Few and Far Between

Sorry again for the long hiatus. There hasn't been much cupcake activity lately. I might be starting to run out of new flavors. Anyway, here's the latest and greatest...

Starting with Gigi's Cupcakes, I tried the Super Mellow Cream, which is Devil's food cake filled with mellow cream, topped with a swirl of marshmallow buttercream, dipped in ganache and topped with a buttercream curly Q. It was quite tasty and not too chocolate-y.

Next was Gigi's White Hot Chocolate. There isn't an ingredient description on their website, so I'm improvising here. It's a yellow/vanilla cake topped with hot cocoa buttercream frosting and white nonpariels. This cupcake was just OK. The frosting was a bit different, I suppose because it wasn't your everyday milk chocolate.

Then, there was Ooh La La Dessert Boutique. First up was their flavor of the month; Dulce de Leche. It's yellow butter cake filled with dulce de leche, topped with dulce de leche buttercream and white chocolate shavings. Yum! Loved the dulce de leche filling inside. It made it all the sweeter!

Finally, from Ooh La La, Birthday Cake to celebrate my birthday. It's vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, confetti sprinkles and candy. This was a pretty standard vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting; nothing special.

Until we sweet again...

The Super Bowl Sprinkle

Appropriately named, the title of this entry is a play on the 1985 Chicago Bears, "Super Bowl Shuffle." Basically, we bought Sprinkles cupcakes on the day of the super bowl, but I might be showing my age by quoting something from the 80's.

Anyway, I started with raspberry chocolate chip, which was chocolate chip-studded Belgian dark chocolate cake topped with raspberry frosting. I was pleasantly surprised that this cupcake tasted pretty good. I thought it would be too rich with the dark chocolate and raspberry combination, but not at all.

Next, I had lemon, which consisted of California lemon cake, topped with a lemon-vanilla frosting flecked with zest. This is not a flavor I typically choose for cupcakes, but it was one I never tried or reviewed, so I took the chance! It was also better than I expected. I think the frosting having vanilla mixed in helped it to not be too lemon-y.

That's all for now! Have a sweet Valentine's Day!

New Year, New Cupcakes

Yes, I know...it's been over two months since my last post. A lot has happened and actually not as many cupcakes consumed until the last few weeks. Of course there were the holidays, but I was also out-of-town most of December due to a family emergency.

So now that we are back on track, let's get to it, shall we?

On New Year's Eve, we had some treats from Gigi's. I finally got to try the Hot Cocoa cupcake. It was chocolate cake with a chocolate and marshmallow buttercream frosting, topped with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips, and finished with a drizzle of rich chocolate ganache. It was a good blend of chocolate and marshmallow; what you'd expect from a hot cocoa cupcake!

Last weekend, our appetites lead to Three Brothers Bakery. I tried their Snickerdoodle cupcake. From my own assessment of the ingredients, it was a yellow cake filled with cinnamon frosting-type filling, topped with cinnamon frosting (possibly cream cheese) and a piece of snickerdoodle cookie. Definitely one of the better cupcakes I've had from Three Brothers. It was quite yummy.

And last, another birthday lunch with my coworkers brought us Crave Cupcakes. Another "finally got to try" scenario where the flavor I wanted wasn't out...Cookies and Cream. It was vanilla bean cake laced with crunchy Oreo cookies, topped with Oreo cookie swirled butter cream frosting. Now I know why this cupcake is always out when I get there! It was so delish! I probably could have eaten a half dozen by myself and not even feel guilty about it.

Have a wonderful new year and stay tuned for more cupcakes!

Fabulous Festive Fall Flavor Favorites

Say that five times really fast! Actually, I guess it's not that hard to do. Anyway, here's the latest in cupcake reviews...

Starting with Gigi's Pumpkin Spice Latte, which is pumpkin cake, topped with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with caramel drizzle and sugar crystals.

It was yum for sure. Had that nice cinnamon-y spice flavor.

Next up, is a store-bought cookie kit from Betty Crocker. It had cake and ice cream flavors. There were two separate mixes and it called for your typical ingredients like butter and then combine portions of each dough together. Sorry, I was not as creative as the cute designs shown on the box.

And presto! It kinda looked like one of those black and white cookies..."kinda." It tasted good. Not the best cookie in the world, but it was edible.

And finally, another Gigi's fall favorite is the Spiced Apple Cider, which is apple cake with apple butter filling, frosted with apple cider buttercream and finished with a cinnamon sugar pretzel and crunchy apple chip.

This cupcake was eh, ok. It looked better than it tasted. Frosting was good, but the cake was a bit dry.

I was hoping to try Gigi's fall Hot Cocoa cupcake too, but they were out. Booooo. Keep on the lookout though because I'm going to try and snag one eventually.

