Rebecca LiewWhether you’re in a loving relationship, swinging it solo, or somewhere in-between, let UrbanWire bring out the sweet tooth in you or that special someone with our guide to the best treats this Valentine’s Day.
Smoulderin’ Perfection
Cupcakes have been popular for some time, but we think Feb 14 warrants something more novel and fun: Bite-sized lava cakes that ooze warm, flowy chocolate centres, courtesy of Smoulder Bakes. At just 50mm by 30mm, each is a guilt-free treat guaranteed to melt the heart of whoever you’re romancing.
Start with White Chocolate Lemon (S$3.20), a gooey morsel of perfection that strikes a just-right balance of zesty and sweet without ever being jarring, the way some lemon-based desserts tend to be. You know you’ve hit gold when you come across a lava cake that reacts the way it should to a dessert spoon sinking through its surface: the delicate wall of cake caves into itself, revealing a creamy molten centre of rich consistency.
True chocolate aficionados should proceed to consuming the decadent Dark Chocolate Blackforest, because this one’s equal parts heaven and sin.
Grated chocolate—owner Peter Cai insists on only using Barry Callebaut Belgian chocolate for all his chocolate lava cake creations—covers the surface of the dessert, and in its entirety, it hits the right spot with an inside that slides almost seductively out. Don’t forget the best bit: the cherry that’s soaked in Kirsch (a German liquer) for a week gives an instant alcoholic kick as it bursts in your mouth. We’re pretty darn sure no one can resist the charms of such a winning combination, but be prepared with lots of water on hand because this could be a little rough on the throat.
We’re also extremely taken with White Chocolate Pistachio and Dark Chocolate Pineapple.
The former’s nutty and addictive, with a centre of slightly thicker consistency. While rich accents of pistachio are dominant, we suspect the white chocolate is what gives it its full-flavoured taste that leaves you wanting more. You don’t have to be a fan of pistachio nuts to enjoy this whole. The Dark Chocolate Pineapple lava cake, only available for the month of February, is a dream. Its velvety insides contain pineapple bits, and nicely contrasts with the taste of dark chocolate without ever being overly cloying. We liken this to peanut butter and jelly: a surprisingly perfect pairing. Other honourable mentions include White Chocolate Matcha and Intense Dark Chocolate, but let your tastebuds be the judge and be grateful these desserts come sold in a box of 9. You’ll want to try every flavour on offer, anyway.
Smoulder offers customisation on all orders of lava cakes at 50 cents each. Drop by on Valentine’s Day to have yours sprinkled with tiny candy hearts!
Taste: 9/10
For more flavours and to order, visit http://www.smoulder.it.
Location:
China Square Food Centre
51 Telok Ayer Street #01-04
Tel: 6225 6422
Opening hours:
Weekdays, 8am to 8pm
Sat, 11am to 3pm
Closed on Sundays and public holidays
Rock Star
We’re frankly fans of anything sweet or tart; a bit of both is a bonus for us. When we discovered popular confectionary store Sticky Candy’s Valentine’s Day mix bag, we just had to get our hands on some.
Bite or suck your way through 8 fun flavours and designs—we’re in love with the Sun rock candy, an apple-cranberry flavoured version that has hearts for eyes and rays of sunlight beaming out from its yellow centre. There’s also lychee vanilla and strawberry peach, but our personal favourite has to be mango vanilla. It lives up to its name, with strong hints of mango, with a milky exterior that melts away to reveal a zesty core. Not enough to make you pucker, but it’s a great, fun kick that stirs up the taste buds. If you’re stuck on which flavour to start with, we say live dangerously and mix the different pieces of colourful candy together. There are no hard rules when it comes to eating rock candy, anyway. Pun fully intended.
Taste: 8/10
Prices start from $2.90 for a 30g jar, and $4.90 for a 70g bag. Visit sticky.com.sg for more.
Locations:
The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street, B1-54/55
Tel: 6238 5178
Opening Hours: 10am to 10pm daily
Cathay Cineleisure Orchard
8 Grange Road, #01-02
Tel: 6737 8879
Opening Hours: 11am to 11pm daily
J Cube
Jurong East Central 1, #04-12
Tel: 6684 3039
Opening Hours: 10am to 10pm daily
Chocolate Gold
Japanese chocs like ROYCE’ Chocolate and Meiji have been sweeping the island with their brand of velvety, melt-in-mouth textures. But we’ve found a new favourite in a local online set-up that’s been making its conquests through word-of-mouth: Cocoa B. Its made-to-order chocolates involve customisation on every level, and works in 3 steps:
- Choose the base (white, milk or dark chocolate),
- Select your toppings (classics like hazelnuts and raisins or, for the daring, chili flakes, chicken floss and dates),
- Then add them to your cart and check out.
We started with a White Chocolate bar topped with sea salt, hazelnuts and tapioca chips.
Biting into morsels of this reminds us of the Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme bars we grew up on as kids, except the cookies have been replaced with sea salt. Our favourite bit about our creation has to be this savoury switch up. It’s an unexpected play on the taste buds, and the combination makes for a delightful juxtaposition of salty, crunchy and sweet.
If you prefer biting into something that has actual cocoa content, there’re the dark and milk chocolate options to choose from. We paired dark chocolate with mini pretzels, red velvet hearts and hazelnuts, a combination the health-conscious girlfriend will surely appreciate. It’s bitter but just so, and never cloying because of the lower sugar content.
If the love of your life is a little more adventurous, don’t overlook Bacon Nuts. It’s one of Cocoa B’s bestsellers, and for good reason. Hints of good’ ol smoky, sharp saltiness hit you as you bite into milk chocolate that’s been studded with hazelnuts and almonds. The bacon bits offset the overly sweet aftertaste that tends to linger from a post-chocolate binge, and stopping our hands from reaching for more of that smooth goodness proved a challenge.
Get 10% off all orders from now until Feb 15, Friday, when you enter “theurbanwire.com” at checkout (without the quotation marks)!
Taste: 8/10
Prices start from $9.90 for a basic bar, and toppings from 20 cents.
Orders should be placed 2 to 4 days in advance at http://www.cocoa-b.com/.