As a sugar addict being in Korea was a blessing and a curse at the same time. Most of the sweets and chocolate, cookies, cupcakes, flapjacks, brownies, cakes etc. that I used to snack on in England were either absent or tasteless replicas in Seoul.
I thought the cakes were generally kinda tasteless, and bread was always sweet. Of course if you wanted to spend big bucks and go to a specialist bakery it was possible, but I don't think you should have to pay through the nose for a loaf that isn't sweet tasting, when as far as I knew bread wasn't supposed to be sweet and cakes weren't supposed to be bland. Koreans often commented when eating cake with me, "oh.. this is too sweet" and I often wanted to point out that, as a cake covered in chocolate, it is supposed to be sweet, however I just put it down to cultural difference and held my tongue.
Cupcakes were the biggest fail there, even cupcakes from shops that were dedicated to only making cupcakes. If I went to the right places and searched enough I could find really great bread, cheesecakes were almost always delicious, brownies were great, but cupcakes were always terrible, without fail, no matter how pretty they looked, or how expensive they were. There were cupcakes that looked really fluffy and well made, and every time I bought one I felt like I was cheated into buying something tasteless.
I really liked Korean snacks though, with rice cake (떡) being one of my favourites,
and in the summer ice-flakes topped with fruit and sweets, sometimes nuts and cereal (삥수) was a nice snack, especially if the ice was flavoured. Bingsu also often contained rice cake although the toppings varied from place to place.
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| Cafe bene's bingsu |
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| Found this bingsu in a google search and now I really want one. |
That aside, I noticed a difference in one of my favourite sweets; 'Skittles'.
Anyone who is serious about E numbers and sugar knows the really good Skittles are the sour ones.
But when I bought sour Skittles overseas I noticed they have a sour coating but the actual Skittle isn't sour at all! What a con!
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| "Sour Skittles" |
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| "Skittles Crazy Sours" |
The lack of my favourite sweets etc. also probably contributed to the huge loss of weight I experienced when I first moved abroad, and was not a terrible thing. However now I am surrounded with all these treats again can I hold back?
Where can I find bingsu in London......?? (ㅡㅂㅡ)/
