Kisses With and Without Sugar

With the Valentine's frenzy at the dessert shops, we had to try something. And so Gigi's Cupcakes it was...

Top left is Hot Kiss, top middle is Creme Brulee and top right is Wedding Cake. Bottom middle another Creme Brulee and bottom right is Red Velvet.

My order also included a sugar-free White Magic, but there was a mistake, so they substituted four mini sugar-free White Magic cupcakes.

Since I feared a bland taste that would need to be followed up with sugar, my first taste was the sugar-free White Magic. It's sugar-free yellow cake with sugar-free white chocolate frosting, topped with sugar-free chocolate chips, drizzled with sugar-free chocolate ganache. Gigi’s sugar free cupcakes are sweetened with SPLENDA and topped with frosting sweetened with sugar substitute Malitol.

Thinking it would be like the difference between regular and diet soda, I was quite surprised at how good it tasted.

Next, I had Cream Brulee, which was creme brulee cake with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting. Both cake and frosting filled with vanilla pudding, sprinkled with a mixture of turbinado raw sugar and crystal sugar and topped with a fondant heart.

It wasn't how I expected it to taste. Not quite like creme brulee and the cake was kind of dry.

To avoid sugar overload, I decided to postpone Hot Kiss to the following day. It's Devil’s food cake topped with hot pink buttercream frosting, dipped in ganache, sprinkled with mixture of crystal sugar and mini heart sprinkles.

The cake was also dry; although I'm not sure if it was due to eating it a day later. The frosting was very tasty though.

After this experience, I'll be on the lookout for more sugar-free desserts to try in the future.

Long Time No See

One Monday, I got a wild hair (I won't finish the sentence for obvious reasons) to return to Celebrity Cupcakes and try a few flavors I never had before.

Starting with Bananas Foster: organic banana cake filled with brown sugar caramel and topped with rum buttercream. A delightful balance of banana and frosting. And you could definitely taste the rum...woo, I'm getting tipsy just typing this!

Next up, Pina Colada: vanilla and pineapple cake with rum buttercream. No, I don't like getting caught in the rain... Anyway, this one was OK. I don't care much for pineapple in a cupcake.

And last, Lemon Blueberry Pie: lemon cake studded with blueberries, graham cracker crust, topped with cream cheese frosting. It was certainly pie-like with the graham cracker crust at the bottom. Another OK cupcake (probably a bit better than the pina colada); not typically a top flavor preference of mine, but I wanted to try it.

As an added bonus to this spectacular blog entry, but unrelated to Celebrity Cupcakes, I made more cookies from a jar of ingredients bought at Target. This was a Valentine's sugar cookie mix with white chocolate chips and red heart sprinkles. As always, it called for your usual egg and butter add-ins.

So, here is how they turned out...

If you like a softer cookie, these were best eaten the same day. Over the next two days, they progressively became drier even in a sealed container.

Stay tuned for more ya'll!