Audrey’s Kitchen

414 SW 13th Ave
Portland, OR 97205
(503) 241-0656
http://cacaodrinkchocolate.com/

Chocoholics, we have found nirvana. Cacao is a lovely cafe tucked behind the American Apparel store on SW 13th and Burnside. The cafe has a few tiny tables near the front for chocolate lovers to savor their drinks while the rest of the shop has neatly arranged tables of chocolate. The counter was constantly crowded by people looking at their chocolate display case. That backs up the line considerably but the servers are adept at maneuvering around to take orders. As much as I was tempted by the beautiful chocolates in the display, my goal for the trip was to try the wonderful drinking chocolate that everyone raves about.

Cacao offers two types of chocolate–one is a lighter hot chocolate that I grew up drinking and the other is a rich, velvety, liquid ganache-type drink. I chose the latter of course and was presented with a choice of cinnamon, dark chocolate, or spiced chocolate. I couldn’t decide so I tried all three!

The cinnamon chocolate was my favorite. It is light and smooth with just a subtle hint of cinnamon. I ordered the standard cup ($4) and savored the delightful taste and texture of it.

The next chocolate we tried was the dark chocolate. Just look at the beautiful color! This drink was like liquid ganache–very rich and indulgent. We ordered the standard cup but it was probably better suited as a shot ($2). As rich as it was, the drink was well balanced and was not too sweet.

The last one we tried was the spicy chocolate. It tasted like the dark chocolate with a subtle cayenne kick that hits the back of your throat. It’s not too spicy but I prefer the cinnamon drink best.

I can’t think of a better way to enjoy a Saturday evening than to order a cup of hot chocolate from Cacao and nestle down at Powell’s with a good book to read. I read on Cacao’s website that they now have a second location inside the Heathman hotel too. Next time I go back, I will have to pay more attention to the rest of their chocolate offerings! Come to think of it, the chocolate covered cacao beans are calling my name. Cheers!

Phone: 503-481-4539
Email: chef@lajocondecakes.com
www.lajocondecakes.com

I have been on less frequently because we are in the middle of planning our wedding! One of the biggest mistakes I made during our wedding planning process was looking at all the wedding websites and magazines out there. Good thing I don’t watch TV anymore because I heard shows like Platinum Wedding were ridiculously addictive as well. My previous obsession with the Food Network (especially their cake challenges) didn’t help either now that we have progressed onwards to the CAKE selection process! For our first tasting, I set up an appointment with La Jaconde Cakes.

Call me a glutton for punishment but I had to try her out since her designs are worthy of Food Network! Her European style cakes are filled with light, creamy, and often surprising ingredients such as black currents flown in from France and German chocolate. The cake itself was pretty dense but that’s probably because she makes her samples each month and freezes them for tastings. The majority of her cakes are almond cakes and that probably explains why her cost is so high since the cakes are made with mostly nut and very little flour. The natural almond taste and aroma is so nice that I quickly got used to the texture. We met at a gelateria on NW 23rd for our tasting. This is what was inside the lovely box of goodies she came bearing!

Oh sweet heavenly goodness, I have never seen such beautiful and bright colors! The best part–it was all natural. The deep violet of this beauty? Black currant baby. It’s a very tart and strong berry flavor that holds up well against the creamy filling.

This one here is a mixed berry & mascarpone cream with a sponge cake (I believe.) It could also be almond. I think only 2 of her cakes were not some type of nut cake. Look how sweetly pink it is! Again, all fresh berries. This one was a strong contender.

However, after we tasted this raspberry mousse filling, we immediately jumped ship. This cake is near perfection (I say near because there will be one later on that rules them all). Jutta, the owner of the bakery, said she could even use more or less berry or even a mix of berries to suit our tastes and the look we want.

Lets move on to something tropical. It doesn’t look as snazzy as its berry colored compatriots but the taste is a wonderful blend of coconut and pineapple. Not oily or greasy at all, which is very unusual for coconut. I forgot how much I liked it because I tried it relatively early on during the tasting but when I ate the leftovers today, this one stayed in my mind.

