Down with the sugar-free diet this December! With all those red and gold boxes filled with chewy and chocolate surprises, it would be sad not to partake in the holiday binge. Horrible even, letting glorious food in the fridge and the cookie jars go to waste.
And so, even before the month begins, I’ve started my stash. Let the season begin!
Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies (by Vine’s Bakeshop, bought at Parvati Trinoma at P165 for 1 dozen).
The cookies are topped with a gigantic chocolate cube that nearly covers the entire diameter. The cookie itself is mildly sweetened, giving the chocolate the center stage for sweetness. Mindlessly, I could probably finish half a box in one sitting. Good with tea, better when heated. I tried eating one straight from the fridge and the chocolate put up a fight with my incisor. Okay, in the oven you go, you stubborn little cookie.
[caption id="attachment_1020" align="aligncenter" width="819" caption="Clockwise from back left: Cream Cheese Brownie, Almond Brownie, Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, Crinkles"]
[/caption]Chocolate Crinkles (by Joanne’s Kitchen, bought at Parvati Trinoma at P65 for 4 cookies)
Crinkles are barely baked wrong, unless they’re burnt crisp and turn into biscuits, so these crinkles make the cut for being fresh and moist. At roughly P16 per crinkle, there’s a reason why there are only 4 in a box: each crinkle is filling enough, one is all you need for that chocolate high.
Med Chef Brownies and Revel Bars (bought at Mercato Centrale, P3 for 100)
That gigantic tub holds an assortment of flavors, even my photographic memory could not keep up with the chatty vendor—brownies, that thing with almonds on top, peanuts on top, cream cheese brownies, revel bars, etc. Truthfully, I stopped at revel bars because that’s all I wanted, but the vendor just went on until the very last row, and by that time, we all needed a drink. However to reward her memory skills, I bought a revel bar, cream cheese brownie and that light brown pastry topped with almonds (Was it caramel? Food for the gods? I’ll never know.)
The cream cheese brownie and the almond brownie (Okay, I’ll just call it that.) were on the crumbly side. I tasted them during a football match, and no matter how carefully my fingers picked at them, they broke easily and left crumbs all over my seat. The revel bar was terrific and oat-filled but yielded sticky chocolate residue and so, lesson learned: Be civilized. Do not eat with your fingers!
The recourse for the crumbly brownies was to bring them home, leave them in the fridge and eat them 1) really cold, or 2) after being reheated in the oven. The revel bar never made it home, but they must taste great after reheating as well.
Ah yes, I seem to be wholly dependent on the oven toaster for improving the taste and texture of most to-go items, as it does a wonderful job of bringing back that “freshly baked” goodness.
For those who haven’t decided on what to give me for Christmas, forget the food and the sweets, I think I’d very much like a new oven toaster. :)
Yummmmyyy!
ReplyDeletewow. choco goodness :D
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