You Say It's Your Birthday...

Credit goes to the Beatles for the title of this entry! The reason for the title is that there were two birthday-related cupcake scenarios that occurred over the last few weeks.

Beginning with Crave's newest flavor, Old Fashioned Birthday Cake, is available everyday. It's soft, yellow cupcake with buttery sweet milk chocolate frosting and topped with colorful sprinkles. Definitely a gourmet twist on an old-school cupcake and pretty good too. Although the birthday cake cupcake was slightly different, it was somewhat similar to Crave's Chocolate on Vanilla cupcake.

Next was a birthday lunch for a coworker. Since I never had it, I decided to try Crave's Coconut cupcake. It was vanilla cupcake with coconut cream cheese frosting. It was good; not my favorite though. I've had their Chocolate Coconut cupcake before, which was better than I expected and probably a bit better than the standard Coconut.

And finally, we tried Pillsbury's version of Pumpkin cake mix. It called for eggs, water and oil.

It tasted pretty nice for the price. I believe the pumpkin mix I tried last year from Williams-Sonoma was better, but what do you expect for $1?

Better Late Than Never

Yes, I know it's been awhile. I'm not going to make excuses. Over the last month, there have been more new flavors tasted and another cookie experiment, so let's dive in!

Starting with one of Crave's summer flavors...Boston Cream. This was a limited time cupcake, so they don't offer it anymore and I don't have the ingredients to refer back to. But it was a yellow cake with a pudding-type filling and topped with chocolate ganache. I love Crave; they are one of my favorites. However, this cupcake was probably one of the worst cupcakes I've had from them. It was moist, but not sweet enough. Some may prefer a less sweet cupcake, but not me!

Next was a cupcake that traveled with my mother-in-law from Baton Rouge...from Frosted Cupcakes, I had the Proposal. I've tried Frosted before, but not this one. While I don't know what's in this cupcake, it's your typical wedding cake cupcake that has the vanilla/almond flavor. It was very good and still moist even being a day old and having traveled in a car for over four hours!

The following weekend, I experimented with my last cookie mix from Sisters Gourmet. It was Hopscotch, which was basically a butterscotch cookie. Same ingredients as usual.

And here is final product... It was pretty tasty; similar to the other mixes.

Then, I tried a cookie dough cupcake from Three Brothers Bakery. Another guess as to what's in this one...chocolate cupcake with cookie dough filling, cookie dough frosting and a bit of cookie crumbled on top. This was more moist than some of the cupcakes I've had there. Maybe it was due to the filling. It wasn't totally cookie dough because of the chocolate cake part, but a good cupcake nonetheless.

And finally, my last cupcake about a week ago was the Chocolate Turtle from Gigi's Cupcakes. It's devil's food cake filled with caramel, topped with caramel frosting, chocolate ganache and pecans. Swap out the pecans for salt and this would have been exactly like the salted caramel cupcake. I removed the pecans, but otherwise, it was another delish cupcake from Gigi!

I'll try to be better about not waiting so long for an update!

Holla Back Bananarama!

So, the title of this entry has nothing to do with the first part below, but you'll see why as you read further into the this nailbiting cupcake drama.

Several weeks ago, I experimented with a Cookies and Cream Layer cake mix from Williams-Sonoma. As usual, it called for the typical ingredients like butter and eggs. Instead of a cake, I made them into cupcakes...of course!

Tada! And yum might I add...It had a wonderful gourmet flavor with bits of Oreo cookies inside. The only problem (if you'd call it a problem) is that it made waaay too many cupcakes for us to eat. I made 30 cupcakes!!! We probably ate about 18 over the course of a few days. I would definitely buy this mix again, but if I had more people around to eat it.

Next, was a birthday lunch for a coworker. Lucky for us, another coworker was on maternity leave, so she bought the cupcakes from a cupcakery near her house as opposed to our usual haunts.

Live from Rise Cupcakes is Holla Back Girl Banana, which was house made banana cupcake topped with Nutella buttercream. It was very moist and tasty having that hazelnut banana blend. The frosting was tall, but the cupcake a bit small.

And finally, another trip to our local Gigi's Cupcakes.

First, I had a summer fan favorite Pink Lemonade, which was pink lemonade cake and pink lemonade frosting with yellow decorettes (no, I didn't make that up; they were essentially sprinkles), crystal sugar and a candy lemon slice. It was true pink lemonade flavor; I liked it.

Last, was another summer fan favorite...Banana Split. It was strawberry cake filled with marshmallow cream, topped with banana frosting, ganache, cherry, nuts and a banana chip. It truly tasted like a banana split. It doesn't get any closer to a banana split than this.