Dulce de Leche Cake

Not so long ago, hubs and I tried a little place called Coffee, Tea and Me in Melrose.  It's a great little shop that sells coffee, pastries, tea, smoothies, sandwiches, etc.  Very cute, and the service was great.  Most importantly, they had this cake out...

Even though it's simply decorated, the caramel called my name and I had to get a slice.  I'm a sucker for caramel and cake, soooo, that was an easy one.

The cake was dense...very heavy (but good), the frosting was a balanced light and sweet caramel buttercream, and each layer of cake was separated with thick, gooey caramel.  The combination of all three elements made each bite absolutely de-lish.

This cake would be SO good around the holidays.  Something about the heavy cake and caramel reminded me of cold weather.  I'm going to file this idea away to try until the fall/early winter, but if you can't wait to try something similar, scoot on up to Coffee, Tea & Me in Melrose, or check out some recipes I found that look like they may be good!  I haven't tried these yet, so if you do, let me how how they are!

Spork or Foon
What a Dish!
Technicolor Kitchen

D'Amici's in Melrose

There's a brand new bakery on Main Street in Melrose, and my hubby took me to check it out tonight!  I love that man.  We'd actually tried some of their Italian almond macaroon cookies at a friend's house last week - SO GOOD - so were very excited to get in the bakery and try a few other things.  I checked out their website recently and saw that they are famous for fancy wedding cakes (I really love cake decorating!) so I've been looking forward to getting into the new store.

While there was a HUGE a display case full of tempting items, we only chose three to take home.  J chose his favorite bakery treat - a lobster tail.

 

Lobster Tail: Hubs gives it a C, I give it a D.  The cream filling was REALLY good, but the pastry was stale!!!  It was such a disappointment.  (I don't know why he smushed it on the plate like that, but it makes for a good picture anyway!)  I do want to call out that despite the stale pastry, it was hard to stop eating this because the cream filling was so, so good.

I chose my favorite Italian treat - a chocolate-dipped cannoli:

I gave the cannoli a B.  Hubs didn't try it because he was full of lobster tail by the time I got into mine.  The shell was crisp, chocolate dip tasted great, but the disappointment here was that they were out of ricotta filling!  Whaaaaaaaaaat.  Cannoli's just aren't the same without the ricotta filling.  I chose vanilla cream instead, but it looked icky and didn't taste like a classic cannoli. The display of cannoli shells ontop of the counter looks nice...but I have to admit I'm a little skeeved out that they are just sitting open on a counter.  Maybe it's all my rides on the T every day, but all I could think about as the girl grabbed my shell off the shelf was gross customers coughing, breathing, sneezing on them, touching them, oohing and aahing over them with their noses touching, ick.  I ordered one anyway, so maybe it didn't bother me that much.

The third thing we chose was two chocolate champagne cookies.  We ate these in the car, so I didn't get any pictures.  They were pretty cookies but sadly hubs and I align on giving those a D.  They had a nice, crunchy texture but literally no taste.  We didn't taste champagne, we didn't taste chocolate, we don't really think we tasted anything, just crunchy air.

The last disappointing element to our visit was the service.  When a person asks me "how can I help you" without making it sound like a question, and with a really sour pout on their face, it really doesn't put me in the mood to spend money.  The place is brand new.  I was expecting employees excited about the business, ready to really sell their baked goods, explain what everything is, point out popular items, etc.  I don't think we got eye contact, nevermind a product suggestion.

Needless to say, our trip to D'Amici's was a bit disappointing for a first try, but hubs and I agreed we want to go back and try again.  I think on a weekend, the selection may be more fresh since I'm certain they'd move a lot more product.  We also want to try their sandwiches, and next time I'm definitely getting some sort of cake.  Their mousse cakes and cupcakes were so pretty!

Let me know if you've been to D'Amici's and had a better experience...I'm not losing hope yet!