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Girls Week in California with Jenny

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

As it turns out, Kevin happened to be traveling for work the week after The Big Traveling Potluck conference. And since I was already in California anyway… ;) I decided to stay and play an extra week while he was out of town too! :)

If you follow me on Instagram, you saw some of our girls week. Here what else we were up to! :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

My sweet friend Jenny of the delicious blog Picky Palate offered to let me stay with her for the week, and it was basically like a week long slumber party of cupcakes, cookies, ice cream and girl talk. You know Jenny and I can’t get together without getting into a little trouble! :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Our first stop was a colorful candy shop right on the beach, B.Candy.

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

How fun is this cotton candy cupcake??

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

We both agreed this pink raspberry lemonade cupcake was one of our favorites!

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Perfect little pink velvet cupcake.

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Oh my gosh, we were dying over the Kit Kat cupcake! So fun!! Lindsay — the genius behind B.Candy’s fabulous cupcakes — told us that she looked around the shop that morning, saw they had a surplus of Kit Kats, and decided to make Kit Kat Cupcakes that day. How fun would it be to wake up and create cupcakes every day?? :)

The homemade ice cream at B.Candy is absolutely not to be missed. Loved this chocolate Oreo ice cream. Kevin would’ve loved this because he loves Oreo ice cream and this is a chocolate base ice cream. Most Oreo ice creams I’ve seen are vanilla based, but Kevin always goes for the chocolate base ice cream. This would be his perfect combination. :)  (When topped with peanut butter and bananas of course :P) I am totally a vanilla base ice cream kinda girl, but I loved that this was a fun change! What about you… vanilla or chocolate? :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

But oh my gosh you guys. This ice cream was absolutely life. changing. So not kidding. Guess what flavor this was. Hands down, it honestly some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had. If you are anywhere near B.Candy, you must get yourself in here and order some of this Frosted Flake ice cream ASAP. It is SO crazy good! It’s sweet and salt and perfectly fabulous. I wanted to come back here every day for a scoop. In fact, after I finished this cone, I immediately ordered another scoop! One is not enough! :)

Mocha Chip Ice Cream from Hans' Homemade Ice CreamMocha Chip Ice Cream from Hans in Costa Mesa

Come to think of it, we kind of ate a lot of ice cream this week! :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Like this massive chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich from Hans’ Homemade Ice Cream in Santa Ana.

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Did you know Sprinkles Cupcakes now has ice cream?! We drove by a few times and the line was — no kidding — at least an hour long. We kept stalking them though, and got lucky one night after dinner and got right in with no line. Their salted caramel ice cream was amazing! They even had fun red velvet waffle cones. I totally should’ve gotten one of those!

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

What would a slumber party be without homemade, fresh from the oven, Picky Palate Perfect M&M Cookies with a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream?? :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

But we weren’t all cookies, cupcakes, and ice cream! I swear! Every morning Jenny’s husband Cullen would take us down to the beach and make us run stairs, like infinity times. We would finish up our workout with a healthy breakfast of the Toxic Cleanse green juice at Nekter Juice Bar. SO good! I would have one of these every day if they had one in Alabama. Luckily, Jenny’s got a copycat recipe.

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!Photo via Jenny

Running our stairs at the beach! It’s all about balance, right? ;)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Of course after all that running we had to load up on carbs, right? :D Okay, so, Jenny and I absolutely cannot get together this close to LA without paying a visit to our FAVORITE breakfast place ever. Like, ever. The Griddle Cafe. We dragged Cullen along with us for an excuse to order even more off the menu. ;) Of course I got my all time favorite, The Recess Time pancake, which is a perfect pancake topped with cinnamon streusel. For a copycat recipe, check out the Cinnamon Streusel Pancakes from Two Peas and Their Pod.

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Jenny got her favorite, the Black Magic Oreo pancake, topped with whipped cream. YUM!

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

I also can’t come to The Griddle Cafe without having at least one order of Mom’s French Toast on the table.

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

And this time we added a few newbies to try! This is the Devil’s Daydream, a deliciously rich, soft chocolate bread loaded with chocolate chips, griddled to perfection, and topped with mounds of whipped cream. Decadently sinful!

