food road trip: sweet seattle

Sugar! I mean, if it is so bad for you, why does it taste so good? The mysteries of the universe. But I couldn't get through a visit to Seattle without sampling some of the fresh baked treats they have to offer, and yes, cupcakes are still a thing. Granted, ice cream seems to be coming on strong, but since that isn't my go to, I just nestled into some sweet and bready desserts.

I really dove in on the first night after our jaunt to Skillet Diner we then headed up a few doors to check out Marjorie. We saddled up the bar and promptly ordered two desserts to share. After all, it was late and that would be a lot of sugar before bedtime.

A brioche bread pudding with bourbon caramel sauce, toffee bits and fresh cream. Served warm this was super tasty. The toffee were like chunks of sugar but the bread pudding was moist with loads of cinnamon and the caramel sauce added a nice smokey tang.

Then it was Valrhona (that's a chocolate company) chocolate cake with salted caramel ice cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate almond toffee chunks. I was kind of thinking it was gonna be a cake with icing kind of thing but it was more like a flourless chocolate cake meets a cake like brownie. Not bad, just not my thing and of course, ice cream which tasted more like coffee than caramel to me. Fortunately, I was with two friends who were all over this and no problem finishing it off.

The next morning, before setting off on a ferry ride to Whidbey Island and with the previous nights sugar fix barely a memory, we made a stop for some donuts since nothing says breakfast like donuts and nothing says bakery like General Porpoise?

**lemon curd and chocolate marshmallow filled donuts**

Evidently the owners have an array of sea creature named spots in town offering different foods that seemingly have not relation to what they are serving, at least I couldn't find what donuts and porpoises have in common. Especially since they decided to do donuts after one of them had them at St. John in London. Something that was such a revelatory event they needed to do their own donut shop. Yeah, I see visions when I have good ones too, so I will give them that.

When we got there they had four flavors on offer but I decided to limit myself to the lemon curd and chocolate marshmallow since they are about $4 a pop. And from first bite I can say, they don't skimp on the filling.

As you can see, you do get plenty of it allowing for filling and donut in every bite. The donut part was somewhere between yeast and cake and reminded me a lot of Dolly's with the texture and sugar coating. The curd filling had tangy bite of lemon but then there was some weird aftertaste on the back end I couldn't quite pin down. Almost like there was another seasoning or herb added in that maybe should have been complimentary, but wasn't. The chocolate marshmallow though was pretty darn good. It was like cocoa powder mixed into Fluff with added bits of dark chocolate. Overall, super yum.

They only make a certain number of them each day and once they are gone, they're gone. So keep that in mind if you decide to swing by.

I did take a one day respite from sweet treats, though I do believe I supplanted it with some wine drinking, which is a decent substitute. But the following day it was back to sugar town and a late night craving stop at Cupcake Royale.

They only had one with cream cheese icing so duh, I got the red velvet. A buttermilk cake with cocoa and red food coloring topped with cream cheese frosting. Now it was like 9 or 10 at night when we got these so most like it had been a few hours at the least since they'd been baked so the frosting had a touch of hardness on the outside but the cupcake itself was still moist and there was enough frosting to get some in each bite--sometimes hard to do.

**chocolate with salted caramel frosting**

My other choice was the chocolate cake with caramel buttercream and a sprinkle of fleur de sel and chocolate shavings. Again, the cake was still moist full of chocolate flavor. I'm not the biggest fan of buttercream icings as they can come off overly sugary, the caramel flavoring along with the salt helps tamp that down a bit here making for a nice cupcake flavor combo. And no, I didn't eat both in one sitting. I had half that night and the other half for lunch the next day. I'm not a glutton after all! (And if you are keeping count, that is a salted caramel cupcake and salted caramel ice cream in one visit. Looks like that is the flavor of the moment in Seattle)

All right then, I think that calls for a sugar crash nap. I got more to go but need my on little respite.