Bubble Tea Cake - Updated!

Below: Left: Cake Assembly Version II, Right: Cake Assembly Version I

Want cookies? Check these out!

Last time, my bubble tea cake had way too much baking soda, so I remade it today to ensure that my recipe is valid, with less baking soda. Here is the complete updated recipe with some helpful notes and pictures! The back-story: I had a dream in which I was icing a bubble tea cake. It turns out that no one has publicly documented online a bubble tea cake before, so I made one!

This is the brand of tapioca pearl that I use; it's $1.98 in Chinatown. It's an instant-cook brand because I have had a bad experience with the one you have to cook for hours. Each bag contains about 2 cups. I used the cheapest available (read: low quality, in this case) Pu-erh tea. I think that black tea would have been the best; Pu-erh  tea has a nice smell and a slightly burnt taste, in my opinion. However, I drank a lot of black/green tea during school, and I wanted a change.

INGREDIENTS for ONE 9-inch (23 cm) diameter round pan of cake 2-3 cm in height

6 tbsp tea leaves (I used loose Pu-erh tea leaves, although traditional bubble tea uses black tea. You can use whatever you like)
4 cups of water

1 large egg
1/4 cup of brown sugar + 1 tbsp
1/2 cup white sugar +/- some to suit your taste
1 tsp oil (use peanut oil if you want a peanut flavour)

1.5 c all-purpose flour (I used 1.25 c white flour and 0.25 c wheat germ. You can also use 1 c white flour and 0.5 c whole wheat flour)

0.5 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp vinegar (I used balsamic because that's all I had, but any vinegar should work)

1 dry cup of instant pearl milk tea (bubble tea) tapioca pearls
1 cup confectioner's (powdered) sugar

Bubble tea straw

METHOD (<1.5 hours total working calmly)

0. A few hours before you start the cake, heat up 4 cups of water and your tea leaves (without sugar). Keep this on a small simmer until the tea is way beyond the desired strength. After cooling, pour out 180 ml (3/4 cup). Leave the rest of the tea in the pot. You may need to use more or fewer than 6 tbsp of tea leaves, depending on the type of tea and your preferred strength.

A. Cake Batter!

1. Mix sugars, egg, oil, and tea in a giant bowl. It will look extremely ugly.
2. Mix flour(s) and baking soda in another bowl.
3. Pour 1/4 of the liquid stuff into the dry mixture and mix until there are no more lumps, using figure 8s. Add another 1/4, mix, and another 1/4, mix, then the last 1/4 and mix until smooth. You will have a batter that is a bit thicker than pancake batter. Leave this batter alone while you prepare the tapioca pearls. The batter does not taste great when raw.

2. Tapioca Addition & Cake Batter!
4. Remove loose tea leaves from the pot, and pour tapioca pearls and one tbsp of brown sugar into the leftover tea. Turn on the heat to high. Cover for around 3-5 minutes, until all the pearls have risen to the top and taste good. 

5. Then, turn off the heat and fish out the pearls(I used a tea strainer). Fold them into the batter, trying not to get too much extra tea into the batter. You should stir the batter after putting in a spoonful of tapioca, because the tapioca is hot, and we don't want cooked chunks of egg in our cake.
6. Grease your baking dish using a butter wrapper from your stash in the freezer!

7. Quickly fold the vinegar into the batter. You will hear a small hissing noise due to the vinegar reacting with the baking soda. When the vinegar is evenly incorporated, pour the cake mixture into your pan.

 (note the bubbles -->)

8. Bake in an unpreheated oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F on the middle shelf. Then, stick a fork into the cake, and if it comes out clean, it's cooked! The cake does not rise significantly.

9. Place hot cake onto a cutting board. Alternatively, you can wait until the cake has cooled by cooling it on a metal cooling rack. The cake should be super spongy and springy.

