Happy belated National Cupcake Day

WASHINGTON, DC - I guess repeatedly sampling cupcakes hither and yon made me so immune to cupcake news that I didn't even manage to notice that yesterday was National Cupcake Day (in the USA).

I need a new food hobby, as I've gained weight this year. Maybe time to move on to fine cheeses.

The cupcakes of Austin, Texas

SEATTLE, Washington - I've been sampling so many cupcakes lately, I'm running out of things to say, but anyway here's the results of visiting a few shops in Austin.

I had never been to Austin and was expecting a roughly Boise-sized city, but it's bigger - the city itself has about 750K residents, significantly more than Seattle, albeit in a footprint about double the size of Seattle's. I passed through several Seattle-esque livable neighborhoods. I was intrigued, but I'd probably be a whole lot less intrigued in the hot summer - my years in Seattle have made me dislike day-to-day life under air conditioning.

My first cupcake visit was not in a hip neighborhood, but in the outer reaches of Austin's sprawl, at Cupprimo. A small place (with a weird, closet-sized room in the back with a couple chairs and a whiteboard, in case you want to hold a corporate event there) that was presided over by the owner or someone doing a good impersonation of a shop owner. Below are the Elvis cupcake (chocolate, peanut butter, banana) and a mini strawberry cupcake. The Elvis cupcake seems to appear everywhere I go except Seattle. These were probably the 2nd best cupcakes on the trip.


My next stop was Sweetish Hill. This cupcake is barely worth mentioning - this is a full-service bakery with a broad selection of stuff, and the cupcake was a refrigerated, undistinguished brick.


Next up was the Hey Cupcake! trailer on (in?) South Congress. Austin has metal trailers serving all sorts of stuff, from tacos to crepes. They offer a feature called the "whipper snapper", where the cupcake of your choice is injected with whipped cream to order. This is the "Michael Jackson" cake, chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, with the whipped cream:


I think this cupcake had good cake, it had the fundamentals, but there were some issues. One, I guess due to sitting in a metal trailer in Texas, even in November, the cupcake was a bit warmer than you want one to be with cream cheese frosting. Second, while I like the temperature contrast of cool whipped cream, the injection created grave instability with the structure of the cupcake - the top was practically blasted off. Ultimately the whipped cream is a gimmick, unnecessary with an A-list cupcake.

Last on the trip was Sugar Mama's Bakeshop. A small place with an appealing selection. On the dreaded refrigeration issue, they put their cream-cheese-frosted cakes in refrigeration, but not the buttercream ones. I had the lemon (buttercream) cupcake:



Good stuff, in fact I went back here on Monday to fly some of their product back to Seattle, but... CLOSED Mondays.

Notes on the Las Vegas cupcake scene

SEATTLE, Washington - I'll leave it to others to review Vegas strip clubs and escort services - I'll talk cupcakes instead. I just got back from a trip to Las Vegas (no, I didn't stay at the Mint, it was long ago integrated into Binion's) and while there I decided to survey the cupcake situation.

It's a tough job, criss-crossing the vast Las Vegas Valley with its ubiquitous strip malls and endless tracts of identical houses with identical tile roofs. The only rewards were the cupcakes and the occasional sighting of a trashy-hot woman leaving a Fuddruckers or Chili's.

Cupcake shop is in a strip mall unless otherwise noted. Actually, nothing to note, they're all in strip malls.

My first stop was Mad Hatter Cupcakes. The distinctive thing about Mad Hatter is that they frost and fill every cupcake to order. There's a few display items, but whatever you order gets put together right in front of you.

I went with a chocolate banana cupcake, which was a bit better than adequate. The cake was a bit on the spongy side, but that seems to be a frequent feature of banana cake. This store (unlike all the others I visited) actually had a few places to sit down.



As it happens, the strip mall right across the street from the Mad Hatter strip mall is the home of Cupcake Lane. They go with a geography-based theme for their flavors, so I went with Pike Place, which has a caramel-latte theme.

When I purchased the cupcake, the $0.30 in change I received was freezing cold, which was an ominous sign. There was no seating so the cupcake and its container are pictured below in my car. I thought putting the cupcake in a Pork Fried Rice container was odd, but I later found they weren't the only place that does this.

Well, the cupcake was a deeply refrigerated brick. I detected no espresso flavor. It's debatable at best whether a cupcake should ever be refrigerated, but this was absurd. Even if it was room temperature, both the cake and the frosting were of a density that suggested long shelf life more than sensual pleasure.



Next up, in some other anonymous part of the valley, was The Cupcakery. This place really pours it on as far as unique presentations and flavors. Pictured is the Strawberry Shortcake flavor, the cake color was a bit artificial-looking for my taste (and other flavors had other garish cake colors) but the taste and texture were decent and the two frosting textures was a good touch.



