Cupcake BONANZA!

I got more cupcakes than I bargained for this past Wednesday, and I'm not complaining one bit! First things first: With opening day of the Old Capitol Farmers Market that morning, I was able to indulge in my second new Heavenly Delight cupcake of the season -- German Chocolate.

I highly recommend this cupcake. With moist, milk-chocolate cake; smooth, creamy caramel frosting; and a topping of coconut slivers and chopped pecans, this was a pretty accurate take on German chocolate cake. Rich but not too sweet, it was just the right balance of all the ingredients. I would definitely try this again down the road, after I've had the chance to try more new HDs and repeat some of my dearest favorites.

I was expecting the HD to be my only cupcake of the day, until I got an awesome surprise in the afternoon -- a Facebook message from a fellow CrossFitter, Josh Becker, letting  me know he had gone to St. Louis and was bringing me a cannoli cupcake from Jilly's. I was so excited! I had been drooling over that cupcake for a couple of weeks, since Jilly's posted it on Facebook as one of its May cupcakes. 

This one was just as amazing as it looked. The mini-cannoli on top was divine, and my favorite part of the cupcake, which was chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting trimmed in chocolate ganache and sprinkled with mini chocolate chips, was the ricotta filling that mimicked that of the filling inside the cannoli garnish. This creation, like many of Jilly's selections, is a good candidate for splitting with a friend or at least eating in two sittings. I split it with my niece, who also loved it. 

But that wasn't all. Josh had bought quite a few cupcakes while at Jilly's and was generous enough to insist that I take not even two, but three! I was beside myself to say the least. One was similar to a favorite of mine from Jilly's -- the Reese's Chunkage with vanilla cake (the one I've tried had chocolate cake). But the most unusual and unexpected of the three was the Chicken and Waffles. Yep, you read that right. Another May specialty, the Chicken and Waffles is made of vanilla-corn cake and is topped with maple buttercream frosting, a chunk of oven-fried chicken, a wedge of Belgian waffle and maple drizzle. 

I decided the best strategy to trying this trio would be to tuck away the Reese's for later, since it would freeze the best, and try the chicken cupcake fresh. 

My photo doesn't do justice to the craftsmanship of the Chicken and Waffles cupcake. It was quite a thing of beauty before I took off the chicken and waffle to eat separately. Yep, there was no way I was taking a mouthful of cake, frosting AND chicken. (I did eat the chicken and waffle together, and the chicken on its own was surprisingly tasty, considering that it wasn't heated.)

I could only manage a small portion of the cake and frosting, as I was sampling it in the same sitting as the cannoli. But the frosting was extremely sweet -- too sweet for my taste. I can handle maple syrup on pancakes, waffles or French toast, but I'm not a fan of it as part of a cupcake. I loved the vanilla-corn cake, though. It was a lighter, smoother and less dense version of cornbread and easy to eat plain.

Jilly's cupcakes tend to be the culinary equivalent of Donald Trump -- filthy rich and best in small doses. The ingredients are the highest quality and undoubtedly please the pickiest of palates. I've liked or loved most of the Jilly's varieties I've tried, but sometimes I wish they came just a little smaller. 

Thanks again, Josh, for your generosity with the sweet treats!

Raspberry rhapsody and pumpkin perfection

I'm still basking in my cupcake windfall from New Year's weekend, which included stops at Jilly's and The Cup in St. Louis. Thanks to my generous coworker, Jayette, I also found myself with a Chocolate Raspberry cupcake from TL Cuppycakes on Friday night. That was on my menu for this weekend, along with a Pumpkin Harvest cupcake from The Cup. 

Lately, I've become a fan of jumping on my first weekend cupcake at the stroke of midnight Saturday morning, and that's exactly when I tucked into my Chocolate Raspberry. 

As Jayette pointed out, one of the strengths of TL Cuppycakes is owner Tracy's ability to inject a cupcake with taste identity from top to bottom. For instance, the Chocolate Raspberry was dark chocolate cake filled with raspberry cream and topped with raspberry buttercream frosting and chocolate shavings. Even the color of the frosting was just right, calling to mind raspberries. Jayette commented that the frosting's color appeared natural, as opposed to some of the bright, obviously artificial colors you see on a lot of frosted cupcakes. When I tasted it, it was evident that Tracy had actually used raspberries in the frosting -- the texture included the seeds. While berry seeds in frosting might bother some people, it appealed to me. I liked knowing that there was no artificial flavoring -- just the real-deal berries themselves. The moist chocolate cake received an assist from the raspberry cream filling that bumped it into a higher tier of tastiness. And the chocolate shavings on top were the perfect complement to the whole creation. 

