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Published: March 28th 2011
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Dunky Donuts! Knowing how much of a Dunkin' Donuts coffee addict I am, most of you will not be surprised at the first part of this entry. I first heard that there was a DD here in Zhengzhou a few weeks ago. It is in a part of town I was unfamiliar with so I knew it would be an adventure to find. I’m sure I could have had another one of the foreigners send me the address in Chinese and just taken a cab to it but where’s the fun in that? Anyway, walking there would allow me to justify eating the donuts.
On a free afternoon this week, I decided I would set out to find this elusive DD. I got the basic directions (“go to this intersection and it’s like right there”) from another foreigner so I headed in that direction. Ipod and backpack in stow, I started walking. I took a route that would lead me right by “my bakery” and stopped for my favorite pastry. I needed to raise my blood sugar for this intense workout I was about to endure. hehe And as a sign that I go WAY too often, the guy who is always
working knows exactly which one I want and gets it for me each time.
I enjoyed my pastry (it was gone in about 2 minutes flat) and continued in the direction of Dunkin’ Donuts. When I got down to the main road that I was told to start looking for it, I turned right. I thought that I was far enough East and most of the shops looked to be West. I walked for a while and found a familiar mall that I had been to before and thought it was near. Passing by several street vendors selling food and other souvenir, chatskis, etc, I stopped and purchased a few things for friends back home. When I still couldn’t spot the DD, I called my friend who gave the directions and found out that I should have turned left at the main intersection. I turned around and hunted for another hour or so and eventually found it. There was a lot of construction going on so I couldn’t see it hiding on the other side of the road tucked behind an 8-story mall.
Walking in, I noticed that it looks very similar to a Dunkin’ Donuts in America. The main
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black coffee, 3 milks that I didn't use, and black sesame seed donut. difference is that it is smaller and has a limited menu. As far as food goes, there is a selection of donuts, munchkins, and bagels. There aren’t any sandwiches, no combo meals, or hashbrowns. The only combo that they have is “Coffee and 2 Donuts”. The prices are comparable after conversion but they serve less in each size. I got a large black coffee and a black sesame seed donut. The coffee, itself, was strong and not as good as it is back home. My bet is because they don’t have the creamer that I am so desperately addicted to. The donut was pretty good. It had a little bit of frosting on top and was sprinkled with black sesame seeds. I sat there for a couple of hours and did some long overdue journaling.
By the time I left, it was dark out and I was in no mood for more walking. I cabbed it home.
A couple of days, my friend, Christina from Seattle, invited me to go with her to a Do-It-Yourself bakery to bake a cake. It sounded like a great idea- show up, pay a fee, use all their ingredients and utensils, and
go home with a homemade cake- so I obliged. Alicia and Christina’s boyfriend came too. We stopped at the market on the way and bought some chocolates to put on the cake. Christina and Sean got those gold, foil-wrapped chocolates and Alicia and I got a handful of Kit Kat bars. It cost each of us 40 RMB (about $6.50) and we were able to make two cakes.
It was a really fun and different experience. First off, baking isn’t common in China because most households don’t have ovens. The only baked goods that I have had since I got here have come from bakeries (like the one I mentioned earlier). It was interesting because instead of measuring the ingredients in cups and ounces, we did so using grams. Alicia and I had our own digital scale on which was metal bowl for the ingredients. We weighed in 110 grams of this, 60 grams of that, 15 grams of some other white powder, pressing the “tare” button to reset the scale after each one. It reminded me of 8h grade chemistry lab.
After mixing all of our ingredients, including a few extra grams of cocoa powder, we put the batter
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Mmmmm...Kit Kat cake! into a flat cookie sheet and baked it for about 30 minutes. The ovens were so small they reminded me of the Easy Bake Oven my sister had when we were little. Luckily, the cake came out tasting much better than hers did. It was never her fault; it’s hard to create a good product with nothing more than a light bulb.
We made our topping by whipping cream. It wasn’t nearly as sweet as the frosting (i.e. pure sugar) I’m used to back home but it was still good. It made the cake feel lighter and slightly less sinful.
When the cake was done and we chose to make ours in the shape of a circle and cut two out of the sheet. We used one as the base and smeared whipped cream on top of it, layered it with Kit Kats and covered them with more whipped cream. The second circle went on top and the whole thing was covered with more whipped cream. We crushed the rest of the Kit Kat bars and sprinkled them on top and on the sides of the cake. All while doing this, Alicia and I enjoyed the rest of the cake
that was but dipping it in the left over whipped cream. We were so stuffed and guilty from this, we knew the cutting of the cake would have to wait for another day.
The next day we finally had some and it was delicious. It tasted so light and had I not seen for myself how much sugar went into making it, I would have eaten more of it. The temptation sat in our kitchen for another day so we invited Christina and Sean over to help annihilate it. They were happy to oblige.
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