No Tricks; Just Treats

On Saturday, we made another trip to Gigi's. We had a combination of our favorites and some new flavors. Lucky for me, they had Chocolate Salted Caramel. It's been awhile since I had this from Gigi's.

For Halloween, Gigi's had some cute holiday decorated versions of some of their basic cupcakes. Not exactly sure what the graveyard one was, but it appeared to be standard yellow cake with vanilla frosting and oreo crumbs. It was a tasty basic cupcake. The husband had red velvet, which had orange and black sprinkles added.

The husband also had (and I had a bite of) Chocolate Chip Cheesecake. It's devil's food cake with dark chocolate chips, champagne cream cheese frosting, chocolate chips and chocolate ganache. This one had a lot of chocolate, but very good.

And finally, I had their new seasonal Chocolate Hazelnut consisting of chocolate cake with hazelnuts baked in, filled with Nutella, chocolate hazelnut buttercream frosting and rimmed in hazelnuts. I didn't care for all the hazelnuts inside and out. The cupcake and frosting were good though. I liked some of the other cupcakeries' hazelnut cupcakes better.

Pumpkin Cravin'

We made an unplanned stop by Crave on Saturday and got a few cupcakes. It was not our usual half dozen devouring or anything like that. Even though it's not typically my first choice, I had to try their seasonal pumpkin cupcake. It's pumpkin spiced cake with pecans and topped with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and a fondant leaf.

The cake was moist as usual. I could have done without the pecans though. And the frosting was delicious. Pumpkin and pecan lovers will appreciate this one.

A Sprinkle of Vanilla

Last weekend, I baked with another cupcake mix from Sprinkles. This time, it was purchased at Williams-Sonoma using a coupon, so it ended up being about $13.

The container included a cake mix, Sprinkles signature candy dots and a frosting recipe. As with the banana cupcake mix, it called for the usual suspect ingredients like butter, milk and eggs. Again, I reduced the bake time by about 10 minutes and got 14 cupcakes out of the batter instead of the 12 it claims to make. And I cheated on the frosting by using the tub since I can never seem to get the "from scratch" ones right.

Ta-da! Another positive outcome with the Sprinkles mixes. The cake is much more dense than the standard store-bought mixes, so they fill you up faster. The vanilla flavor was not as prominent as I expected, but if I recall, it's actually the same as the ones at the Sprinkles cupcakeries.

Pumpkin and Spice is Somewhat Nice

Last weekend, we returned to Nothing Bundt Cakes. We had most of the same bundlet flavors as before since they have a standard selection that doesn't change much. However, we did try the featured flavor for this month; pumpkin spice. Pumpkin is not typically one of my top flavors, but this was fairly tasty. They don't have ingredient descriptions on the website, but aside from pumpkin, you could taste nutmeg and cinnamon. And as all of their cakes; they are drizzled with cream cheese frosting. Nutmeg seemed to be the most predominant flavor. Their cakes are always moist and the frosting is quite delish.

October Cupcake Specials

Check out this month's cupcake specials...

Sprinkles

September 28-October 14:

• Triple Cinnamon: Lightly spiced buttermilk cupcake topped with smooth cinnamon cream cheese frosting and dusted with cinnamon sugar. This varies from their regular cinnamon sugar cupcake, which doesn't have frosting.

October 8-31:

• Caramel Apple: Spiced apple cake studded with granny smith apples and topped with a buttery caramel cream cheese frosting.

Crave

October 15-November 21:

• Pumpkin: Pumpkin spiced cake with pecans and topped with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.
• Cranberry Orange: Orange zest and cranberry cake with orange zest frosting.

Sugarbaby's

New Seasonal Flavors:

• French Toast with Bacon: Cinnamon french toast inspired cake, topped with maple cream buttercream and garnished with chopped maple bacon.
• Buttered Pecan: Butter pecan cake, light and creamy butter frosting and topped with butter toasted pecans.
• Cookie Dough I Love You So: Vanilla chocolate chip cake topped with cookie dough inspired buttercream (eggless cookie dough frosting). I've had this one before and LOVED it! Glad they brought it back.
• Black Forest: Dark chocolate cake filled with tart cherries and topped with a swirl of vanilla buttercream.
• Orange Cream: Orange essence cake with creamy orange vanilla buttercream frosting.