This afternoon, after a nail-biter win by my alma mater, the Fighting Illini, it seemed like a no-brainer to celebrate with the Pumpkin Harvest from The Cup.

This is among my favorite pumpkin cupcakes of the five I've tried. The spice cake was a tad dry, and I suspect that was from sitting in the freezer for a week. The frosting, however, took this one to new heights. Instead of using cream cheese frosting on their pumpkin cake like most other bakeries, The Cup opted for cinnamon buttercream. Divine decision. Creamy, creamy, creamy with a delicate cinnamon flavor that made me wish I'd asked for a side of extra frosting. (Oh yeah, and there was a wedge of pumpkin chocolate bark on top that was a nice touch, too.) I would love to try this one again, eating it in the shop or at least the same day. Not all cake holds up well in the freezer, and my foil liners (which I learned, from Heavenly Delight, help to hold moisture in cake when frozen) were too small to fit The Cup's jumbo-size creations. In the long run, though, the loss of moistness barely dampened my enthusiasm for the Pumpkin Harvest. I wish I had another!

New year, new cupcakes

Sugar Mama's Cherry Limeade

Jilly's Orange Dream

Happy New Year's, cupcakers! I started off 2012 the best way I could think of -- with my remaining Sugar Mama's cupcake, Cherry Limeade, and an Orange Dream from Jilly's in St. Louis.

Thanks to my awesome husband, I was able to visit Jilly's (as well as The Cup -- more on that in a later post) during our New Year's weekend trip to St. Louis and pick up a couple of their over-sized creations. We arrived late-afternoon on New Year's Eve, about an hour and a half before closing time. By the time we got there, the selection was down to only three choices -- the Missy-licious, which is one of my Jilly's favorites; the Bee Sting, which is Camille's favorite; and The Reese's with vanilla cake (it's also available with chocolate cake, which is how I tried it on our first visit). I was a little disappointed that there was nothing new to try (I contemplated trying a vanilla Reese's but decided it wasn't quite new enough). At least Camille and I were both able to enjoy our favorites. Note to self, however: Never wait until close to closing time to visit Jilly's!

We checked in to our downtown hotel after our Jilly's stop, and once we had dropped our bags in the room we realized that we needed some bottled water and a few other things. There happened to be a grocery store around the corner, so we went to check it out. Culinaria, which neither of us had heard of, is an offshoot of Schnucks, and we found it to be a cool little metropolitan-inspired market. It made a great first impression on me -- as we walked in, my eyes fell on a display of baked goods ... including Jilly's cupcakes! There were two left -- one, ironically, was a Bee Sting -- but the other was an Orange Dream, which I hadn't even seen on Jilly's website. I grabbed up that bad boy with delight. I wouldn't end up eating it until New Year's night, when we were back at home (I had my Missy-licious for the hotel room), but I've loved orange cupcakes I've tried previously, so I was looking forward to this Jilly's confection with white cake, vanilla filling and an "orange creamsicle buttercream frosting," as the package advertised.

The Orange Dream didn't disappoint. The cake was moist and the orange buttercream thick and luscious. The vanilla filling added that extra va-va-voom. (The other orange cupcake I tried, several months ago from Heavenly Delight, was tasty but lacking the cream filling that, at the time, I felt would have put it in a higher category.) There's no doubt -- Jilly's knows how to do cake and frosting, and although they specialize in creative flavors and combinations, even the basic, familiar flavors are fantastic.

I also indulged in my remaining cupcake from Sugar Mama's here in Springfield -- the Cherry Limeade. Just like the other Sugar Mama's cakes I've tried, this one was flavorful and delightful. I loved the combination of cherry cake and lime frosting, and I'm a sucker for maraschino cherries, so the garnish hit the spot. The first words that popped into my mind as I bit into this small-but-mighty treat were "tantalizingly tart." The cherry and lime played perfectly off each other, and, as always, the petiteness of the cupcake made it managable and left me with plenty of room for more (if I'd had another). There's no doubt I'm going to have to connect with Sugar Mama's again sometime so I can continue exploring their menu.