10. On the cutting board, place the rim of a glass jar on the cake and cut out a hexagon around the jar using a really sharp knife. Cut with all your strength, as the tapioca pearls are really sticky! Cut four of these hexagons (yes, it's possible!).


11. Trim each hexagon into a circle. Preferably, each circle gets a tiny bit smaller (to emulate a bubble tea cup).
3. Cake Assembly version I
11. In a mug, mix 3 tbsp tea with 1 c of confectioner's sugar to make a tea glaze. If you want a LESS runny glaze, use 2 tbsp tea. I used 3 tbsp.

12. Place the circular cakes on top of each other on a pretty plate, starting with the smallest. Spoon glaze between each layer (yes, it drips!).

13. Glaze the top of the cake, then stick your bubble tea straw through all four layers so that your cake won't topple over.

14. Eat by grabbing off chunks by hand! Drink leftover tea! The cake must be consumed within 4 hours. If left longer, the tapioca balls will dry out, as do most tapioca products not submerged in liquid. 


4. Cake Assembly version II
11. Fill a (bubble tea) cup 1/2 of the way with bubble tea cake chunks (leftover from Assembly I or just... in general).
12. Add tea, sugar, and milk in whatever ratio you want. You should add the milk first if the tea is still hot/warm and you're using a plastic container.
13. Drink "bubble tea cake"-flavoured bubble tea (using straw to suck up the tapioca and cake)!



5. Pudding Cake
If you want a more moist cake, you can add 240 mL (1 cup) of tea, instead of 180 ml. You follow the instructions as before, and you still bake it for 20 minutes at 350 F, middle rack. However, as this cake is really moist, you should NOT upturn it onto a cooling rack or cutting board. You can NOT assemble it to look like a bubble tea cake. Use a non-metal spatula to cut it into wedges and serve with icing or green tea ice cream.


Other Notes
1. Click Here for notes about ingredients/taste!
2. 0.5 tsp baking soda was definitely enough; the cake doesn't really rise, but it is still crumby and relatively light. There isn't much fat in it either!
3. The cake I made today was a bit to moist and pudding-like because I put too much tea into the batter.
4. The tea has to be REALLY strong; I used stronger tea this time, but you couldn't really taste it. Perhaps it's just the type of Pu-erh I got (the cheapest one)...
Maybe the Rickshaw brand (green metallic packaging) of black tea would've fared better. It sure tastes better.
5. Of course, other options include using coffee, hot chocolate, coconut juice, or other teas. One could probably even use taro powder, or green tea powder.
6. My friends liked it!
7. To see my first version (i.e. inception of bubble tea cake in this world)  with more bubble-tea-container pictures, click here.


Smile! :)

Bubble Tea Cake!

In the evening of the 19th day of the 6th month of the 2012 year since the flying spaghetti monster was born, PIE-314 invented bubble tea cake.

Tea flavoured cake with tapioca pearls. In my previous blog post (Bubble Tea Cookies), I talked about WHY I put bubble tea bubbles (henceforth referred to as "tapioca pearls") in my baking. In short, I had a dream a bunch of days ago in which I was icing a bubble tea shaped cake, with vibrant orange icing. The tapioca pearls had been cooked into the cake. I made tapioca pearl cookies yesterday to see whether tapioca pearls could be baked, AND THEY CAN!

So, today, I made a spongy, chewy cake to match the texture of the tapioca pearls inside (actually, I made two by accident, since most of this was improvised). Excuse me for the imprecise measurements; as I am subletting in Philadelphia, I lack a lot of my kitchen tools.

UPDATE: I improved the recipe on the 24th of June, so go there for the recipe! I've crossed out the things that don't apply anymore here.

