Holiday Delights

Happy New Year! There has been a lot of dessert relishing over the holidays, but I'll just highlight a few experiences over the past few weeks.

At my regular day job, a group of us go out for lunch often. When each person in our group has a birthday, we take them out for lunch and devour cupcakes – usually from Crave. Just before Christmas, we had a birthday lunch for my coworker and friend, Rob. During our lunch, our waiter had a little mishap with the box of cupcakes, almost dropping them. While most of the cupcakes survived, Rob's unfortunately did not. It was a cupcake catastrophe! For consolation, the restaurant gave him a slice of cake and another coworker, Melissa, picked up a replacement cupcake as well.

For the month of December, Crave had a few holiday cupcakes; one of which I decided to try, which was gingerbread. It was a gingerbread cake with cream cheese frosting and a little fondant gingerbread man on top. It was definitely delish. I loved it! It's one of those things that comes around only once a year, so it's definitely crave-able.

The fiance and I (yes, we got engaged on Christmas) spent time with our families and encountered desserts everywhere we went. But one night while in the Tampa, Florida area, we ventured over to Gigi's. We had the Nodini cannoli (top left and bottom right), fiance had Italian cream (top right) and I had butterscotch dream (bottom left).

The first cupcake I chowed down on was butterscotch dream, which is butterscotch cake and filling with toasted vanilla frosting and rimmed with coconuts and pecans. I'm not a fan of coconut and pecans, so I picked them off (a bit tedious to do). The cake part was good, but it got even better when I got to the butterscotch filling.

Fiance's first cupcake was Italian cream, which was Italian cream cake topped with cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut. I tried a bite of his and thought it was pretty tasty.

Fiance and I were anxious to try our cannoli cupcakes, which is amaretto cake filled and topped with cannoli cream and topped with a mini cannoli. This cupcake did not disappoint. It was as good as we anticipated, so well worth trying. The cannoli on top was very yummy as was the rest of the cupcake.

Keep watching for the cupcake quests to continue this year! Even though I said I needed a break in my last post. Ha! Who am I kidding?

More Belly Busting

The week before last, we went to Gigi's as planned. We got a whopping seven cupcakes because we had a free one with the punch card. I don't know why we didn't just buy five and get one free. Anyway…My flavor selections consisted of birthday surprise (top left), mellow cream (top second from left) and wedding cake (top second from right). Boyfriend's flavors were midnight magic (top right), grasshopper (bottom left), red velvet (bottom second from left) and champagne (bottom right).

First cupcake I ate was the mellow cream. It's a devil's food cake filled with chocolate chips and marshmallow cream; and topped with chocolate ganache and a swirl of white frosting. It was a lot smaller than the normal Gigi's cupcake due to the frosting. This is a gourmet version of the ol' Hostess Cupcakes. Crave Cupcakes also has a version of this that I've tried before called Crave chocolate and cream. The Gigi's version was good, but from what I remember, Crave's was better.

My second cupcake was the birthday surprise. It's a white cake with pink buttercream frosting, topped with sprinkles. For a standard issue cupcake, it was quite good.

The final cupcake was the wedding cake. I've described this one before and it's similar to the birthday surprise except for the vanilla frosting and white sprinkle dots. No complaints on this one either, but I was busting out of my jeans at this point; forcing each bite.

Last weekend, we decided to do the bundt cake thing again for a change. It was the same as before and just as good again this time around.

This weekend, I think I'll be baking at home; probably vanilla cupcakes. This gourmet cupcake habit is expensive. My wallet (and belly) need a break.

No Cupcakes, but Desserts a Plenty

Boyfriend and I have been traveling the last few weeks. We went to Las Vegas for a little trip and then Louisiana for Thanksgiving. We stayed at the Planet Hollywood Resort and mostly ate desserts at a few places in the adjoining mall. One evening, we went to an Italian cafe and I had gelato while the boyfriend had a piece of carrot cake and a colossal white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. My gelato was good and boyfriend enjoyed his desserts; especially the enormous cookie. The second night, we returned to the Italian cafe. I had a colossal chocolate chip cookie, he had his white chocolate macadamia nut cookie again and we split a slice of red velvet cake. Both were OK to me. I wasn’t overly impressed. The third day, I stopped by the Nestle Toll House shop and got a bunch of cookies for the both of us. You can't go wrong with Nestle.

One of the popular sweet shops in Vegas is Sugar Factory. There is one located in the Miracle Mile shops at Planet Hollywood and a new Sugar Factory restaurant with the store at the Paris Las Vegas Casino. We had dessert at the Planet Hollywood mall location while we vacationed in Vegas last year. We had a mammoth red velvet cupcake there. I remember it tasting alright, but being a bit dry. This year, we ate dinner at the Sugar Factory restaurant, but skipped dessert. Whoa?! Thought I'd include a few pics of the store though...

While in Louisiana visiting the boyfriend's family for Thanksgiving, we ate a lot of cheesecake. One of which, his aunt made from scratch...white chocolate with white and milk chocolate shavings on top. Yum! There was a red velvet cake and an ice cream cake too, which I also ate. Goodness, I'm going to get diabetes or a heart attack!