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

You guys, I had NO IDEA there was a SECRET french toast at Griddle Cafe!! They absolutely will NOT let you order it unless you know the secret password. Fortunately, a passing waiter took pity on us and gave us a hint. “Think Mary Poppins,” he whispered. We quickly blurted the code as fast as we could possibly get it out, and were given permission to order the super secret french toast, but they still wouldn’t tell us what it was! It’s a SECRET! We decided to just go for it. And it was the best decision we’ve ever made. I can tell you right now, this will be on the table every single time I go to The Griddle Cafe from now on. It’s like a cinnamon bun stuffed french toast. Un-believeable. The toast is soft and decadent like the middle of a cinnamon bun. The topping is brown sugary, sweet, and cinnamony. It’s topped with butter and comes with a side of frosting, yes, frosting. Oh my gosh, what I would not give to have this in front of me right now! Argh! I think, like everyone, I enjoy my cheaper Levitra in large packages; still, those small ones are great if you’re not sure about its effects on you. For example, you’ll be able to test Levitra at low cost on your first prescription with those smaller boxes. Overall, it is very true that the cost per tablet decreases as the pack size grows. For example, each 10 mg tablet of Levitra costs around €7.50 in a pack of four film-coated tablets and less than €6 in a pack of 12 film-coated tablets. I find that offer simply great, it so fair a price for my augmented erections!

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Oh yeah! We also bumped into this guy. Slater!

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

For dinner one night Jenny took me to Hamamori at South Coast Plaza where I had some of my favorite, most unforgettable sushi ever.  MUST ORDER: Ask for the Tempura Halibut hand roll (not on the menu). It’s not raw or anything, so if you’re looking to ease into sushi, try this one. It’s amazing! And if you do love sushi, you will LOVE IT! :) We ended up eating here twice before I left, it was so good. I am totally going to try and get my favorite sushi place back home to recreate it! :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

We had super awesome cheesy bacon truffle fries and burgers at Umami Burger.

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

A new doughnut shop just opened up, so of course it was our duty to check it out. You know, for you. ;) So we can report back. ;) I loved this maple bacon doughnut and the Samoa doughnut next to it! The blueberry glazed doughnut on the left and the strawberry basil doughnut next to it were also favs. Our conclusion: Sidecar Doughnuts is a winner! They also serve Stumptown Coffee, if you’re into that sort of thing. I am not a huge coffee drinker, but Stumptown Coffee ice cream is like the best coffee ice cream ever, so that has to count for something, I think. Right? :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

And we made macarons! Homemade macarons!

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

And being with Picky Palate, you know we had to Oreo Cookie it up! :) How do you like our Cookies ‘n Cream homemade macarons?? :)

The perfect girls week in California. Cupcakes, Ice cream, and doughnuts!

Oh my gosh. There is honestly nothing as decadent as a homemade macaron. Jenny says she’ll have the recipe up soon! :) I would be stalking Picky-Palate.com if I were you. ;)

Hope you enjoyed! Have a great weekend! :) xoxo

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40 Responses
  1. Misty

    We just got back from this area today! I was so glad you posted this last week, we were able to make it to B Candy! It was the cutest candy store, and that frosted flake ice cream was crazy! Looks like you had a fun time, thanks for sharing!

  2. Lynna

    I so happy I’m in SoCal, so I can try some of these places I have never heard of before! Like Sidecar. I`m exciteddd!

  3. Janet

    Pictures are gorgeous! Sounds like a fun trip and what wonderful hospitality you experienced! I am cutting much sugar out of my diet and the pictures are helpful to me because I can look without eating. Thanks for that :)

    Have a beautiful day!

    1. Amanda

      I wish I knew! They’re gel nails. I went to a place in Asheville, NC and they never showed me the bottle, I just picked the color from a sample. I’m going to try and find it around here! :)

  4. Mary

    This is why I love checking your blog out all the time because you’re always doing something fun! This food looks outrageously good. I know, lots of hard work involved, glad you took one for the team ;) Tell me, where was the beach picture taken, it’s so picture perfect?

  5. Laura Dembowski

    Well that looks like the best vacation ever! I’d run stairs forever to eat all that yummy food. Halibut sushi is now on my must find list – it sounds killer!