INGREDIENTS for ONE 9-inch (23 cm) diameter round pan of cake that is about 3 cm in height

2 tbsp tea leaves (I used loose Pu-erh tea leaves, although traditional bubble tea uses black tea. You can use whatever you like)

1 large egg
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 to 2/3 cup white sugar +/- some to suit your taste
1 tbsp oil (optional)

1.5 c flour (I actually used 1.25 c white flour and 0.25 c wheat germ. You can also use 1 c white flour and 0.5 c whole wheat flour)

0.5 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp vinegar (I used balsamic because that's all I had, but any vinegar should work)

1 dry cup of instant pearl milk tea (bubble tea) tapioca pearls
1 cup confectioner's (powdered) sugar

Bubble tea straw

METHOD (~1.5 hours total working calmly)

0. A few hours before you start the cake, heat up about half a pot of water and your tea  leaves (without sugar). Keep this on a small boil until the tea is beyond the desired strength. Then, pour out 150 ml and let it cool. Leave the rest of the tea in the pot. (I messed this up today; it should take at least 10 minutes)

A. Cake Batter!

1. Mix sugars, egg, oil (optional), and tea in a giant bowl.
2. Mix flour(s) and baking soda in another bowl.
3. Add 1/3 of the liquid stuff into the dry mixture and mix until there are no more lumps, using figure 8s. Add another 1/3, mix, and then add the last 1/3 and mix until smooth. You will have a batter that is a bit thicker than pancake batter. Leave this batter alone while you prepare the tapioca pearls. The batter will not taste good uncooked.


2. Tapioca Addition & Cake Batter!
4. Remove loose tea leaves from the pot, and pour tapioca pearls and one tbsp of brown sugar into the leftover tea. Turn on the heat to high. Cover for around 3-5 minutes, until all the pearls have risen to the top and taste good. 

5. Then, turn off the heat and fish out the pearls(I used a tea strainer). Fold them into the batter, trying not to get too much extra tea into the batter.
6. Grease your baking dish using a butter wrapper from your stash in the freezer!
7. Quickly fold the vinegar into the batter. You will hear a small hissing noise due to the vinegar reacting with the baking soda. When the vinegar is evenly incorporated, pour the cake mixture into your pan.

8. Bake in an unpreheated oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F on the middle shelf. Stick a fork into the cake, and if it comes out clean, it's cooked!

9. Place hot cake onto a cutting board. Alternatively, you can wait until the cake has cooled by cooling it on a metal cooling rack.

10. On the cutting board, place the rim of a glass jar on the cake and cut out a hexagon around the jar using a knife. Cut with all your strength, as the tapioca pearls are really sticky! Cut four of these hexagons (yes, it's possible!).


11. Trim each hexagon into a circle. Preferably, each circle gets a tiny bit smaller (to emulate a bubble tea cup).


3. Cake Assembly version I
11. In a mug, mix 2 tbsp tea with 1 c of confectioner's sugar to make a tea glaze.
12. Place the circular cakes on top of each other on a pretty plate, starting with the smallest. Spoon glaze between each layer (yes, it drips!).

13. Glaze the top of the cake, then stick your bubble tea straw through all four layers so that your cake won't topple over.

14. Eat by grabbing off chunks by hand! Drink leftover tea! The cake must be consumed within a few hours. If left overnight, the tapioca balls will dry out, as do most tapioca products not submerged in liquid. (SP was hugging me while I took this photo; therefore, it is blurry)

4. Cake Assembly version II
11. Fill a (bubble tea) cup 3/4 of the way with bubble tea cake chunks (leftover from Assembly I or just... in general).
12. Add tea, sugar, and milk in whatever ratio you want. You should add the milk first if the tea is still hot.
13. Drink "bubble tea cake"-flavoured bubble tea (using straw to suck up the tapioca and cake)!

Possibly Helpful Notes:
The cake is unlike normal sponge cake, brownies, or normal bakery cake products. It is super chewy, EXTREMELY pliable (see image below - the cake bounces back to its original shape even after denting it with my spoon), gooey, and sort of gluten-y. It's a little like steamed cake, actually. Of course, you can substitute your own cake recipe for my recipe. However, the problem with using, say, a Victoria Sandwich cakewith tapioca pearls is that the pearls may sink to the bottom of the pan, and leave craters on the cake surface. Also, a bunch of butter cake recipes don't even need liquids. A muffin or quick-bread recipe may fare better.

