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!

Farmers market finale

It was a rainy, gloomy end to the Old Capitol Farmers Market today, and the end of my access to Heavenly Delight cupcakes for the season. Time to move on to Cafe Moxo for the winter.

I made the most of my last Heavenly Delight Wednesday, springing for a half-dozen cupcakes, half new and half repeats of some favorites. The new: Chocolate Carmel, Banana Flip and Lemon Drop. The repeats: White, Reese's and Pumpkin.

Lemon Drop is in the freezer with the repeats, but I splurged on my other two newbies. First up: Chocolate Carmel. This one is the sibling to one I really want to try, Chocolate Carmel Surprise.

Chocolate Carmel

The difference between the two is that "Surprise" has a caramel filling. That filling, I believe, would have helped to set Chocolate Carmel apart from HD's yellow cake with chocolate frosting, which I love and would choose over Chocolate Carmel. CC was good, don't get me wrong -- the cake was caramel-flavored and the frosting was HD's luscious moussy chocolate -- but the cake flavor didn't knock me off my feet, and I could have lived without the little caramel balls that HD typically uses to garnish its caramel-flavored cupcakes. I wouldn't buy it again unless I could try the "Surprise."

Banana Flip

Next up: Banana Flip. I fell in love with the name and was excited to finally try a banana cupcake from HD. I had a scrumptious banana cupcake with a stellar butter frosting at Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique on the Chicago cupcake crawl, and I was eager to see how HD would measure up. Along with its banana cake, the Flip sported vanilla frosting with marshmallows as a garnish. Whether or not the frosting had marshmallow flavoring added, I was never able to pinpoint. It did seem a bit sweeter than HD's regular vanilla frosting, but that could have been due to the marshmallows. I liked it, but not as much as the Sugar Bliss cake. I remember that cupcake being moister, and the butter frosting was definitely better suited to the banana cake. All in all, it was a good cupcake, but not one that I'll probably repeat in the near future. Maybe midway through next summer, after I've had a second chance at getting some of the selections I missed this year.

Next week: Moxo!

Feeling special

I happened to be in Specialty Cakes' neck of the woods after work Thursday, and I couldn't resist stopping to see if they had a new flavor (or two) to try. As it turned out, they had four flavors left in the mostly empty display case, and two of them were flavors I wanted to try -- strawberry and carrot cake

Strawberry, left, and carrot cake

Based on the other two Specialty Cakes cupcakes I sampled with my coworkers Kathy and Jayette a few weeks ago -- chocolate with vanilla frosting and white cake with vanilla frosting and raspberry filling -- I knew I'd like these two. Specialty has great frosting -- sweet, thick and creamy. And the cake is moist and light. The strawberry and carrot cake were, not surprisingly, no exception. Bold best describes the flavor of the strawberry cake, topped with a generous swirl of vanilla frosting. And the carrot, which was blissfully free of nuts, found its perfect partner in cream cheese frosting. These are modestly sized cupcakes, so it's not at all hard to eat more than one in a sitting. I controlled myself, though, and ate only half of each cupcake so there would be some left for Camille.

I don't make it to Specialty often because its Wabash Avenue location isn't particularly convenient to home or work, but when I happen to be driving by, it's definitely worth the stop. The other perk to Specialty's cupcakes (besides their deliciousness)? The price -- $1 per cupcake. To someone who's paid as much as $6 for a cupcake (at More Cupcakes in Chicago), that price is worth of a double take -- and a second cupcake.

Workday S'more

A cold rain was coming down when I left the house this morning, and yet, somehow, in my cupcake-induced rush to get downtown to the farmers market, I failed to consider that the wet weather might put a damper on attendance -- customers AND vendors -- at the market.

It was a cold, wet realization when I parked the car and scrambled the half-block to Adams Street, looked to my left, where Heavenly Delight's stand usually resides, and saw the empty space. No HD cupcake this week.

Fortunately, just behind me was Cafe Moxo, where my fall/winter cupcaking stint starts in two weeks, after the market's season wraps. I had a Moxo cupcake in August, the week HD put its stand at the Illinois State Fair instead of the farmers market. That time, I chose the Shortcake cupcake, with white cake, a filling of chopped strawberries, and vanilla frosting. I adored the cupcake, with frosting that I thought resembled the cream in Mel-O-Cream doughnuts.

This time, the selections were fall-flavored, and the one I chose was the S'more.

The S'more scores high on presntation, with a graham cracker resting on top of a thick layer of marshmallow cream frosting covering the foundation of chocolate cake. Crowning the creation was an extra dollop of frosting serving as base for a square of Hershey's milk chocolate. The cake is moist and light, and the marshmallow frosting had a hint of marshmallows' stretchy texture. (I wondered how they would accomplish marshmallow frosting, and they did it quite well.) My only complaint was that the graham cracker had softened from being sandwiched between two layers of frosting. The staleness didn't keep me from eating the cracker; I simply broke off the bottom half of the cake so I could fit the rest of the cupcake in my mouth without taking the cracker off. The flavor of the graham cracker blended with the cake and frosting, and the cracker's texture became, for the most part, a nonissue.

Moxo's more heavily decorated cupcakes aren't the easiest to eat, but this particular one was worth the effort. I'd certainly order it again, once I get through the rest of the fall flavors. Moxo has 25 cupcakes on its menu, and it features certain flavors during different seasons. Some, like S'more, Caramel Apple and Pumpkin Spice, obviously fit with a particular season, but others, such as the Black & White (chocolate cake with vanilla frosting) and the Bistro (yellow cake with chocolate frosting) are basic enough to fit any season and pop up on the restaurant's display year-round.

I'll probably wait a couple weeks, until after next week's final farmers market, to return to Moxo, but when I do I think I'll try the Caramel Apple. I love fall for its colorful leaves and sweatshirt-wearing weather, but I hate what it ushers in. At least I have a tempting fall selection of cupcakes to anticipate. Bring 'em on!

Mmmmm, cinnamon!

It's the third-to-last week of the farmers market, and it's looking like Heavenly Delight will continue selling its cupcakes here in town -- at Andiamo, according to Les, the husband of the woman who makes the Heavenly Delight magic happen in a Neoga kitchen.

In the meantime, I sampled two new cupcakes this week -- the Snickerdoodle and the Raspberry Zinger.

The Snickerdoodle

The Snickerdoodle was a shout-out to cinnamon -- moist, almost gooey, cinnamon-infused vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon chips for a garnish, as well as a sprinkling of cinnamon. Let me just say this cupcake blew me away. I wasn't expecting cream cheese frosting as much as reglar vanilla buttercream, and my tastebuds were delighted to discover the perfect partnership between the cake and cream cheese. This HD creation is my second-favorite of this cupcake-sampling experiment. Every bite was pure joy.

Later, when I got home from work and the gym, I split the Raspberry Zinger with Camille.

Raspberry Zinger

This one was basically Raspberry Swirl with coconut on top -- white cake with raspberry throughout the cake and vanilla buttercream frosting. I love Raspberry Swirl, but I found the coconut to be a mere distraction on my savoring journey. Next time, I'll take the Zinger's coconut-free cousin.

My plan for next week's market is to put in an order for a dozen of the HD cupcakes I've either wanted to try but haven't or have loved and want to repeat. I'll freeze them, and many of them will become future "Cupcake Wednesday" selections. I'm not sure how many varieties Andiamo will stock each week, so I want to make sure I order while Les is still manning a booth. (I assume Andiamo employees will sell the cupcakes once they get the partnership going.)

Party on, HD cupcakes!

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!