Here's to a new year full of delicious cupcakes!

An unexpected favorite

After buying six cupcakes at the final farmers market last Wednesday and putting several of them in the freezer, I pulled the Lemon Drop out on Sunday night. I wasn't expecting to be blown away because lemon generally isn't my favorite type of cake, and I figured Heavenly Delight's version would be too strong for my taste.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I LOVED the Lemon Drop. The cake was moist, the lemon-flavored buttercream frosting was subtle and creamy, and the white-chocolate chips on top -- for once -- didn't add an overpowering sweetness to the overall creation. Instead, they balanced the cake's tartness perfectly. After forcing myself to slow down a little and enjoy it rather than gulp it down in under 30 seconds, I decided that Lemon Drop ranks somewhere in the Top 10 of the nearly 30 HD cupcakes I've had.

THAT was certainly unexpected. The Lemon Drop showed up most weeks of the farmers market as a choice, but I put it off until the very last week because I figured I wouldn't be that impressed. I've had lemon cupcakes from other places that were too strong. For instance, Jilly's Bee Sting, of which I managed one bite before I gratefully handed the rest over to Camille to finish. Thankfully, Camille wasn't in the mood for a cupcake when I pulled out the Lemon Drop, because I wasn't sharing!

Pink Velvet Sunday

Our anniversary officially wrapped yestereday -- I ate the last of the Jilly's cupakes. Camille had started the Pink Velvet on Saturday, and I broke down and finished it off yesterday. I have to say, I preferred it when we tried it on the buffet at Jilly's -- they had made it as a cake, and the caramel filling was throughout the cake, as opposed to a small pocket as it was in the cupcake. The "cake" version was much moister, and I was blown away by how good it was. The cupcake was just OK in comparison. I wouldn't feel the need to repeat it. The caramel cream cheese frosting was tasty to be sure, though. To be fair, Camille was of the opinion that the cupcake was just as good as the cake.

A star-quality cupcake

I started the day intending to abstain from sweets, since I've had a cupcake every day since Sunday. But when Camille asked after dinner if I wanted to dig in to the Space Monkey from Jilly's, I couldn't turn him down. The Space Monkey is one of the cupcakes that won Jilly's the competition on an episode of the Food Network's "Cupcake Wars."

And dig in we did. The Space Monkey's combination of banana and toffee was something I'd never encountered, and when Camille and I noticed, in the shop, that the cupcake's filling was Dulce de Leche, that sealed the deal for us. We both fell in love with Dulce de Leche ice cream during our trip to Paris this past summer. 

I'm not surprised the Space Monkey won on "Cupcake Wars": The banana-toffee combo was dynamite, as were the Dulce de Leche filling and the caramel cream cheese frosting. I have to say, the Missy-licious, in its vanilla simplicity, is still my favorite Jilly's pick. But I'd definitely repeat the Space Monkey.



 Space Monkey

On a side note, I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison to show the size of Jilly's cupcakes, so I put the Space Monkey beside Heavenly Delight's Chocolate Dream. Heavenly Delight's cupcakes aren't small by any means. They're average-sized cupcakes, the size you'd bake in your own kitchen. They fill the cup to the brim, though, and they're not chintzy with the frosting. Another point to consider: The Space Monkey cost more than twice the Chocolate Dream -- $6-something versus $2.50. (The Space Monkey was Jilly's highest-priced cupcake, and I'm sure its winning title was a big factor.)



Bottom line: Keep the Heavenly Delight cupcake all to yourself, but consider sharing the Jilly's cake if you don't want a bellyache.

Cupcake excess (wait, is that possible?)

It's been quite a week for cupcakes. Between our visit to Jilly's on Sunday and my weekly Heavenly Delight stop yesterday, you might think I've run the risk of being cupcaked out. You'd be wrong.

This week's stop at the farmers market sweet stand yielded two new varieties -- Snickers and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Actually, the yellow cake was a stripped-down version (and I mean that in the best way possible) of the Butterfinger of a few weeks ago, which was luscious, so I knew I'd adore its more basic cousin.

I'm calling this one "Golden Chocolate" because I can't remember what H.D. had printed on the cupcake's little label at the stand. It was yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a garnish of chocolate sprinkles.

