Restaurant: Labothery (Brossard, Canada)

One of the new additions to Quartier Dix30 in the Square Dix30 area in Brossard is a new bubble tea joint called Labothery. The concept is to have a build your own bubble tea concept from base to taste combination to sugar level to the jellies/pearls/tapioca/etc.

Its been a while since the bubble tea concept has been around and to be fair, it hasn’t had a whole lot of gimmick surrounding since the whole foreign thing might already be one. The chewy tapioca and the different jellies and now we even have pearls and such.

Because I’m silly, I forgot to take a picture so here’s a picture from my friend’s Instagram:

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1st time there saturday. Did a weird combination of flavours it tasted funny at the start but halfway through it grew on me. #dix30 #weekends #newstuff

A post shared by Ron (@rlaw1978) on Jun 16, 2019 at 2:35pm PDT

Its very much a lab concept there which is pretty nice and a lot of fun to just discuss what to put together and see what works. My friend used the more oriental flavors of kumquat and winter melon which I don’t think would have been as bad if he didn’t mix with other flavor palettes for the pearls and such.

We both took the Ice Tea variety. They also have a milk tea variety which is the powder that you choose and for the other types, you get to choose sugar level but for the iced tea, they say that the sugar level should already be enough. I’m assuming that means that the tea is already sweetened. I’ll discuss that a little later.

Here’s what I ended up choosing to put in my drink.

My iced tea base was green tea with flavors of kumquat and mango. For the pearls, I added in mango pearls and honey pearls. Mine turned out to be pretty good since I kept it fairly basic and didn’t get too experimental. However, my honey pearls did end up adding quite a sweet punch to it, making me think about whether the tea was sweetened already. I’m not quite sure about that. Point is, it did work pretty well. Plus the other choices were decent with tapioca as an obvious choice as well as aloe and all kinds of other pearls and jellies to choose from.

Overall, Labothery is a pretty cool concept. As with anything with a concept and customizable, it tends to increase the price. It was around $6.50 for my drink, I think. I haven’t had bubble tea in a while, mind you, so I’m not sure what the current pricing for it is. The pros and cons of this concept is obviously, that you can be as creative as you’d like to be with the flavor combinations but the cons is that the result will never be certain. However, it is a surprise element and essentially you suffer your own consequences. In my case, it turned out pretty well as for my friend, it was more an acquired taste that he grew to like more halfway through.

Baking: Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes!

Mother’s Day just passed this weekend and now I officially of two moms to cater to so I had to make sure to get out of the slumps that I’ve been sitting in and do something I love.  After some thought and consideration on time and available ingredients, I decided to do Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes. For the record, my mom’s quick lunch fix when she heads out to hang out friends is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and on a fruity and sweet level, that also works for my mother in law.  At least I think so. 😉

However, for time purpose, my version of Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes deviate a little from the recipe I used mostly because I didn’t have cream to make the frosting so I skipped that and buried the jam inside the cupcake, which I realize is the first time I’ve done something like this and took quite a bit of time. I did end up figuring out a way that sped up the process a little so it was a new experience.

The recipe is from Butter Baked Goods by Rosie Daykins!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes
Makes 18 cupcakes

First batch

Ingredients

2 cups pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp pure vanilla
1/2 cup raspberry jam

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Onto a large piece of parchment paper, sift together both flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar on medium to high speed until light and fluffy.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl several times.
5. In a liquid measuring cup, whisk together the milk and vanilla to combine.
6. Turn the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the liquid ingredients in two parts (begin and end with the dry). Scrape down the sides of the bowl several times to make sure everything is fully combined.
7. Use the ice cream scoop to fill each paper liner about three-quarters full with batter.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted into the side comes out clean.
9. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Second batch

As usual, there are a few modifications aside from the no frosting bit.  Here are some of the substitutes:

• No pastry flour so I used all-purpose flour
• A little less than 3/4 butter
• Almond milk instead of whole milk
• I’m not sure how much raspberry jam I used but that amount sounds about right
• I rarely sift anything onto parchment paper mostly because I think bowls do equally the same job and less messy
• Between steps 8 and 9 is when you  make the frosting and that involves smooth peanut butter, butter, icing sugar, heavy cream and chopped honey roasted peanuts.  If you want the portions, just ask and I’ll pass it to you.
• If you choose to follow the recipe with the frosting, you cut out the center a little and fill with raspberry jam and pipe the cream over it.
• Which brings me to talk about that I had made a little space to put the filling before covering it with a little more batter to make it seem like it would have a little surprise bite of jam in the center.

Peanut butter and jelly cupcakes worked out great.  My mother in law liked it quite a bit except she didn’t taste the peanut butter. My mom liked it because it wasn’t too sweet but she did taste the peanut butter.  So, I guess it depends on your sensitivity to taste because it is a rather subtle taste if without the frosting.  I have to say that it was pretty good for me also.  The cupcakes were fluffy and the jam created a sour, tart-like balance to counter the peanut butter sweetness.  I guess in reality, that’s the essence of what makes a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I personally like peanut butter or jam equally and separately in my sandwiches but I enjoyed these ones, especially because they required such patience and they smelled delicious.

What type of cupcakes do you like?