I actually wanted to use 100% whole wheat flour for this recipe, but I was lugging some 10 pounds of food and drink back from Chinatown and Trader Joe's on one shoulder and one hand, and carrying an extra 5 pounds of flour for 30 minutes would've been quite unbearable. I don't know for sure scientifically, but I think that whole wheat flour would've made a thicker batter (more...fibre; more gelatinous? Cellulose maintains cell structure), and would've helped the tapioca pearls stay in the batter. I threw in some wheat germ for that and the sorta health reason. I am really glad that the pearls were well-distributed! Perhaps using 100% white flour would still render this result; I will try again once all this cake has been eaten. Note the dents in the bottom and tops, though.

I used way too much baking soda in my batter, and not enough sugar. Again, this was a "well-educated guess" recipe. I may actually just use 0.5 tsp of baking soda next time, and see whether I get the same amount of rise. However, to mask the baking soda taste (although SP can't taste it), you can just use Assembly method II and smother it with sugar, tea, and milk.

To obtain loose leaf tea, tapioca pearls, and bubble tea straws, go to Chinatown! :) I got my straw at Mayflower bakery after buying a delicious snowball (red bean paste inside rice mochi thing that has the texture of an Invisibility cloak, that promptly got squashed on the way back). I also didn't have much counter space. The green parts of the kitchen are all occupied areas. :(

I am extremely satisfied to be the first (at least, I think/hope I am) to document on the internet the incorporation of tapioca pearls into a baked cake.

Bubble Tea Cookies!

I know that this sounds really cheesy, but I had a dream in which I was making bubble tea cake. I remember considering the logistics of the cake - how would it stand? Where do the bubbles go? How much does it have to look like a container of bubble tea? Straw? Do the bubbles stay at the bottom or are they distributed evenly throughout the (tea) cake? I remember applying bright orange icing to a cake shaped like a bubble tea container in the dream; in fact, it looked like this, except it was standing vertically and lacked the bottom and top. The rest of the dream seemed to be slightly morose, but I don't remember. 

Note: Throughout this post, I will refer to these tapioca pearls/bubble tea bubbles as "tapioca pearls" for consistency.

It turns out that no one has yet BAKED a tapioca pearl cake (or at least, I REALLY hope no one has ever done it). So, it's a race against time: I need to bake tapioca pearls into some sort of attractive cake thing, and post it on here. It will be an original product. When some famous celebrity chef finally does it in the future, people will search for recipes. MINE WILL SHOW UP and I WILL BE KNOWN AS THE ONE WHO DID IT BEFORE IT WAS COOL.

But first, what happens when you bake tapioca pearls?  Do they shrivel up? Or, do they get hot and steamy? Swell up and go hard? Explode? Pop like cherries? (Okay, I'll stop the jokes...)

So, here's a pilot test!

First, I made some cookie dough. I made half a batch of this vegan recipe, but I substituted the baking powder and water with baking soda and balsamic vinegar. There are also no chocolate chips or marshmallows. I added the balsamic vinegar right before adding the tapioca pearls, because the vinegar reacts with the baking soda.

Rehydrating "5-minute" tapioca pearls! A few months ago, they were $1.68, but now they are $1.98 at the underground Chinese grocery store in Chinatown :(. Throughout the semester, I would do this by boiling water using the electric kettle, pouring this water into my loose tea leaves in a tea strainer, sugar, and pearls, and cover my mug with a lid. After stirring about every 3 minutes for 10 minutes or so, the pearls would be chewy and edible.

However, I think that the pearls taste much better and are plumper when heated in boiling sweet tea on the stove.