Celebrity Cupcakes

New Seasonal Flavor:

• Pumpkin: Fresh organic pumpkin cake, cream cheese frosting with a touch of ginger.

Nothing Bundt Cakes

• Pumpkin Spice

Also, SWEET Houston now offers gluten-free cupcakes in chocolate and red velvet everyday!

Cupcake and the Cookies

Before I get into my dessert reviews, the title of this blog entry is a play on a band I recently heard about from the 1950's named Cookie and the Cupcakes. Switching the name around for my blog entry actually fits my most recent dessert experiences.

Now back to the desserts. We had another birthday for my coworker Nicole this week and went with Crave Cupcakes as usual. My cupcake pick was Pistachio. I only tried Gigi's version of pistachio, so I wanted to try Crave's. The cake is made up of pureed pistachios with citrus and spice, topped with white chocolate cream cheese frosting and a few pieces of pistachio nuts on top. The cupcake didn't taste like pistachio. It was more like a lemon spice cake. I loved the frosting. Even though it didn't quite taste like pistachio, it was good for a fruity-type cupcake. It was VERY different in comparison to Gigi's pistachio.

Earlier in the week, I bought some dessert mixes from Williams-Sonoma and tried the toffee chocolate chunk cookie this weekend. The kit came with a pouch of brown sugar and a cookie mix. All I needed was some butter and an egg. Since we like a softer, slightly under-cooked cookie, I reduced the bake time about two to three minutes less than the directions stated. 

And a dozen big cookies later, here is how they turned out...

Overall, they were tasty. I think the edges were a bit too crunchy, but my husband disagreed. I think I may have overmixed the batter a tad bit. The toffee wasn't the predominant flavor; it was more of a hint of toffee here and there. We enjoyed them nonetheless. I would buy this kit again, but they are a bit pricey at $18.95, so I wouldn't buy it very often. I got a buy two deal and used a coupon to bring the price down to about $14 each.

Gigi's Fall/Winter Menu Announced

Gigi's Cupcakes announced 11 new cupcakes for the fall/winter season. The new cupcakes will debut Monday, September 24.

Blackberry Cobbler: Blackberry cake with white chocolate chips baked in, blackberry frosting, topped with sugar crystals and rimmed in streusel crumbs. Available on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Chocolate Hazelnut: Chocolate cake with hazelnuts baked in, filled with Nutella, chocolate hazelnut buttercream frosting and rimmed in hazelnuts. Available on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Coconut Macaroon: Devil's food cake with dark chocolate chips, coconut cream filling, topped with coconut cream cheese frosting and a coconut macaroon. Available on Fridays.

Mochachino: Coffee and Kahlua flavored cake with mocha filling and white chocolate cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with cocoa and chocolate sprinkles. Available Wednesdays and Fridays.

Orange Cranberry Walnut: Orange cake with cranberries and walnuts baked in, orange cream cheese frosting, rimmed in crystal sugar. Available on Fridays.

Peanut Butter Cup: Milk chocolate cake with peanut butter cups baked in, peanut butter buttercream, drizzled with ganache and topped with a mini peanut butter cup. Available Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Peppermint Patty: Dark chocolate cake filled with peppermint cream filling, topped with peppermint buttercream, ganache and a peppermint patty. Available Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Pumpkin White Chocolate: Pumpkin cake with white chocolate chips, white chocolate cream cheese frosting, dusted with pumpkin pie spice. Available Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Snickerdoodle: Cinnamon swirl cake with cookie dough frosting, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and topped with a snickerdoodle cookie. Available Mondays and Wednesdays.

Sticky Bun: French toast cake topped with a caramel praline frosting, sprinkled with pecans, drizzled with caramel and sweet glaze. Available on Fridays.

Sweet Potato Pie: Sweet potato pie cake with bourbon cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with crystal sugar. Available on Wednesdays.