Yummy treats at the mall: ultimate soft serves!

It does get a bit tiring walking around huge malls. But if you are doing retail therapy, it makes total sense to indulge in some delicious goodies.

Cookies Cookies Cookies &Cream @Sweet Jesus

At Vaughan Mills, we checked out Sweet Jesus. With several “pimped out" soft serve items on the menu, it was hard to choose! We decided on Cookies, Cookies, Cookies and Cream which is vanilla soft serve with Oreo, chocolate chip cookie, Fudgee-o, and cookie dough. It was the lightest soft serve we’ve had. Super yummy! With many more locations opening, it will be hard to resist this temptation!

O.G. Chimney Cone or Kürtöskalács at Eva's

At the Indulge pop up at Yorkdale, we got a Chimney Cone at Eva’s. “Chimneys” are hollow Hungarian pastries which are crunchy outside and soft and fluffy inside. It is known as Kürtöskalács in Hungarian or Trdelník in Czech. They have an open grill so you can watch your Chimney Cake or Cone being baked. We got an O.G. Chimney Cone which was a cinnamon sugar cone, vanilla soft serve and a strawberry. It was so delightful. The cone was warm and went perfectly with the airy soft serve. They have many other combinations which we will definitely try next time! 

Soap Making and More at Let’s Make it (Richmond Hill)

Masterpieces from Soap Making and More Class @ Let's Make It

DD#1 and I signed up for the Soap Making and More Class at Let’s Make it in Richmond Hill. It was a wonderful 1.5 hour class where we made soap, bath bombs, lip balm and body scrub! We got to take them all home at the end of the workshop!

Catherine was a great host and instructor, giving not only step by step instruction but also a few tips and trivia.

We chose from natural fragrances and scented oils to make our soap. These were mixed with a plant-based soap base which we poured and stirred into a mold. These were put in the freezer and were ready by the time the workshop was done. It was fun to mix and match scents and pick a colour for the soap.

Dropping some essential oils and colour into our soap molds @ Let's Make It

Next, we made some bath bombs. After mixing scents and colours, we were given a base of citric acid mix and avocado oil. We prepared a mold by sprinkling botanicals or dried flowers into the bottom (there was a selection of lavender buds, rose petals and orange blossoms). Then, we combined the scented, coloured mix and pressed into a mold. After getting these out of the mold, we were provided with nice packaging to put the bath bombs into. Such a lovely package and would make for a cute gift!

Mixing our ingredients for bath bombs @ Let's Make It

Then, we made some body scrubs using the botanicals and essential oils mixed with Dead Sea Salt. We packaged it in a small jar and decorated our labels. By now, we were quite relaxed and in a highly positive mood from smelling all the essential oils! But we still had one more project to make—Lip Balm.

decorating our Body Scrub Jars @ Let's Make It

For the lip balm, we used flavours instead of scents and we had a choice of chocolate, cherry or strawberry. You can mix and match or use all flavours like what DD#1 did. She claims her lip balm tastes awesome! We poured the flavours into a lip balm tube then poured some melted wax/oil mix. We stirred it and sealed it (DD#1 shook hers). Done.

Four projects and we had our masterpieces to bring home! We couldn’t wait to get into the shower to use our soaps! It was a wonderful workshop which DD#1 and I enjoyed immensely. Highly recommended. Oh and they also do events and parties!

A bit of Everything! Dinner at Scaddabush Italian Kitchen and Bar

It was not so hard to decide on a cuisine for my pizza monster celebrating her birthday. I had tried Scaddabush with some friends before but the fam has not been so we decided to go to the Richmond Hill location.

It was pretty busy for 6pm on a Sunday night. We did manage to get a table without reservations, though. I love the industrial feel of the place with candelabras actually lit with candles and bikes hanging off the ceiling. A couple of huge chandeliers also graced the place. Chairs and plates were mismatched and added more to the eclectic feel of this fun, casual dining spot.

While we were ordering, the girls made their way to the back, near the kitchen to watch the chef hand-pull mozzarella. They were quite intrigued with the process and so, despite our orders of pizza and pasta, we added an order of Naked Mozzarella. Just because we HAD to try it.

Anyway, the order did not take too long. We shared all the dishes so everyone got a taste—a little bit of everything! Scaddabush!

We got an order of The Butcher pizza. It was basically a meat-lovers pizza with bacon, sausage, pepperoni, mozzarella, roasted garlic, red onions, and San Marzano tomato sauce. It was not the traditional round pizza but more of a flatbread. It was served with some cool scissors so you can cut it to the size you want. The pizza was just delicious—packed heavily with toppings, the crust was soft with a perfect crisp.

The Butcher Pizza @Scaddabush

I also liked the Shrimp Spaghetti with wine cream, lemon and garlic butter, basil, fried capers and Parmesan. The fresh pasta was cooked perfectly and the white sauce was creamy and flavourful.

Shrimp Spaghetti @Scaddabush

The Lobster Spaghetti had some decent chunks of lobster tossed in spicy tomato cream sauce, roasted tomatoes, roasted peppers, arugula, and Parmesan. Delicious!

Lobster Spaghetti @Scaddabush

The third pasta we got was the Fettuccine Capri with Shrimp, scallops, PEI mussels, squid, roasted red peppers and scallions on tomato sauce. This one had a bit more spice and had the seafood I love. While it was my least favourite among the pasta we ordered, it was still quite good.

Fettuccine Capri @Scaddabush

Our Naked Mozzarella finally came. The ball of cheese was drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and served with focaccia crostini, San Marzano tomato jam and sea salt. Divine.

Naked Mozzarella @Scaddabush

Maybe we were not too hungry that evening, but I think we ordered way more than we could consume. The Capri was practically untouched and a third of the pizza also had to be bagged. And yet, the girls had some room for dessert and tried the Chocolate Toffee Jar Cake. It looked yummy that I couldn’t resist even one bite. And it was worth it! It was a delightful chocolate ganache with sponge toffee, vanilla whipped cream, candied walnuts, sea salt.

We truly enjoyed our dining experience and the food was just delicious! We will definitely be back!