Ok…moving on. Whenever I think of the ideal summertime dessert, I think of fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Here is La Jacoconde’s version. It is a white chocolate & fresh strawberry filling with almond cake. This combination is a universal favorite so if we go with her, it would be one of the main tiers.

After the light berry cakes, we moved onto nut cakes. This nut cake has cream cheese frosting. It is either made of walnut flour or hazelnut (at this point, my memory eludes me). The Fiance loves cream cheese frosting and wanted to know if we could use it to frost the cake. Here’s where Jutta said kindly that not all cakes go well with cream cheese haha. At least she takes her work seriously. That’s very important when trusting someone with your wedding cake.

Moving on. Ooh! This jolly cake is perfect for the holidays. It’s hazelnut or walnut cake with rum soaked raisins. Rum + cake + heavenly cream cheese frosting = pure, unadulterated JOY. Great for fall but not so much for a summer wedding.

From there, we were eased into chocolate territory. This is a hazelnut cake with milk chocolate butter cream frosting and chocolate ganache. This tastes like nutella in cake form! This one would be my choice for the chocolate cake layer. It’s not as mature as some of the other offerings but I proudly say that I prefer milk chocolate over dark.

This next one is the only cake that didn’t make FI squeal like a school girl. He loves passion fruit. He prefers dark chocolate. But somehow the mixing of the two didn’t quite work for us. (I liked it better the next day though).

This dark chocolate cake was everything FI wanted in a chocolate cake. It was rich without being too sweet and the black current/raspberry mousse complimented it perfectly. Look how seductive the color is!

Ok…but I am saving the absolute best for last. Remember the cake I talked about earlier that ruled them all? That would be this sweet and simple almond cake (of course) filled with pear and lavender cream. See that tiny speck of mauve? That is lavender! It smells so wonderful and tastes amazing. So unusual and sophisticated!

The aftermath

All in all, I kind of wish we didn’t meet with her first because it set the bar really high for the other places. My palate is more similar to European palettes I guess. I don’t like super sweet or super buttery cakes. My favorite cakes are light and airy, like chiffon cakes and I prefer light mousse over buttercream filling. I do wish I got to taste her almond cake fresh but they do taste remarkably good for a previously frozen cake. I do wonder what my guests would think about almond cake. It is quite dense even when fresh and doesn’t have the soft, springy, moistness that most Americans equate with good cake. Still, it really grows on a person and I liked her cake even better the next day.

Jutta doesn’t have her own store front but after meeting her, I know that she would care about the perfection of the cake even more than I would. I would rest easy with her if only my budget would allow it. Cakes start out at $5/pp for buttercream and go up to $8/pp for fondant. She spent 2 hours with us and we went through the whole process from tasting to preliminary design. Her service was great and I liked that she wasn’t afraid to tell me what wouldn’t work and gave suggestions to what would work. If we don’t end up going with her for our wedding, I may be tempted to order a 1 layer round of the lavender one for our rehearsal dinner.

407 NW 17th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97209
503.473.8760

There’s been a trend toward cupcakes in recent years, probably because of Sex and the City’s infatuation with New York’s famed Magnolia bakery. My friends in SoCal have been going nuts over Sprinkle’s cupcakes. So it’s only a matter of time before the craze hits Portland, right?

Saint Cupcakes, located on Northwest 17th, is just the place to satisfy your craving for sweets in cute and trendy setting. I went there twice this weekend and thanks to their dot-sized treats (mini cupcakes), I was able to sample nearly everything on their menu without getting sugared out. From their sassy pink website, I expected a place where my girlfriends and I could swoon over and indulge our girly sides with creamy cakey confections. I was a little disappointed that the place, though pink and in a pretty glass building, seemed to lack the cozy ambience that I wanted. They had a nice open bar area where you could see all the bakers hard at work mixing giant vats of batter, but not once did they smile or acknowledge the customers. They just kind of looked annoyed that I was looking on. I guess these saints take their work seriously!