I also tried The Cupcakery's Elvis-inspired Trip to Graceland flavor (banana, peanut butter, bacon, and if you look real close there's some glitter-type stuff in the bacon); I will comment on bacon later.

When I left The Cupcakery, I started talking up a waitress at a Greek restaurant next door, telling her who I was, that I was researching Las Vegas cupcakes, and maybe she has some information she'd like to volunteer to me?... and she immediately pointed me to Retro Bakery.

This bakery was the best of the shops I visited. They have variety that doesn't descend into absurdity and the cake was moist without being too soft or spongy.

Below is the Coffee and Donuts flavor, which has donut glaze and a dollop of coffee buttercream. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph it until I had already started consumption.



One of the owners, Kari, served me, so I got to talk to Kari a bit... discussing cupcake issues theoretical and practical, the New York cupcake scene, the Seattle cupcake scene, etc. Kari is clearly a true believer... that's what I like to see.

Retro donates unpurchased cupcakes to a food bank nightly, just like Cupcake Royale, so there will be no refrigerated debacles at Retro Bakery. (update: due to distance, cupcakes are not donated every night to a food bank, but some days are simply dispersed to lucky people at other businesses, etc.).

The most notable thing to me about the Vegas shops, compared to other places, was the sheer variety (sometimes over-variety) of flavors and presentations. I don't know if this is a regional thing, or just new places trying to out-do each other. It certainly contrasts sharply with some of the Seattle shops and New York places like Buttercup, Two Little Red Hens, and Sugar Sweet Sunshine, all of which have a much more traditional vibe to their offerings.

bacon codicil: I had both the aforementioned Trip to Graceland cake from The Cupcakery and the Maple Bacon at Retro. In both cases, the bacon was in a chewier, more jerky-like state than I was expecting, and was a bit under-represented in the overall flavor. I don't think that texture works for me, but perhaps if you go with a crispy-bits bacon approach then other problems emerge.

First test of Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co - FAIL

SEATTLE, Washington - When I noted the opening of the Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company in Belltown, I pointed out that they're offering 30+ flavors and it may be tough to master them all.

Here's their first Flavor Fail... the first exotic flavor that isn't quite right: Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla Frosting. They put chocolate sprinkles on it.

I guess you can offer an unlimited number of flavors if you're going to simplify by putting chocolate sprinkles on everything.

A new cupcake player in Seattle - unless it's Sunday

SEATTLE, Washington - There's a new cupcake player in town - the Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company in Belltown.

I'd like to say I've been there, but they just opened on Friday and they're closed Sundays. The hours listed on their website are 7:30 to 5 Monday to Friday, and 9 to 5 Saturday. Geez... come on. This isn't as bad as the four-and-a-half-day schedule at Shoofly Pie, but it looks like I have to take a day off from work to try the cupcakes at this joint.

They list 30+ flavors on their website (plus seasonals!), serving nine varieties every day. That sounds to me like too many flavors to master, especially for a new joint, but they must know more about this than me; they're the ones opening a cupcake shop and I'm the one sitting around with my thumb up my ass, complaining about my humdrum life.

Cupcake Royale revises chocolate cake

SEATTLE, Washington - Looks like Cupcake Royale is going to start playing a flavor-of-the-month strategy - this month it's Skagit Valley Strawberry frosting. This is available on vanilla or chocolate cake.

And for those of you complaining about the dryness of the chocolate cake, they have introduced a reworked chocolate cake. It was spongier in texture and yes I guess a bit less dry.

Where's Waldo? And, where's the Trophy Cupcakes PB&J?

SEATTLE, Washington - Perhaps the best way to keep a limited-edition cupcake "special" is to keep changing the days on which it's offered. As of early April the PB&J at Trophy was being offered on Fridays. I went on a recent Friday and it was not to be found - the official word now is that it's being offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

In the meantime, the cupcake that got Trophy all the buzz on the Martha Stewart show - the s'more-ish Chocolate Graham Cracker with Toasted Marshmallow - is being offered on Sundays and Mondays. I jump right on s'more-flavored things when they become available (like ice creams) and this cupcake is on the money.

How long will they offer it? Presumably, as long as Martha Stewart tells them to.

The Sweet and Salty Cake at Baked a.k.a. Escape from Red Hook

SEATTLE, Washington - In what is sure to be one step in an inevitable march through America's highly regarded cupcakes, I visited baked in Red Hook, Brooklyn this week to try the Sweet and Salty cupcake. It was only available in cake-slice form at the time so I got that.

