Saturday, 11 September 2010
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Your Local Unpretentious Fast Food Critic: Trying Starbucks' Autumn Flavors
I like to pretend that I'm a secret fast food critic. Tremendous companies such as McDonalds and Starbucks will one day quiver from what I have to say about their latest and greatest fast food items. I promise you. Anyway, let's take a quick look at Starbucks' seasonal Toffee Mocha iced drink and the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin.
1. Iced Toffee Mocha (Starbucks)
Type: Iced drink (not a frappuccino)
Taste: Sweetness, strong toffee and mocha flavors.
Description: Medium-brown colored liquid, ice cubes, optional whipped cream (I opted out), and cinnamon flakes
Best Comparison: Iced hot chocolate.
Recommendations: Paired with bread or not-too-sweet starch items such as a bagel, oatmeal, etc.
To Buy Again: Excellent alternative to hot cocoa during the colder seasons. Although the iced drink does taste great, I believe this will taste even better served hot. 100% to buy again.
2. Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin (Starbucks)
Type: Muffin
Taste: Sweet pumpkin spice, glazed sticky coating, cream cheese dampens the pervasive sweet pumpkin flavor. Thick and rich.
Description: Dark brown muffin with cream cheese center visible at the top, with actual candied pumpkin seeds on the top.
Best Comparison: Pumpkin bread with cream cheese coating.
Recommendations: Paired with milk, this muffin will be a fabulous dessert. Let me repeat, a fabulous dessert. The Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin is somewhat heavy and too sweet for a light snack/breakfast.
To Buy Again: 60%, excellent sweet muffin but again too much: a single bite will suffice. Wait for a friend to purchase one of these and take a bite. Saves you money and you will be satisfied.
Questions to think about:
Have you tried any of the above? What do you think about these desserts- worth the cost? Are there other better alternatives out there?
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About the Author
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- From: Sandy
- About Me: Amateur food critc. Especially partial to desserts and medium-rare steak.
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Comments (30)
I like the advice of mooching off friends. :D
Coffee shops sell stale goods unless you come early in the morning. Euch.
after 4 to 6 hrs of being in air i wont buy goods cause their gettin stale, with employees reachin in and out. i prefer da earlier da betta, i've gotten some fresh hot goods those are bomb!
I love muffins! :)
Although I rarely visit Starbucks, I've visited a few times and had baked goods, but they were pretty stale probably because I make coffee dates with my girlfriends for like, 8 PM lol. The amount of money I would spend on a drink and a pastry I can make a pot of coffee and some kind of baked goodie at home since I usually have all the basics at home. I'm not too fond of spices and pumpkin so I won't be trying the "holiday" treats at the local coffee shops. But the mocha toffee drink sounds right up my alley except I'd skip the cinnamon. Coffee cake and muffins are so easy to make, as long as you can measure and stir!
The iced pumpkin muffin from Dunkin is much better.
8f5f2e9a-4e65-467c-8c1a-af258bb3d76c1.03.01i worked at sbux. pumpkin cream cheese muffin is definitely something to look forward to every fall. wasn't a fan of the cafe mocha or the toffee nut syrup.. so the combo to me is eh.
I want to try the toffee mocha SO bad but I can not because it's not vegan. Boo I guess just plain toffee will have to do than
I love those pumpkin muffins! They've not made their way here yet, though!
I make my own pumpkin cream cheese muffins. They're healthier, less dense, and all around better than Starbucks' version.
My drink of choice at starbucks is the unsweetened passion tea. When it gets cold, I like the apple cider. That pumpkin cream cheese muffin looks delicious! I love their rice krispy treats but my boyfriend gets their cookies instead. His sister works there and says that they donate all their unsold day-old baked goods.
Where do you live that the Toffee Mocha comes
with cinnamon flakes? When we were taught the recipe at our store it
doesn't come with whipped cream at all (unless the customer wants it)
and chocolate powder on top =/
The pumpkin spice latte is good..i find at some SB's they taste different than other SB"s..that goes for all drinks made. quality seems to vary place to place...as in taste and consistency. Wish there was a "Light" pumpkin spice latte..IF I did not care about calories I'd love that muffinn, and lattes with whipped creeam and all their yummy winter flavors..but ya know..they add up quick. I go for the "light" ones.
That muffin sounds like my mom's pumpkin bars... but for some reason I doubt my mom's pumpkin bars are as sweet. I can eat the bars without the cream cheese frosting and it's like eating pumpkin bread, which is pretty good for breakfast.
In general I think starbucks is on the sweet side. There are a few things that aren't, but if you get a flavored drink than yeah.
I generally stuck to either the mocha or the latte. The latte might have been pretty good with the muffin-- It doesn't have sugar and has cream... so it might offset the sweetness some.
Nothing at Starbucks is worth the cost unless they have pure liquid gold in their coffee
I don't know if they're worth the price... you didn't mention how much it cost :P
I want to try that iced coffee mocha stuff.
um...... i work at sbux and its MOCHA POWDER. ON TOP. not cinn.... but half the ppl that work there have NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND 80% of the time ur drink is WRONG and u dont even know it
"Tremendous companies such as McDonalds and Starbucks will one day quiver
from what I have to say about their latest and greatest fast food
items." - LOL. Reminds me of Ratatouille. XD
I just like the pumpkin spice latte
That muffin looks amazing.Â
Oooh, I want :D
Looks good.mmm
i tried a hot toffee mocha. and they put salt on top of the foam for a salty/sweet taste. it was ok. i'm not a huge fan of toffee. reminds me of popcorn. and i wasn't thrilled with the salt. but it was pretty good none the less. i've had the muffin before, a long time ago. i liked it. but i like anything with cream cheese =]
@BeautifulB_227@xanga - it's not that expensive, depending on what you get. a tall iced coffee (with or without syrup, milk, whatever) is only $2 with tax. they're specialty drinks are pretty outrageous tho. and their frapps. you just have to know what to order =]