Monday, April 2, 2012

Jenuine Desserts

Jenuine Desserts is a cake and cupcake business, generally open for catering events. However, you might currently find Jen Adams' cupcakes for sale at Adam's Rib Smokehouse in Salem, Oregon.

From Jen's website!
(Just did a very small edit to it)


Walking inside Adam's, there was a female employee at the ordering counter. I closely examined her mannerisms, intentionally asking random questions to test her. Not a lot of smiling. A semi-disinterested look, with similar responses. I've seen worse, but I'd hardly call such demeanor acceptable for the front of the house. Adam's should be lucky I wasn't there to rate the staff.


Adam's Rib Smokehouse now has a cool pig-shaped menu!

Four cupcakes were available from Jenuine Desserts on my visit to Adam's. Chocolate Peanut Butter sounded great, but seemed too heavy for me at the time. Toasted coconut sounded lovely, and the confetti cake with vanilla buttercream was basically screaming at me to pick it. So of course, I went with the last option: red velvet with a cream cheese buttercream frosting.

Adam's sells cupcakes from Jenuine Desserts
After placing my order, the young female employee went to the back, even though four cupcakes were sitting under a glass dome at the ordering window. I couldn't gauge how long they had been under there, but I got there a bit past 11 in the morning. She brought back a red velvet cupcake in a plastic see-through container. Pink edible sprinkles caressed the top of the buttercream for a great color contrast. But alas, the container was cold.

Red velvet cupcake with cream cheese buttercream frosting
(Jenuine Desserts)
Peeling away the cupcake wrapper
At that moment, I had negative thoughts that the cupcake was cold and not fresh, perhaps refrigerated. In other words, the actual cake would be heavy and dry. And I was correct. It pains me, because I'd think people would yearn for fluffy, room-temperature cupcakes. I can only assume I came at an unfortunate time when staff needed to make sure the older products were sold first.

I'm happy that any red food coloring was kept to a minimum, because I've seen those solid red cupcakes that just make me fear a bit for my health. The cream cheese buttercream was well-prepared: smooth and not overly sweet. The buttercream appeared to go to the middle of the cupcake, doubling as a filling. I personally like filled cupcakes, so I felt that was a plus. The overall flavors were palate-pleasing. I'll award at least a small happy panda dance for such fine work.

Looks like the buttercream reached the middle and doubled as a filling!
Jen should have other attractive creations available, depending on the season. I'd bet a good amount of money you'd see her at a Farmer's Market in the coming months. Such events are great ways to get your name out there without enduring ridiculously high business/startup costs.

I'm unsure if cupcakes are made fresh each day. I'd consider making some for lunch and a few for dinner. Adjust the number of cupcakes made accordingly. It's probably understandable that even this is a tall task, assuming Jen has catering events and other online orders to take care of.

The cupcake has promise, but the non-freshness of the product significantly destroyed the experience. I'd consider giving these cupcakes another try, and hopefully, I'll get a fresher cupcake next time. As always, comments are merely constructive criticism, no malice intended. 5.75/10

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