Battling Brooklyn

Awhile back during some of my Williams-Sonoma baking mix trips, I bought a kit called Baked Brookster Mix. They are essentially brownies with chocolate chip cookies on top. The recipe and kit originate from a popular bakery in Brooklyn named, "Baked."

We decided to make them last weekend. At $16.95, the mix makes about 18 "brookies" or "brooksters." I filled the muffin pan a bit more than I should, so I ended up with 14. It called for typical baking ingredients like butter and eggs. The process took a bit longer than a typical cookie or brownie mix as it required some additional steps to prep. As usual, I didn't follow the instructions exactly...instead of refrigerating the dough for an hour or more, I froze it to expedite the process. And the suggested bake time was 23-25 minutes, but I reduced it to about 18-20 minutes.

After a failed attempt with a similar project on my own using a brownie mix and tossing pre-cut refrigerated cookie dough on top, I was afraid this wouldn't work. To my surprise it turned out quite well!

Gigi's Spring/Summer Menu Announced

Gigi's Cupcakes announced 8 new cupcakes for the 2013 spring/summer season. The new cupcakes will debut Monday, March 25.

Candy Bar Crunch: Yellow Cake with bits of Butterfinger baked in, topped with Butterfinger buttercream frosting and crushed Butterfingers. Available Thursdays and Saturdays.

Chocolate Cola Cake: Chocolate cake with Coca-Cola, topped with chocolate cola buttercream frosting and a dollop of vanilla buttercream. Available on Saturdays.

Blueberry Lavender: Blueberry cake with lavender and vanilla, lemon cream cheese frosting, sugar crystals and edible pearls. Available on Fridays.

Double Stuff: Dark chocolate cake filled with marshmallow cream and topped with Oreo buttercream frosting, drizzled in ganache and a mini Oreo cookie. Available Mondays and Wednesdays.

Dulce de Leche: Rich caramel cake filled with dulce de leche caramel, dulce de leche cream cheese frosting, topped with caramel drizzle and a caramel. Available Mondays and Wednesdays.

Mojito: Mint and lime cake baked with rum, mojito buttercream frosting, rimmed in sugar crystals and topped with a fondant mint leaf. Available Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Sopapilla: Cinnamon sugar cake with honey butter, honey cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, topped with a sopapilla and honey. Available Wednesdays and Fridays.

Tropical Spritzer: Lemon lime cake made with Sprite, filled with pineapple coconut filling, lemon cream cheese frosting and sugar crystals. Available on Fridays.

Ooh La Lotta Desserts

Since it was a long time ago that we tried Ooh La La Dessert Boutique in Katy, never visited the Town and County location and not reviewed on the blog, I really wanted to try them again. Alas, we did last weekend. The store is pretty big with a lot of seating and a wide range of dessert options from cupcakes to gelato. While we got a few cupcakes (fairly large ones I might add), we also partook in a few other desserts.

My cupcake selection was the Tuxedo, which was chocolate cake with white chocolate buttercream, topped with white chocolate and chocolate chunks.

Hubby had Italiano consisting of vanilla cake with chocolate chips, coconut and pecans folded in, topped with fluffy cream cheese icing.

I truly enjoyed my cupcake. It was not as moist as some cupcakes I'm used to, but it wasn't dry by any means. Cupcake prices for jumbo are $3.25 and minis $1.25.

Next, hubby and I split white chocolate bread pudding. We heated it up and poured the sauce they provided; I believe it was a rum sauce. This dessert was just OK. I've had better bread pudding. I probably wouldn't get this again.

Last, hubby and I split red velvet cheesecake. We were anxious about this one being fans of red velvet and never having tried it in cheesecake form. Well, it didn't quite taste like red velvet, but it was still very good. It was more like traditional cheesecake flavor. The little bit of frosting on top did remind me of the cream cheese frosting used in red velvet.

Our experience with Ooh La La was positive enough to say we will return. I'd love to try some of their other cupcakes and especially the gelato.

March Cupcake Specials

Here are this month's specials...

Sprinkles

March 1-17:

• Irish Chocolate: Belgian dark chocolate cake topped with Baileys Irish cream cheese frosting. I tried this one last year...it's a must try! Very yummy!

March 16-17:

• Green Velvet: Light chocolate cake tinted green, topped with cream cheese frosting.

March 20-April 2:

• Cherry Blossom: Made with loads of sweet, pureed cherries in both the cake and frosting. 

March 22-April 7:

• Brown Sugar Praline: Rich caramel cake topped with brown sugar frosting and crunchy praline.

Crave

March 11-22:

• Kahlua and Cream: Vanilla bean cake with rich Kahlua buttercream frosting.

Sugarbaby's

Tue/Thu/Sat:

• Peanut Butter Doo Dah: Chocolate cake filled and  topped with peanut butter frosting and dipped in dark chocolate.
• German Chocolate: German chocolate cake filled and topped with traditional coconut pecan frosting. 

Wed/Fri:

• Hummingbird: Traditional Southern butter cake made with banana, pineapple, coconut and pecans, topped with cream cheese frosting.

SWEET Houston

• Chocolate with Strawberry (Mon/Sat)
• Chocolate with Vanilla (Mon/Sat)
• Vanilla with Chocolate (Fri/Sat/Sun)
• Hummingbird (Thu/Fri/Sun)
• Orange (Mon/Wed/Fri)
• Pistachio (Tue/Thu/Sun)

Celebrity Cupcakes

Now available daily:

• S'more: Chocolate cake with a graham cracker crust topped with toasted marshmallow.

Ooh La La Dessert Boutique

While out and about today, I noticed Ooh La La Dessert Boutique in the Memorial Town and Country Village/City Centre area. Evidently, they opened around November 2011, so I'm a bit late to realize it. We visited them a few years back at their Katy location and I recall they had some big ol' jumbo cupcakes. They are good, but now I will have to give the Memorial location a shot sometime. Here's Ooh La La's March cupcake of the month:

• Grasshopper: Mint cupcake with mini chocolate chips folded in topped with mint buttercream and mini chocolate chips.