Here's the 411: The cake was melt-in-your-mouth moist, and the chocolate frosting was perfectly light and fluffy – milky, not fudgy. Another of HD’s fall-apart fresh cupcakes, its beauty was in its simplicity. No need for frills here. Although I loved its Butterfinger-garnished cousin a few weeks ago, this classic combo doesn’t need dressing-up.

The Snickers, which I actually tried first, didn't thrill me quite as much. It featured chocolate cake with caramel-flavored frosting and a garnish of chopped peanuts and little balls of caramel.

I was a tad underwhelmed by this one. The chocolate cake was good and the caramel frosting was decent, but I wished it had been richer and more flavorful, like the caramel icing Mel-O-Cream spreads on its doughnuts. That is the caramel frosting by which to compare all others, as far as I’m concerned. I wanted to scrape off the little balls of caramel that garnished the cupcake because I’m not a fan of chewy caramel. I think I would have liked it better without the caramel balls, but it still would have lacked the richness and depth of flavor of some of HD's other creations. At least it wasn’t cloyingly sweet like their other caramel cupcakes I’ve tried. This wasn't a bad cupcake. It's just that I can think of many others I'd spend my $2.50 on instead.

All in all, another not-so-shabby day of cupcake tasting!

The Reese's

Last night, I broke down and ate half of Jilly's The Reese's. I should have let it thaw a little more, but I couldn't help myself and dove right in. It was tasty -- chocolate cake with chocolate and peanut butter frosting accented by -- of course -- a generous topping of peanut butter cup crumbles. I have to say, it wasn't terribly different from Reese's cupcakes I've had from other bakeries. Bigger, certainly (I still have that other half in the freezer). One of the many things I liked about Jilly's was that they had the option of vanilla or chocolate cake for several of their cupcake selections. The Reese's was one of them. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen The Reese's with vanilla cake instead, for a change of pace from the other similar cupcakes I've had. But it was the only cupcake I was interested in that featured chocolate cake, and I wanted to make sure I was able to try their chocolate. Next time we stop by Jilly's, I'll just have to try the vanilla. What a hardship, right? ;-)

Anniversary cupcakes

Camille loves to surprise me on special occasions. On this, our second wedding anniversary, he caught me completely off-guard with a trip to St. Louis and St. Charles, Mo., that he began with a stop at Jilly's Cupcake Bar and Cafe, which competed on and won an episode of the Food Network's "Cupcake Wars" this year.

.

We missed out on Jilly's a month ago, when we went to St. Louis for my birthday, because the shop was closed for construction. It was up and running when we arrived this weekend, and I was impressed by the array of cupcakes on display in the freshly painted, partially decorated shop.

They. Were. Huge. Possibly the biggest cupcakes I've seen to date. Crumbs had oversized cupcakes when we stopped there on the Chicago cupcake crawl, but I'm pretty sure Jilly's would come out on top size-wise if we compared them side-by-side.

Jilly's was serving a brunch buffet when we got there, so we had some pre-cupcake food. As it turned out, the buffet included a cake version of Jilly's Pink Velvet cupcake. Camille and I both tried some and were blown away by the moist, rich cake, stuffed with caramel, and the light-yet-creamy frosting featuring cream cheese, caramel buttercream and pecan praline. When it was time to get in line to buy cupcakes, that one was on the list. Others we chose for the to-go box: Bee Sting (lemon and honey); Missy-licious (vanilla with vanilla whipped cream filling); The Reese's (self-explanatory!); and Space Monkey (banana-toffee, with Dulce de Leche filling), one of the cupakes that won on "Cupcake Wars."

Clockwise from top left: Space Monkey, The Reese's, Missy-licious, Pink Velvet.

The Bee Sting

By the time we got home Monday afternoon, I was ready to tackle one of Jilly's monster creations. Looking for the least-rich of the bunch, I went for the Missy-licious, the all-vanilla cake. It was about twice the size of your average, homemade cupcake, with probably three times the frosting. However, I somehow managed to make it nonexistent in less than five minutes. Let's get another look at this beauty, with frosting in Jilly's signature colors of pink and green:

The Missy-licious is the closest competitor I've yet to find for the vanilla cupcakes I hold in highest regard: the Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcake. With the Magnolia cake, it's all about the thick, creamy, sugar coma-inducing frosting. The vanilla frosting on the white-cake Missy-licious was light, but still creamy, and I wish I knew how to describe exactly how perfect the sugar/butter/vanilla flavor/texture balance was. There are no words -- at least not for me, an inexperienced food critic. Let me just remind you that it was a monster cupcake, and I ate it in less than five minutes. That should suffice to get my point across about how irresistible this cupcake was. My best advice: Get thee to Jilly's and try one!

