Stephenville's best fall treats

BY ANDREW UTTERBACK / Multimedia Journalist

It’s fall y’all. 

I’ll be honest here, before this week I had never had a pumpkin spice latte. I quite enjoy fall festivities, but those have not yet included the beverage that fuels many Texans this time of year. 

Stephenville, Texas is a college town, and college students love their coffee. And sugar. I went to two of the most popular coffee shops in town and one bakery in hopes of finding the best fall treats. 

My quest started at King Coffee in downtown Stephenville. I walked up to the counter of the coffee shop, which is located right on a street corner you pass on the way to Tarleton State University, and asked for their “best fall items.”

My order request for their fall fan favorites was the same at all three fall-food-featuring establishments, leaving my “review” in the hands of the shop itself. 
King Coffee picked out, guess what, a pumpkin spice latte alongside a cream cheese pumpkin muffin. 

I was accompanied by my friend and co-taste-tester Evan, who says he is not the biggest coffee consumer. I figured this would help my objectivity. 

The latte was very smooth with a good pumpkin flavor that isn’t too sweet. I was told that this would not taste like Starbucks’ offering of the drink, not like I would know what that tastes like, but I assume it means less of a sugary taste. 

There was also a wonderful smell of cinnamon and nutmeg floating up from the fluffy layer of foam sitting atop the latte. 

The muffin was also quite good. Perfectly moist with an amazing cream cheese frosting. It tasted like above average pumpkin bread in muffin shape. 

Evan backed up my pumpkin muffin praise, saying the muffin’s strength was the cream cheese frosting. 

King Coffee had the least fall decorations in their shop, but the latte and muffin’s performance easily made up for it. 

We then gathered our belongings, hopped in the truck and headed to Red Umbrella Bakery, about a minute down the street from the Tarleton campus. 

Red Umbrella easily won the decoration award. Halloween decor stretched every wall of the bakery, and their cupcakes kept the theme going strong. 

After letting yet another kind employee choose my test subjects, I was treated to the Ghostbuster and Redrum salted caramel cupcakes. 

The ghostbuster was Vanilla Cake, Green Bavarian Center, Chocolate Ganache topping, topped with a Vanilla Buttercream Ghost.

The Redrum salted caramel was caramel everything including the cake, center and buttercream topped with flaky salt. The red drizzle across the top added a Halloween flare. 

Both were quite good. The Ghostbuster tasted mostly like a traditional chocolate cupcake with the green filling in the center giving it an extra flavor note. 

The Redrum salted caramel tasted, unsurprisingly, strongly of caramel, with a perfect hint of salt in the frosting. 

My co-tester agreed with my analysis and said both cupcakes were very good. 

Finally, we went to the coffee shop that I had heard the highest praise for: Cold Smoke Coffee Craft House, better known as just Cold Smoke. 

Located in the same building as Barefoot Campus Outfitters, Cold Smoke has the coziest atmosphere of all the places we tested and definitely is one of the best coffee shop atmospheres I’ve seen. 

I was given their Candied Pecan coffee and a pumpkin cookie. 

The cookie was about average. Soft, good notes of pumpkin here and there, but it definitely tasted more like a spice cookie. Evan said it was definitely not as good as the pumpkin muffin we had an hour or so earlier. 

The Candied Pecan, however, was very good. So good in fact, that I went back with my roommate a few days later and got myself another. 

It tastes like a vanilla iced coffee with little hits of pecan saltiness and possibly cinnamon. This coffee paired with their cabin-esque design made it quite the fall welcome. 

To add to the whole experience, I did all of my taste testing on the one day this month so far with a high below 70 degrees. 

If you’re looking for the perfect fall treats, you definitely can’t go wrong with any of these Stephenville offerings. 

A Red Umbrella cupcake is a perfect late night treat, and my dream coffee pairing would be a Cold Smoke Candied Pecan coffee and a King Coffee pumpkin muffin.