For heating these instant tapioca pearls, I used about 1/4 of a saucepan of water, a handful of tapioca pearls and a tablespoon of brown sugar. There wasn't any tea in this rehydration, but I did use the leftover sugar mixture for tea.

After the pearls were cooked, I fished them out with a tea strainer and plonked them into the cookie dough. Leaving them in hot water for too long renders the whole pearl to taste uniform and starchy (well, it happened once, and I do not want to risk it happening again). After a quick mix, I scooped out the dough and baked the cookies according to that recipe. The mixture was really crumbly (think sand-like), so what I did was scoop up a tablespoon, squeeze my hand against the spoon, and keep squeezing until a ball was formed. The dough was kind of spongy.

AND THEY WORKED! They harden as they cool, so I ended up with crispy (but delicious) cookies that were devoured by my friends and SP. SP ate 5/12ths of the batch (of 12 cookies). The cookie recipe produced cookies that remind me of the almond cookies, like these, I used to get for 2 HKD  in HK near my piano exam place.
The tapioca pearls were chewy, not dry, and delicious! So, I will make a cake next time!

On the 18th day of the 6th month of the 2012th year of our wholesome flying spaghetti monster, I, PIE-314, OFFICIALLY MADE THE FIRST TAPIOCA PEARL COOKIES. EVER.

Study Break!

In my dorm house, every Wednesday from 10:30pm to whenever is study break. Every week, a dorm room gets $40 to spend on sundry food for 25, 50, or 107 people. Yesterday was my roommate TJ and my turn, and we wanted to do something spectacular! The make-your-own sundae thing has been done too many times,  chips were too trite (but we bought 2 packs anyway)...so what could we do!?

TJ came up with the idea. Bubble tea.

So, despite the fact that I had a proof to do for maths, I ran to Chinatown, met TJ there (she took SEPTA), bought 6 packs (so, 1.5 kilos) of tapioca pearls, 1 tin of green tea and 1 tin of black tea. I didn't want to use tea bags due to environmental reasons, and I think that the loose tea leaves added a more "authentic" effect to the tea while people were scooping it up, which is always nice even though I'm sure that authentic tea doesn't mean ladling tea out of a giant saucepan.

We then bought 4 lbs of sugar (even though sugar generally comes in 5-lb packages) and 2 gallons of whole-fat milk. I know that sweetened condensed milk might've been better, but that would've meant that we'd have to add the milk into the tea, which would have been really confusing since:

1. How much tea did we need?

2. What if people are lactose intolerant?

I used this recipe as a guideline although I don't really think that I should even cite it because I didn't follow it since it is really difficult mixing ratios of tea leaves:sugar:water:milk when people are crowding around you.

Note that I used my own bag. NO PLASTIC BAGS!!

Miraculously, the tapioca pearls were quick-cooking, which is SURPRISING because last time, for the same price ($1.68) at Kamman, I bought tapioca pearls that took hours to cook. This time, the bubbles floated up to the top in 5 minutes. Less than 5 minutes.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? I'M NEVER BUYING $3 BUBBLE TEA AGAIN! (Well, perhaps in the company of friends) $1.68 can yield me so much more bubble tea in 5 minutes (whereas walking to a bubble tea store, ordering, paying etc. takes more time than that, and it also wastes plastic).

We bought two types of tapioca pearls: coloured ones and the typical black ones. They don't taste different, and I find it bizarre that most stores sell the black ones since the rainbow ones are quite pretty; I guess it's just tradition. Unfortunately, 1.5 kilos of bubbles (purported to serve around 40 people?) was not enough to serve my dorm house (and a few people from other college houses who came because I made study break the subject of a Facebook status and I'm currently kicking myself for doing that *insert selfish angry rant*). TJ also bought bubble tea straws from a bubble tea store nearby, although I was against it (plastic waste) but I agree that it made it more "authentic".