The cake is good, but be advised, this is a way-out-of-the-way neighborhood that involves a subway ride to the Smith & 9th stop on the F train (the station is so high in the air it might qualify as geosynchronous orbit) and then hopping a bus into Red Hook. So I'll detour into a quick provincialism editorial:

I got off the bus right outside the bakery, and there was no corresponding stop for the same bus across the street, so I asked the server where to grab the bus to get back to the Smith & 9th stop. She didn't know. I simply assume, when someone lives or works in a way-out 'hood in New York, their first order of business is figuring out the transportation options to get to the more relevant places. It was almost inconceivable to me that anyone in Red Hook would not know the answer to this question immediately. The other customers informed me of where to get the bus (one block away). Does this server (who seemed nice, I'm not bashing her) never stray out of this tiny, dumpy neighborhood? Maybe she just walks to the subway, but it looks to be about a mile. It's also possible that if she needs to hop a subway, she first takes the B61 bus that goes to downtown Brooklyn (where there are many more subway options that just the F train). I dunno.

update: Maybe she drives? You get it in your head that people in NYC don't get around by car, but Red Hook is so out-there that there was plenty of parking. Perhaps I'm the provincialist, not her or the other inhabitants of Red Hook.

Bad cupcake journalism

SEATTLE, Washington - Cupcake Royale in West Seattle is touting the fact that their Lavender cupcake was listed as one of the country's best cupcakes by MSN City Guides. Which is fine, except that MSN City Guides gets the ingredients in the cupcake wrong.

Cupcake Royale ­- Seattle

Lavender (Lavender-infused vanilla cake with lavender buttercream frosting)

This cupcake does not have lavender-infused cake, it's just regular vanilla cake with a lavender frosting. Cupcake Royale does not seem to give a damn about the error as they have posted the MSN article in their shop and on their web site.

Given this error, can I trust what MSN City Guides says about all the other cupcakes in the article? They discuss the Pistachio cupcake at Sugar Sweet Sunshine in Manhattan, and I've had that cupcake and they do seem to get that one right. I'll try the Sweet and Salty cupcake in Brooklyn next week, and I have an operative going to the bakery in Pittsburgh soon to try the East End Chocolate Stout cupcake.

The Trophy PB&J is back - and is still the Dirtiest Playa in tha Game

SEATTLE, Washington - The long awaited return of the Trophy Cupcakes PB&J is here. It has changed a bit, but it still has muscle.

The main change I see is the frosting - it consists of a dollop of jelly-flavored frosting in the middle, surrounded by a ring of peanut butter-flavored frosting. Previously, it was a kind of swirl of the two, and I sometimes had a tough time distinguishing the jelly flavor.

At the bottom of the cupcake is a small chamber with a touch of peanut butter and a touch of jelly.

Trophy Cupcakes can send the consulting check to my Swiss account

SEATTLE, Washington - I went to Trophy Cupcakes this weekend to check the status of the soon-to-return Peanut Butter & Jelly cupcake. A small sign said that the cupcake was returning "on Fridays" starting March 21.

When I asked if this was the only day that the cupcake was going to be available, I was told that the cupcake would not be "special" if it was offered too often. That's exactly what I told them when they first started offering the PB&J four days a week. They blew off my warning last time, but now my warning has become official company policy.

They (and by they, I mean someone there, who may or may not be the person that commented on the post linked above) said the PB&J will be offered on a second, yet-to-be-determined day in addition to Fridays.

Long before the Seattle cupcake wars

SEATTLE, Washington - Today, we enjoy a rainbow variety of cupcakes at our various cupcake shops in Seattle. I found an analogous variety of baked goods from the old old days in Seattle, in the photo book Vanishing Seattle.

The windmill below was the Queen Anne Hill outpost of Van de Kamp's Holland Dutch Bakery, a regional bakery chain based in California. As you can barely see in the scan below, they offered "17 Kinds of Old Dutch Coffee Cakes". Seventeen! Who needs cafe au lait or lavender cupcakes when you can get seventeen kinds of coffee cake?

The Dutch abandoned Queen Anne decades ago, but the Danes are still there; I would encourage all to visit John Nielsen's Authentic Danish Pastry on 2nd Ave. W for a very pleasant experience.

PB&J making return at Trophy, allegedly

SEATTLE, Washington - I have updated the post on the Trophy Cupcakes PB&J, a commenter on that post alleges to be from Trophy and says the PB&J is returning soon. With the anonymity of the internet, you just never know.

Trophy Cupcakes drops the ball

SEATTLE, Washington - My favorite cupcake at Trophy Cupcakes in Wallingford has been the Peanut Butter & Jelly flavor. They used to only sell it on Saturday and Sunday. They then started selling it four days a week, and I warned them that that would make this cupcake less special. They said it was "still special."

Now, it's gone, they don't make it at all. Perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently. It seems to have been replaced by a Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor, but this is just not going to cut it.

UPDATE! See comments - someone allegedly from Trophy Cupcakes has responded, saying that the PB&J will be re-instituted on Good Friday this year. For the Jews out there - that's March 21 this year in the United States. Mark Your Calendars.