Their website www.saintcupcake.com certainly is cute and features different cupcake “centerfolds” with personalized descriptions. It was an entertaining read, and they participate in community events. Their blog will keep you up-to-date on all their current events, such as their expansion to the Belmont neighborhood.

(clockwise from top: chocolate with caramel buttercream, toasted coconut, red velvet cake, caramel apple, and carrot cake)

Chocolate with Caramel Buttercream:

They do the basic flavors very well, so this chocolate cake had a deep intense cocoa flavor without that wasn’t overly sweet! I loved the cake, but wasn’t too fond of the caramel flavored buttercream. The cream has a lovely silky texture that has just the tiniest big of toffee crunch in it, but I just prefer caramel to caramel flavored creations. Still, it’s an interesting combination.

Toasted Coconut:

For this cupcake alone, I will go back to Saint Cupcake. This delectable cupcake is topped with a sweet, slightly chewy, coconut frosting thats like a creamy macaroon. Again, they make the basic white cake flavor very well, and tastes nothing like your supermarket cupcakes! In fact, these are in a whole league of their own!

Caramel Apple:

I had high hopes for this combination because I love caramel apples, and this frosting looked like what true caramel should feel like. Maybe it was because I got the dot-sized one, but I couldn’t taste any apply flavor, and most of the dot was pure walnut chunks. The frosting was good, but not particularly memorable.

Carrot Cake:

This one…was not good. I would highly recommend that you do not try this one. It had lots of carrots, yes, but thats all I tasted. Normally, a good carrot cake would be moist, well-spiced, nutty, with just a hint of pineapply goodness. This just tasted like grated carrots–and it wasn’t a good thing. I think part of the reason is that their turnover is so fast that the carrot cake hasn’t had enough time to mellow yet, resulting in a sharp carrot taste.

Red Velvet Cake:

I have a friend who DROOLS over this cake so I know there is a certain cult following with this variety. However…I am just not one of them. I do like Red Velvet in general–I like cocoa flavor and the pretty color. That’s essentially what red velvet cake is. Back in the day, the way cocoa was processed was different, so when the cocoa powder mixed with the buttermilk in the recipe, it’d turn reddish. Nowadays, bakers just add in a few drops of red food coloring to achieve the same look. Saint Cupcake’s Red Velvet is different. It’s described as a buttermilk cake with a hint of cocoa, and apparently parties like Lindsay Lohan. I just thought it was kind of scary–the red velvet was BRIGHT RED as in melted crayola crayon red. Some people love it, but I can’t get over the artificial redness of it. The texture was also pretty dense and firm compared to their other cakes. Maybe it has to do with the overload of food coloring? The cream cheese frosting was nice though, very light and not overly sweet.

Other flavors I sampled but not pictured include:

Big Top-vanilla cupcake with chocolate chips. Topped with bright colored frosting-most likely vanilla flavored. The cupcake itself was delicious and the chocolate chips melted to the touch. I would order this again.

Vanilla with Pistachio buttercream-The buttercream is supposedly made with pistachio gelato base, but I couldn’t taste the pistachio flavor. For excellent pistachio treats, try the pistachio gelato at Via Deliza instead. Sublime.

All in all, I would give this place a B. At $2 for a full sized cupcake and $1 for the minis, these cupcakes aren’t cheap. They do offer day-old baked goods at half the cost, so if you are interested in sampling before buying, that’s your best bet. Too bad they don’t offer free samples. Cupcake menu changes on a day to day basis, so if you have your heart set on a certain flavor, make sure you check their website first! Their overall cupcakes are delicious if you stick to basic flavors, and it’s a trendy spot to go to when you’re in the Pearl or NW 23rd for an after dinner treat. Just the fact that I’m eating a fluffy ooey gooey cupcake is enough to make me smile. Now if only the bakers could learn to do the same.