We had a huge problem because we had three spoons, an electric kettle, one saucepan, and one giant saucepan (I borrowed the saucepans). I also had a pie pan and a glass bowl (in which we put the tapioca). We also obtained a ladle, a colander and a vegetable-washing bowl. The main issue was making enough tea to please everyone. We made enough tea to fill the two pots, brought those downstairs, and decided to wait until study break to make refills.

People ladle tea at the speed of sound. Really. Luckily, two friends lent me their kettles (and we promptly ran out of electrical outlets), and we started doing this boil-water-pour-water-refill-throw-in-sugar-throw-in-tea-stir-serve!-serve!-serve!  while attempting to communicate and transport kettles and saucepans back and forth. Meanwhile, a mob (a.k.a people in my dorm house + intruders) was scooping up tapioca pearls, sloshing out milk, chattering happily, and complimenting us. Yay!

The House Dean said that this certainly hadn't been done before. :) I must say it was a chaotic success.

An hour later, the crowd has dispersed, the bystanders were trampling stray bubbles on the carpet or sitting on the sticky-tapioca-studded tables, and TJ and I were packing up. We went to the kitchen and had a nice laugh and evaluation of the event while we picked out tapioca from the leftover 2 L of sweet Chinese tea and  tea leaves (There were a LOT of tea leaves) and drank tea. I note that this is something I won't forget, and I can't wait to make 5-minute bubble tea again!

I will definitely take better photos in the future. I really wish that I had the time while shuttling hot water around to shoot the crowd - I mean, shoot pictures of the crowd.

Penn "Chocolate" Festival

"Next semester, I will be more involved in social groups at school."

That's what I said last semester when I realised that I was pretty much in two clubs.

Then I realised that if I joined another two, I'd have no time to do my homework, study, go to the lab, run, and eat food.

This is in addition to the fact that I'm already managing my time better than I was last semester.

So, I didn't join any extra clubs, but I do get emails from the Penn Gastronomy Club (which I should officially join, actually). Recently, I got an email about the Penn Chocolate Festival, and there were going to be "some of the city's best chocolatiers" and free samples present!

At the Hall of Flags in Houston Hall, the Penn Chocolate Festival took flight. Breezy. Short. Among the tumbleweed. It was too timid to be anything like other food events (e.g. Campus "Free" For All), which was good because it meant that each member of the audience had extremely personalised attention from the vendors, which included just two chocolatiers (Really).

Despite obtaining a lot of information from the vendors, I didn't get many samples, which was a bit of a let-down considering the blatant advertising in the email. Then again, the email claimed that there were going to be many chocolate vendors, which wasn't the case.

The sweet, thick and creamy tea (which didn't taste much like tea) with mini tapioca balls in the above image came from Boba Brothers. I loved the fact that the tapioca balls are tiny! (~2mm in diameter; it makes them drinkable via a standard straw, and it is quite a twist). Actually, I wonder how bubble tea would be like with various sized tapioca balls in the tea...

Although the liquid was super sweet, clean/not artificially-flavoured-ish, there was no "chocolate" in it at all.

My second stop was John&Kira's chocolate. The fact that they use local ingredients and have beautiful packaging and are a home business (I talked to Kira) means that their prices are jacked up, of course. For $6.50, I can get Chipotle, instead of a bar of chocolate. However, John&Kira's also have everything that Chipotle, and Godiva, and Lindt don't have; they own the company, they can allow me to make my own flavour, and they use ingredients from around here. The mint in the mint chocolate came from University City's Urban Garden! I have no idea where that is, but it's within a 3 mile radius, probably. According to the brochure, the honey comes from Millerton PA, while the berries come from Meadow Gap PA. I'm not sure why they're advertising that the coffee whiskey comes from Mexico or that the bergamot comes from Sri-Lanka, because those aren't "local", but perhaps the overall message is that these ingredients come from known sources, and we're supposed associate that with fair labour or something.