The boyfriend has made a demand for Gigi's again this weekend. Hopefully, they will have some different cupcakes that we can try.

Sprinkle, Sprinkle Little Cupcake

Usually, we don't cupcake binge two weeks in a row, but I noticed that Sprinkles has a salty caramel cupcake featured this month, so I didn't want to miss it. I've had a hankering for caramel (especially salty) lately. Plus, it’s been awhile since I've eaten Sprinkles.

The biggest draw for Sprinkles is its chic Beverly Hills origin and the founder is a judge on Cupcake Wars. They are somewhat comparable to Crave in terms of presentation (i.e. frosting application, use of fondant, etc) and similar in taste. Sprinkles and Crave vary slightly in flavor options, size and price. Sprinkles cupcakes are a bit smaller and about 25 cents more than most cupcakeries. But if you follow them on Twitter, they often feature a free cupcake flavor each day to the first 50 or so customers who whisper a secret phrase when placing their order. I got myself a free strawberry cupcake by doing this over the weekend.

Now, to the good stuff...my flavor selection included: salty caramel (top middle), strawberry (bottom left) and cinnamon sugar (bottom middle). Boyfriend got pumpkin (top left), vanilla (top right) and dark chocolate (bottom right).

Boyfriend ate his vanilla and dark chocolate cupcakes before I got home from work, so I didn't have a chance to try them. With both of these flavors, you are given the option of having sprinkles on them or not. What's a Sprinkles cupcake without sprinkles? Never mind. Anyway, the vanilla is made with Madagascar vanilla and the dark chocolate is Belgian dark chocolate cake with bittersweet chocolate frosting. Boyfriend enjoyed them. I guess there isn’t much to say about these core flavors.

When I got home, I had the strawberry. Again, another standard flavor. I liked it. It had appropriate cake and frosting consistency.

The second cupcake I had was the cinnamon sugar. I had this cupcake a long time ago, so I needed a refresher. It's lightly spiced buttermilk cake dusted with cinnamon sugar. It was good enough. It reminded me of a cinnamon donut. I would have preferred frosting on it.

Finally, boyfriend and I had our specialty cupcakes. Boyfriend had his pumpkin with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and it tasted as he expected. I don’t care for pumpkin, but I tried it and thought it was good.

Saving my hotly anticipated cupcake for last, I had my salty caramel. It was buttery caramel cake with caramel cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with fleur de sel (aka salt). It was yummy. It had the perfect amount of caramel and salt. I prefer the chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel a little more, but this one satisfied my craving.

While not on the top of our cupcake list, Sprinkles is a good alternative once in awhile; especially when they have special featured flavors.

And so, the cupcake journey goes on...

Sweet Saturday Surprise

The weekend before last, we toned down the sweet factor a bit with some desserts from Whole Foods. I had a few small salted caramel cupcakes and chocolate chip cannolis. The salted caramel cupcakes were a bit heavy on the caramel filling, but overall, both desserts (or all four I should say, as I had two of each) were pretty good.

As planned, this past weekend was dedicated to Gigi's. I had Red Velvet (top left), Champagne (bottom left) and English toffee (bottom right). Boyfriend had grasshopper (top right), wedding cake (middle left) and white midnight magic (middle right).

A little apprehensive, I tried the English toffee first. For some reason, I always correlate toffee with a flavor combination of nuts and coffee (perhaps because it rhymes?), which is why I was hesitant to try this one. I don't drink coffee and as I've said before, don't really like sweet-salty mix. This cupcake is a toffee cake with toffee filling and frosting, and rimmed with chocolate toffee bits. Boy was I pleasantly surprised! It was excellent. And not too much toffee flavor like you'd expect. It was balanced perfectly and the toffee bits gave it a nice crispy crunch. Probably the best cupcake out of the three I had that day.

My second cupcake was the red velvet and third was champagne. As I've tried these before, I don't have anything new to say about them. They are both very delicious and as most Gigi's cupcakes, have nice little touches. I like the light sprinkle of sugar crystals on top of the red velvet and the champagne has edible pearls and white chocolate chips surrounding the frosting.

By the time I got to the champagne cupcake, I thought I was going to pass out. Eating occurred in slow motion and everything sounded like those slow, digitally altered voices similar to when Will Ferrell got shot in the neck by that dart in the movie Old School. I've started to pace my cupcake consumption by spacing the eating of each one at about one hour intervals. It's worked well for the most part. I just think Gigi's cupcakes are so filling that even the hour between the second and third cupcakes wasn’t enough this time around.

Not sure yet what's next on the schedule of sweet eats, but stay tuned!

Cupcake Hiatus...or Not

Sorry, it's been awhile since reporting any new cupcake adventures. The weekend after Gigi's, I made brownies with white chocolate chips. The weekend after that, we had Crave Cupcakes again. Since they were pretty much the same flavors as last time, I didn't have anything new to disclose. And last weekend, I made red velvet cupcakes courtesy of Duncan Hines. Yeah, I know, it's a box mix and jar frosting, but hey, it serves its sweet purpose. I could make my own from scratch if I wanted to, but my domestic side usually isn’t that domestic. Come on! It's my weekend too!

