee, $3.50!). I think I have spent too much time playing/watching people play computer games as when I see words like "combo" I kind of feel like I get more points when I get the combo. Even though clearly Dunkin' Donuts is the winner, as they get my coins, not the other way around.

Given that I do not have the will power to go to Dunkin' Donuts and just buy a coffee I needed to find a way to satisfy my need for caffeine in the morning. I have a nice pink cafetière that I use to make hot coffee on very cold days, but I tend to prefer iced coffee first thing in the morning. So I bought a special iced coffee making french press from Bodum. I like it, it's purple. I'll explain how it works properly at some later point, but the important point here is that I no longer have any excuse to go to Dunkin' Donuts (except for when there might be special edition donuts, like around St. Patrick's Day!). Thank you for the memories Dunkin'....

America runs on Dunkin'

Bye donuts... I'll miss you!

At least I have Lucky Charms and Smorz cereal at home. And Ice Cream Shoppe Pop Tarts!

Note the homemade ice coffee on the left! Victory is mine!

What are you drinkin'? Not Dunkin' anymore. I should go back and buy some coffee for brewing there. Everyone who works in there was very friendly to me, I really appreciated it when I first arrived and I would show up at Dunkin' really early in the morning because of the jetlag!

Mostly, since I arrived in Boston, I have been eating

The student center at MIT has a 24 hour Dunkin' Donuts. I lasted approximately three days before I became aware of this fact, which is surprising as I am normally almost preternaturally good at locating junk food outlets. I can already locate three Starbucks within a mile, I know where McDonalds is and have been to nearly every Chipotle in the walkable/T-able Boston area. I have been here for less than two weeks. However, now I know about the Dunkin' Donuts I am there most mornings, buying my iced coffee with milk (things picked up when I realised milk was option and it wasn't just black coffee or coffee with cream). I've provided an illustrative figure on the left, because I have to justify all the pictures I'm taking of food somehow.

Instagr.am-ed patriotic sprinkles donut. Note the star sprinkles
and how hipster Instagr.am makes me - my new life is so cool.

Unfortunately the donuts are tempting (notice the paper bag in the illustrative figure). My first Boston donut was, appropriately, a Boston Kreme Donut (oh good grief, the nutritional information is not obvious in store, this is not California! Why did I have to look that up on the internet? The truth is inescapable now). Boston Cream pie is relatively famous - here is proof in the form of a wikipedia article. My first Boston Cream pie experience actually occurred in Santa Barbara, California, (nearly 5 years ago!) but I have subsequently had one in Boston and they're pretty good. And so, when I saw Boston Kreme (not cream) donuts on the menu at Dunkin' Donuts I thought I should try one - it would be a traditional foodstuff, I would be *exploring* my new territory.... The Boston Kreme Donut is a custard filled, chocolate frosted donut. It is not exactly a breakfast item. Obviously I thoroughly enjoyed the sugar and caffeine roller coaster and so I have been returning to the donut shop most mornings. The cereal I have in my room at the moment isn't much better to be totally honest; Lucky Charms (heavily depleted, also note the banner at the bottom right hand corner of the link-"Hey Kids, this is advertising!"), Honey Nut Cheerios, Chocolate Frosted Mini Wheats and low sugar (?!) apple and cinnamon porridge. One of these items is not like the others... In my defence I haven't bought Pop Tarts yet, even though there is a hot fudge sundae flavour (note that it is naturally and artificially flavoured), and I also have not bought the following cereals: S'mores cereal (styled as Smorz), Brownie cereal, Cookie cereal, Fruity Pebbles, Tony's Turboz (but only because I haven't seen the last ones - don't worry Ali, I'm looking).

As if eating a donut for breakfast wasn't bad enough I have now discovered that it only costs an extra 30 cents (or some other amount made of smallish coins I don't yet understand) to have TWO donuts instead of one. It's a slippery slope. And EVEN WORSE, they have started to do a Valentine's special donut, which is shaped like a heart, has chocolate frosting AND chocolate chips and is filled with that unnaturally bright white, sweet, totally non-dairy "cream" (or kreme at Krispey Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts). You know, the kind of filling you get in Twinkies, a sugary snack food so unnatural that a) I won't eat them and b) they are a subplot of post-apocalyptic film Zombieland, due to their ability to not decompose, or really even change at all over time. There is even a *really, really* BRIGHT pink donut that is also shaped like a heart (I haven't tried that yet! Maybe the "kreme" filling is strawberry flavour?)

I obviously have to cut back on the donuts. Especially the unnaturally luminous/flavourful ones. I'm thinking once a week, and only buy one? Does that sound reasonable?

♥ I HEART YOU, lovely kreme filled chocolatey donut ♥ 

Donuts tried to date: Boston Kreme, Jelly Stick (ug - terrible), Sprinkles, Chocolate Heart (comfortably the most unnaturally delicious - good thing it's seasonal)