Tasty trio

This week at the farmers market brought a variety of new flavors to try, so I recruited a few of my trusty tasters yet again -- in this case: Kathy, Natalie and Marilyn. The flavors of the week: Twisted M&M, Chocolate-Covered Almond and Neopolitan.

Chocolate-and-vanilla marble cake, as we discovered, was the Heavenly Delight flavor of the week. Two of the new flavors featured it, including Twisted M&M. This was a solid cupcake in terms of moist cake and creamy, flavorful vanilla frosting. However, we were a bit perplexed by the name. I had expected M&Ms to be somehow incorporated into the cake, but they were limited to the garnish. 

Neopolitan's name was fairly dead-on, except that the marble cake was a little light on chocolate. The strawberry frosting was dynamite, though, and the flavor combination did remind us of Neopolitan ice cream. A scoop of it would have been ideal next to this moist, tasty treat.

I was most excited to try Chocolate-Covered Almond. I love almond flavoring and was hoping it would come through in the cake. The flavor was lacking a bit in the vanilla cake, which wasn't as moist as the week's other selections. But the almond slivers baked into the cake elevated the cupcake in terms of innovation, in our opinion. I had never tasted cake with almonds in it, and although I normally dislike nuts in cake, the pieces were so thin and soft that the texture didn't bother me a bit. I loved HD's out-of-the-box thinking on this one. The four of us also agreed that the light, moussy chocolate frosting was perfect. 

All in all, this was a pretty good bunch, with only small complaints. I was able to grab a few old favorites at this week's market, as well -- Peanut Butter Cookie, Snickerdoodle and Chocolate Mint. I couldn't resist dipping into PB Cookie after we had divvied up the other three, and it was just as phenomenal as I remembered from last summer. It was clear why I ranked it No. 1 out of all the HD cupcakes I've tried, and why it's stayed at No. 1 for the past year. In fact, I hit the Thursday evening Illinois Products Farmers Market at the Illinois State Fairgrounds last night to buy one more for the freezer. While I was there, I noticed yet another new flavor -- Chocolate Butterscotch. I love butterscotch, so I can't wait to try that one next week. Gotta love cupcakes!