Camille's lone choice for his take-home was the Bee Sting, which Jilly's website describes as vanilla cake with honey lemon curd stuffing and topping consisting of "lemon cream cheese, toasted almonds and a lemon candy dust."

After finishing half of it (cupcake-eating amateur!) he pronouned it "really good." I went in for my own sample of the leftovers and found it to be a little strong for my taste. I've mentioned in past posts that I prefer my lemon flavoring subtle, and I'm finding out that most cupcake places don't believe in subtlety when it comes to lemon. I can see where a lemon lover would fall head over heels for the Bee Sting, though. The frosting, cake and filling were a tart and tangy trio, waking up my tongue (which I admit was a little sluggish after working overtime to consume the Missy-licious). I would never attempt an entire Bee Sting, but I'll give it props for eliciting a "really good" from Camille, who could easily live without sweets altogether.

Our freezer is currently holding three cuipcakes that I'll probably need at six sittings to finish (OK, let's stop kidding ourselves -- MAYBE two servings for The Reese's, which is piled so high with peanut butter cup clusters that it rivals Mt. St. Helens), and with a Heavenly Delight trip coming in a couple days, it might take me through next weekend to finish them. But I'll be back to review them as soon as they pass  my lips.

Don't wait for me, though -- get on I-55 South and burn some rubber to Jilly's!

My cup runneth over

Yesterday's planned St. Louis cupcake crawl for my birthday didn't quite pan out as we had expected. As it turns out, most of the bakeries I had found on Google are closed on Mondays. Jilly's, whose chefs won on the Food Network show "Cupcake Wars," is normally open Mondays but was closed yesterday for Labor Day. I can't fault them for that, but, dang it, I was disappointed.

However, The Cup, nestled in the back of a building in the heart of U City, was open and awaiting us after our trip out to St. Louis Mills. We had been to The Cup once before, this past Valentine's Day weekend. I had the most decadent Peanut Butter Cup cupcake that time -- so rich, but so worth the stomachache I endured afterward. That day, Camille's gift to me was a box of a half-dozen cupcakes to go (because I had such a hard time deciding which one I wanted at the shop. Isn't he the best husband ever?)

In February, we brought home two Confettis, a Grasshopper, a Red Velvet, a Strawberries 'N' Cream and a Raspberry Beret. All divine! Especially the Grasshopper. And I loved the Valentine's-themed garnishes. So cute!

This time around, I chose the simple Confetti cupcake, which was yellow cake with vanilla frosting. (After a delicious but heavy mid-afternoon meal at Chevy's Fresh Mex, I just wasn't ready for an overly rich cupcake, much as I would have loved a repeat of the Peanut Butter Cup.)

The Confetti was just right. Although it was jumbo-size, it didn't overwhelm me. The yellow cake wasn't the moistest I've ever had, but it was flavorful, and the vanilla buttercream frosting was light and smooth. The rainbow sprinkles were a nice touch.

I also got to sample my friend Becky's Lemon Drop cupcake -- lemon cake with lemon buttercream frosting and a lemon curd filling -- and the flavor's subtlety was just what I look for in any lemon dessert.

Since it was the day before my birthday, Camille snuck off and came back with a to-go box. When I opened it, I found a trio of cupcakes -- a Red Velvet, a Summer Crush (orange) and another Confetti -- with cute little "happy birthday" decorations placed on top along with individual candles. I remember how good the red velvet one was from Valentine's Day,but I've never had The Cup's orange cream, so I'm looking forward to that one a little later.

On another birthday note, I had the privilege of enjoying cupcakes from multiple sources this past weekend. I went to the Villa Maria on Lake Springfield for a Koinonia spiritual retreat Friday night through Sunday afternoon, and while I was occupied with activities on Saturday afternoon, Camille came by with a big box of Hello Kitty cupcakes for me to share with everyone on the retreat. The retreat director surprised me with them that night, and everyone sang "Happy Birthday." What an awesome surprise! Camille knows my love of Hello Kitty AND, of course, my love of cupcakes. It's hard to imagine a better birthday. 35, so far you're not so bad!