Usually when I bake cupcakes, I don't use the liners. Not using the liners often means coating the pan with cooking spray and sometimes, baking powder. Removing the cupcakes can get tricky, so I usually slide a butter knife around the edges to loosen it up and pop them out. Then, the cleaning afterward is always a joy. LESSON LEARNED...USE THE CUPCAKE LINERS!!! They are so much easier! This was the first time I used them. Why did I suffer all these years? You don't need to use spray; they're easy to remove from the pan and there's less cleaning involved. It's worth the few bucks to buy the liners versus the time and effort you spend.

Having made about two dozen cupcakes, there was no way the boyfriend and I could consume all of them in one weekend. They are smaller than the ones at the cupcakeries, but there's only so much one can eat. So, I brought the leftovers to work. I used a fancy frosting gun, which worked out ok. I'm not a skilled cake decorator, so the bakeries won't be beating down my door to offer me a job. By the time I arrived to the office, the frosting on two cupcakes slipped off and by mid-morning, two more took a tumble and landed upside down. I think they were too top heavy, but part of me thinks it could have been sabotage. I brought them in Florida Gator containers and there are a few SEC rivals in my office, so you tell me...

On Tuesday, it was the boyfriend's birthday. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. And yup, you guessed it, we ate cheesecake. Boyfriend had the white chocolate caramel macadamia nut (say that five times fast) and I had chocolate chip cookie dough. Yum! But oh so filling after bread, an appetizer and the meal. I've come to the conclusion that I won't be able to maintain my weight through the end of the year with these habits and the holidays approaching.

I have no clue what's in store for this weekend. The boyfriend has made an early special request already to get Gigi's Cupcakes again next weekend. We're hoping they throw in a few alternate "off the menu" flavors as they did last time. Because our cupcake trips almost always occur on Saturdays, the cupcakeries have their set "day of the week" menus, so we don’t get to try other flavors. If any cupcake bakers are out there, this it my request...please rotate your day of the week flavor menus!

Until next time...sayonara sweet supporters!

Back to Our Original Objective

Late last week was the long-awaited grand opening of Gigi's Cupcakes in Sugar Land. Of which, we were waiting with baited breath as this is the boyfriend's favorite cupcakery. Our first Gigi's experience took place in The Woodlands and again in Tampa, Florida. The reason this is the boyfriend's fave? Frosting; lots and lots of frosting. With most cupcakeries, boyfriend adds frosting to the cupcakes from our own tub supply. At Gigi's, he doesn’t need to. Their cupcakes are tall and nowhere near small.

Since we had been to Gigi's before, we already had a punch card. There are a few options to get free cupcakes. The first is based on buying dozens. If you buy 12 dozen, you get a dozen free. The second, if you buy 12 individual cupcakes, you get one free. We had six punches from our last visit and then adding six to this trip, we were entitled to a free cupcake, which the boyfriend felt was necessary to have today. So, we ended up with seven behemoth cupcakes.

My flavors du jour were (top row, left to right): strawberry champagne, banana cream pie and chocolate salted caramel. Boyfriend's flavors were (bottom row, left to right): red velvet, champagne, white midnight magic and midnight magic. These top heavy frosted mammoths took a little tumble during the ride home, so some have a slanted appearance in the pic.

After returning home, the boyfriend immediately dove into the midnight magic cupcake. Midnight magic is devil's food cake with a milk chocolate butter cream frosting and chocolate chips on top. Even though I'm not a huge fan of rich chocolate overkill desserts, I took a few bites. It was very good. It seems the milk chocolate frosting balances out the devil's food cake. It was not as excessive chocolate as I expected.

Later, boyfriend sipped into his champagne cupcake while I ate the strawberry champagne. Strawberry champagne is not featured on the website's menu, but is similar to their standard champagne cupcake except the cake part was strawberry. The frosting is has a light touch of champagne flavor, which was fluffy and delicious.

Next, I had the banana cream pie. I was a little gun shy on this one because of my prior bad banana pudding cupcake experience at What's Up Cupcake? But there was no reason for my doubt. Gigi's did it right. Banana cream pie has a regular yellow cake with a little bit of vanilla cream in the middle. The frosting was banana butter cream and had vanilla wafer cookies around and on top.

Then the boyfriend went for the other midnight magic...white style. This one also has a devil's food cake base and chocolate chips on top, but with cream cheese frosting. Another fine cupcake from Gigi's.

After all that, we had a sugar crash and postponed the eating of the last two cupcakes to the next day. So on Sunday, my last cupcake was the chocolate salted caramel. I know I often say that I don't like the salty-sweet combination, but I had this type of cupcake before and it was quite yummy. This one was no different in yum factor; just better. It had dark chocolate cake, caramel frosting with a bit of chocolate ganache and a sprinkle of salt.

And last for the boyfriend was red velvet. Typical red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and red sugar sprinkled on top. Another tasty hit.

It goes without saying, I recommend Gigi's Cupcakes; especially if you like a lot of frosting on your cupcakes. This new Sugar Land location is closer to me than The Woodlands, but I wish there was one in town. However, it's definitely worth the occasional trek to the burbs.