  6. Holly

    Seeing your blog makes me want to visit these places and order what you did (except the sushi!). Looks like tons of fun!

  7. Mallory

    I will have to go try all these places! They’re all so close to me! I’ve been wanting to go to Sidecar for a while now. I love doughnuts so much. It looks like you had a ton of fun here :)

  8. Shannon

    Did you bring any cookies back for the baby dogs? Dog friendly of course…
    Has Kevin been to Griddle Cafe? Was he totally jealous of the secret surprise? A spoonful of sugar…

  9. Leah | So, How's It Taste?

    Looks like you girls had some delicious eats and lots of fun! I love The Griddle Cafe! I went years ago on a trip to California and still talk about it!

  10. Kelly

    Mmmmm….. Hans’s has the best ice cream!! My husband got me hooked on it – he’s been going there since he was a little boy and his grandma would take him :-)

    And their sandwiches are delicious too! :-)

  11. skye

    oh.my.gawwwd! I am 38 weeks pregnant and this food is making me drool big time! Especially the french toast and the cheesy bacon fries- omg! Thanks for the smiles! :)

  12. Rachel @ Baked by Rachel

    So many amazing sweets!! Your pictures are always so much fun to see, even if they do make me crave sweets like crazy! ;)

  13. Averie @ Averie Cooks

    Amanda what a FUN post and fun time you and Jenny had! I had a feeling you were going to hang out in Cali for awhile and so glad you two had your girls time and made…those macarons! And ate so many delish looking goodies! :)

  14. Lori

    Holy smokes….even running stairs I would gain weight tasting all that good stuff! I do not know how you stay SOOO thin…and you did look super thin in those pictures on your last blog post…

  15. Elizabeth

    You are killing me!! I live in Los Angeles and I must go to Griddle Cafe. I have never heard of it before but holy deliciousness!!!

  16. Lori @ RecipeGirl

    Oh Dear. Reading this post makes me want to run stairs, lol!! Looks like you found oodles and oodles of fabulous goodies!

  17. Jenny Flake

    Girl, this was one delicious week wasn’t it?! Had so much fun and I can’t wait until our next adventure this weekend!! xoxo

  18. Susanne

    How is it possible that you don’t weigh 400 pounds? The food you post is absolutely beautiful!! Do you just take bites of all those things? Or so you really eat them all? I think you must have the “sweetest” job in the world!! 😉

  19. Traci

    I love those pictures. I am now starving and craving a trip back to California. I was dying to see my family out there, but I may have to stop for cupcakes first. Hopefully they’ll understand. :)

  20. Susan

    I’m dying – those pancakes and secret french toast! I am lusting away – I didn’t eat breakfast, forgot to pack a lunch . . and well, I WANT that french toast!

    I agree with Jane – just looking at those pictures make me gain weight! :)

  21. Jane M

    I don’t get it. Even working out I gain weight just looking at these food pictures on your blog. You are very lucky you don’t have my metabolism. All the food looks awesome!

  22. Michelle

    I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all the amazing food you show and describe to us! I also enjoy that you eat real food and enjoy it-I think sometimes women deprive themselves and/or feel guilty about enjoying a treat, so it is encouraging to see that it is ok:-)

  23. Barbara @ Barbara Bakes

    It all looks scrumptious. I really need to eat at that breakfast place. Glad you had a great time.

    1. Amanda

      Oh Barbara, anytime you want to go I will meet you there!! :) I will make sure we get that secret French toast, lol!! Xoxo

  24. BethG

    B. Candy, you were in my area! The yummiest shop. And Haans! I’ve been eating ice cream there since high school in the mid and late ’80s. It looks like you had a great girls’ vacation. : )

  25. Ali | Gimme Some Oven

    Oh my goodness — what a SWEET week! Looks like you two had the best time! Cheers to beautiful friendships, and wonderful treats like all of these! (Um, including Mario Lopez!) ;)

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Meet Kevin & Amanda

Kevin and Amanda

We love to travel and to eat! Here we share our favorite quick and easy recipes, plus travel tips and guides for our favorite places around the world. If you have any questions about what camera I use or how I edit my photos, check out my photography tutorials.

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