Monday, January 10, 2011

Cold Stone Creamery, You DEFINITELY Kicked Fruitcake's Butt!!!

Shortly before Christmas, I received an email from a marketing rep for Cold Stone Creamery.

Apparently, word that I absolutely CAN’T STAND fruitcake had made its way all the way to the corporate execs at
Cold Stone, and they wanted to offer me an alternative the old holiday standard.

Cold Stone Creamery Declares Death to Fruit Cake

“Candy Cane Wonderland Cake
The perfect combination of moist Devil’s Food cake and minty Candy Cane ice cream with chocolate shavings and candy cane pieces frosted with ganache, makes for a perfect hostess gift”
-- Taken from email I received

They were offering me a cake?

OK, so maybe they weren't making and marketing it JUST for me, but ...

They were offering me CAKE!

An ice cream cake creation!

Well now. Wouldn’t THAT be a treat!


I told her I would be happy to try one of their cakes. Absolutely! Send that gift certificate along, please!

And she was happy to oblige, by sending me a certificate for a ‘small round cake’.

I told the boys I would pick it up over the weekend, and we could give it a try.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen THAT weekend.


I got sick.

REALLY sick.

Missing over a week of work kind of sick.

Thank you, influenza and crappy lungs!


The marketing rep followed up a few weeks later, wondering if I had had the opportunity to try the cake yet.

I felt bad, I had to tell her no.

I HATE when someone gives me something to try, and blog about, and I can’t get the post done right away.

Drives me INSANE, knowing I ‘owe’ a post to someone.

But, after explaining I'd been sick, I told her, ‘I don’t want to get the cake, until I can actually TASTE the cake, and ENJOY the cake.’

She understood completely.


Over Christmas break, the boys each had a friend over one day.

I took them all to Pirate’s Cove for an afternoon of swimming.

Pic taken from HERE


After swimming, we made a stop on the way home at
Cold Stone Creamery!!!!

I asked the boys to wait in the car.

What? Are you kidding me?

Bringing four boys in, to choose and agree on what TYPE of cake were going to get just WASN’T going to happen!

I wasn’t going to put myself or the Creamery staff through that nightmare!


I went in, and handed the girl the certificate for my cake.

She had never seen one before.

CRAP!, I thought. They’re going to say 'no'.

Instead of giving me a hard time (like some businesses do, thinking you’re giving them a bogus certificate), she simply called her manager over, verified she was allowed to accept the certificate, and then directed me over to the freezer where those 6 and 8 inch little circles of heaven were being kept frozen.


There are three Tim Hortons/Cold Stone Creamery locations in HRM. Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford.

Unfortunately, the location I chose to stop at didn’t have a HUGE variety to choose from.

The Candy Cane Wonderland was there.

As much as candy cane was very Holiday-ish, I had only one problem with it. I only like candy cane/peppermint in very SMALL doses.

A whole candy cane cake?

Chances are I wouldn’t make it through three bites before tossing down the fork.

Not really fair to do a review on an item that would have one strike against it from the start.

I quickly looked over the others, and immediately mentally removed anything else that contained peppermint, and focused on what else I thought the kids might like.

That left ...

Cookies and Creamery

Cake Batter Confetti

Cookie Dough Delirium

… WAIT A MINUTE … Cookie dough?!?!? Cookie dough?!?!?!

SOLD!!!


Not only was cookie dough MY favourite, I hoped it would be the ONE cake, that I could get all four boys taste buds to agree to.

I was right!


We got home, and no sooner were we through the door, then the boys started asking for CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE!

They wanted cake?

I made them have a quick bite of 'food' first then ...

They got cake!


Look at those CHUNKS of cookie dough!



And?

They LOVED it!



Me? I’m a bit more of a challenge to win over.

Especially when it comes to ice cream cake.

As a rule, I generally don’t eat ice cream cake. It hurts my teeth and it’s just too freakin’ cold.

I think I’d have to be sitting poolside in Jamaica, in a blazing heat wave, before I’d actually ASK for an ice cream cake.

They’re just SO. FREAKIN’. COLD!

And did I mention cold?!?!?


But, I tried it.

And I LIKED it.

Granted, I couldn’t finish my whole piece. My teeth were screaming at me with each bite of frozen cookie dough chunk.

Oh. But … the cookie dough! MMMMMMMMM!!!! The COOKIE DOUGH!

Once it warmed up, and softened in my mouth, my taste buds were in heaven!

Huge chunks of it hiding within the smooth, creamy ice cream.

Once again, I'll say, MMMMMMMM!!!!


The only down side I see to this cake (oh get REAL, we're not even going to DISCUSS calories!) would be the price.

It would have to be a VERY special occasion, for me to justify blowing $25 on a cake.

No offense, Cold Stone, I wouldn't even pay that for a cheesecake, and THAT'S my absolute FAVOURITE!!!


I'm sorry I just couldn't bring myself to try the candy cane cake, but you know what?

They did what they set out to do regardless, because they wanted to give people another option to Fruitcake for the holidays and ...


Cold Stone Creamery, You DEFINITELY Kicked Fruitcake's Butt!!!

Thank you Cold Stone, for the generous offer of your gift certificate. The boys and I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated your delicious ice cream creation!

K.

3 comments:

Bonnie S. said...

I got my son a 1/4 slab cake for his birthday last year, and it was around $25. 1/4 slab is not very big. Cakes are expensive, so $25 for a fancy ice cream is probably about right. DQ cakes are probably almost that much too. Those cakes look SO good. I would have loved the candy cane one. I'm a mint girl. LOL

Kim's Korner said...

You're absolutely right, Bon! Compared to a Dairy Queen cake, the price is very reasonable. I thought about that after I published the post, that I SHOULD have mentioned, it's not the cake that's outrageously expensive when compared to others of the same kind ... I'm just REALLY CHEAP!!

Now I know who I'll be sending all my 'minty' stuff off to in the future!

josh said...

3 friends and I will be attempting a 10lbs cookie dough cake contest at our local cold stone on friday afternoon this week. we have 20 minutes to eat all 10lbs ti get it free and a picture with t-shirts. its the 1st annual event of its kind so we cannot disappoint anyone! you have the only photo of this cake on the web i swear. we are using it as our facebook image promo. thanks!