Strawberry surprise

Feeling the need for low-fat cupcakes again this week, I decided to hit up D'Lynn's Delights in Grand Avenue Deli for the final two flavors I needed to try: Strawberry Cream and Caramel Spice. I had tried Strawberry Cream a year or so ago and remembered liking it, so I was curious how it would measure up against the other D'Lynn's cupcakes I'd tried, all of which had been dry and obviously "diet."

Deciding to save what I suspected would be the best for last, I dug into the Caramel Spice first. It turned out to be similar to the others I'd tried -- the spice cake was dense and dry, although the flavor was pretty good.  The frosting was thick and delicious, as D'Lynn's frosting has been on all the cupcakes I've tried. And the mini caramel candy on top was a nice touch. Although I'm not a fan of chewy caramels and avoid them in favor of the smooth, flowy kind of caramel in, for instance, a Caramello bar, I liked the extra effort to dress up the cupcake. Without the garnish, I would have had a hard time identifying the cupcake as caramel because I didn't think the flavor was particularly detectable in the frosting. It tasted more or less like vanilla to me. Overall, I would rank this one toward the bottom of D'Lynn's selection, just above her Chocolate Fudge, which was especially dry and stale-tasting on the Saturday afternoon I bought it a couple months ago.

Moving on to Strawberry Cream was the best decision I could have made. It was as if this cupcake had come from a different bakery. The white cake was light and fresh and moist, with a delightful filling of cut-up strawberries. The texture of the cake was such a departure from the other cupcakes I've tried there that it made me wonder if the others had just been sitting around longer. The frosting, colored a pleasant pink, might have had strawberry flavoring added to it, or it might have just been vanilla. I couldn't tell, and I didn't care that much because the cupcake as a whole was so tasty. Had I not gotten it from D'Lynn's, I would have had no idea it was a low-fat cupcake. I highly recommend this one off of D'Lynn's menu. Don't even waste your time with the others, unless you don't mind your cupcake tasting more like a cake doughnut. (And that's not to say I hated all the others -- I thought the Orange Creamsicle and Vanilla Bean were decent, considering the calorie content -- D'Lynn claims around 70 calories per cupcake.)

So, all you dieters, go ahead and spring for a Strawberry Cream!