My first impression was that the ladybugs and the bees were super shiny. They were as shiny as marbles, although more pearlescent. Apparently, there is a really high cocoa butter content in them, since the're some sort of caramel (bees) or ganache (ladybug).

Kira gave me a pretty big sample of dark mint chocolate to taste. The mint was definitely true mint; it isn't the sweet stuff that I'm accustomed to in commercial mint ice cream or mint chocolate; it was legitimate mint-right-off-the-plant. Although I do like the peppermint/conventional mint better, this one was light and delicious too. The chocolate part was... normal, I would say.

I then went to the table promoting Sazon restaurant. The guy who was at the table was a real businessman; he talked non-stop about how his chocolate was real, untempered, pure, made straight from crushed beans from Venezuela (the "original/pure/clean/unadulterated" location of cacao, apparently). He explaining his experimentation with making truffles in his kitchen, and he talked about testing all his truffles on his friends. At one point, he gave someone in the audience a whole truffle. He didn't give any truffles to me though, even though I talked to him for a good 10 minutes about his truffles and cocoa. He walked me through the truffles; coconut ones, jalapeno ones, rum infused ones, berry-filled - "I don't care about rule of 3 flavours - you know, of chocolate, and two others. I just dump them all in together and you can taste them all!", he proclaimed. He pointed out that the ones in the middle compartment were vegan, and the coconut covered ones on the right were raw and made with a ton of coconut butter. "Nothing goes above 105 degrees. I just use a blender and a thermometer; my raw vegan friend is really anal about this," he boasts. Then, he listed the ingredients in these vegan truffles, and I kinda blanked out until him mentioned the word honey.

Honey. From bees.

I'm not vegan, but vegans do not eat honey.

Naturally, I responded, "Hey wait! Vegans don't eat honey!"

The guy (I'm sorry I do not know his name but on the website, he's the Chocolate Alchemist) looked at me in this really exasperated way (and perhaps with a hint of scorn - he's not a vegetarian or vegan), and said "Well, it's just some honey; we don't know if agave is a good idea because it might have corn syrup or other things added, and honey is pure. And, our honey is local. Besides, you know that there are different definitions of vegan and a lot of vegans eat honey."

He didn't say those exact words, but that was his position on the issue. Call me biased, amnesiatic, or downright silly, but if there is honey in those truffles, those truffles are NOT vegan. His (sorta pompous) attitude, coupled with the fact that he selectively gave out truffles for sampling, meant that I didn't have a good impression of his business. I know he's allowed to boast about his truffles and his super-awesome hot chocolate since they do taste delicious (the hot chocolates did, at least), but I felt like he was stepping the line by sticking honey in a "vegan" treat.

So, the hot chocolates were amazing. I tried the Clasico and the Cuaimia. The Clasico was thick hot chocolate that had no watery taste at all; it was literally like drinking flavourful, textured, melted chocolate. The Cuaimia had a hint of chili (although not too much; I think I would prefer more) and was less chocolatey. Neither had sugar, yet they were so flavourful that sugar wasn't needed to counteract the bitter taste of the ground cocoa (not that it tasted that bitter, in comparison to cocoa powder).

Another local vendor was the Kitchen at Penn. They gave out banana pudding, brownie, and and a plastic cup. No spoon. The food tasted ordinary, but I suppose that's the point, because the Kitchen at Penn is supposed to emulate homemade food for college students missing home.

Although the next few pictures depict vacuous, gilded and bland cupcakes, I'm still posting them because they are indeed prettily decorated. Buttercream Cupcakes (a cupcake truck, not to be confused with Call Me Cupcake, another cupcake truck) offers sundry cupcakes, including the best-seller, red velvet.

I tried 1/4 of a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing and purple sugar. The peanut butter icing tasted legitimately like peanut butter smothered in cream and sugar. The cake was kinda dry actually.

So wait a minute, two legit chocolatiers out of 5, at a "chocolate" festival?