Whether you’re looking for comfort after a particularly hard math test, or want to celebrate turning in an essay on time, the dining halls are a great place to satiate your sweet tooth. For students living on-campus, unlimited swipes mean unlimited access to all the dining halls have to offer. However, the desserts at Kinsolving can be hit or miss. So, here are some ratings of Kins’ finest.
Oreo Cupcake: 5/10
The oreo cupcake was unusual for Kinsolving, which doesn’t typically feature cupcakes in their line-up. As such, I was interested to see how it would compare with the other desserts. I’m not a huge frosting lover, so I was pleasantly surprised that the icing was, in fact, whipped cream. The texture of the whipped cream was great, and it had a faint oreo flavor, as promised by the description. However, the actual cake part was disappointing. It was a regular chocolate cake, and a not-very-flavorful one at that. However, the texture was pretty good.
Vegan Sugar Bars / Snickerdoodle Bars: 9/10
My favorite dessert at Kinsolving, these sugar bars are a classic and a staple of the vegan dessert options. With a texture in between a cookie and a brownie, these bars are thicker and on the softer side. They are pretty sweet, so those with a sweet tooth could easily go through four or five of them at a time. They’re also great to take on the go!
Kinsolving has a few variations of this dessert, chocolate chip bars and rainbow sprinkle bars. The cookie base of the chocolate chip bars is less sweet than the other variations, but the chocolate chips make up for it.
Brookie: 4/10
As someone who is a proponent of brookies (the combination of a brownie and a cookie) as a concept, I was a little bit confused by Kins’ presentation. The dessert resembled less of a cookie or a brownie, and more of a thick chocolate cake. The texture was hard to get past because it ended up being glue-y and coating the inside of my mouth. I do like dark chocolate, so I appreciated that the “brookie” was less sweet than some of the other desserts here. In addition, the chocolate chips inside the brookie enhanced the flavor of the dessert itself.
Cereal Bars: 6/10
As someone who will eat dry cereal by the handful, it’s really hard to go wrong with cereal-themed desserts. However, the sugar coating that is holding the cereal together makes this dessert less enjoyable. You don’t really get the taste of the cereal itself— only the sugar concentration. Texture-wise, the crunchiness of the cereal is also obscured by the chewy coating. Depending on how you look at it, this could be a pro or a con. While crunching on cereal can be satisfying, it’s also probably easier on your teeth to consume cereal in this form. Kins will use different types of cereal for these cereal bars, something that changes the experience vastly. While the Lucky Charms version was decent, the Fruity Pebbles one was off-putting. The strength of the Fruity Pebbles flavor combined with the syrupy coating was overly sweet.
Tres Leches Cake: 6/10
As one should expect from tres leches, the cake itself was creamy. Most of the kinsolving desserts are presented at room temperature, but this cake was still cold, which was a nice touch.The frosting tasted generic, though, and didn’t add much to my eating experience. In addition, the frosting had a slight pineapple flavor, which detracted from the cake itself. I would eat the cake again in a heartbeat, but remove the frosting first.
Cheesecake: 7.5/10
This dessert is great for those who want to satisfy their sweet tooth without too much of a commitment. The crust was sugary and crumbly and tasted homemade. The flavor of the cake was mild, which was perfect to offset the sweetness of the crust.
Although some of the desserts are better than others, the “best” desserts at Kinsolving will likely be the desserts you typically enjoy the most. I would recommend trying out the desserts yourself to get a good idea of what you like and don’t. And while you’re at it, stock up on the vegan sugar bars whenever they’re available.