Tastebuds all aflutter

Though I was sad I had to miss my colleage Jayette's cupcake-tasting party on Saturday, I had the chance, after watching my alma mater's football team lose at Memorial Stadium, to try a bakery in Champaign called Cream and Flutter (http://creamandflutter.com/ -- if you're a Springfieldian, the website alone will make you want to attempt dangerous speeds on I-72 East).

Our stop was brief due to desperate parking in a permit-only lot across the street (the bakery is in the heart of Champaign's bustling downtown), but I was able to take some pictures while we debated over the beautifully decorated cupcakes behind glass at the end of the counter inside the spacious, high-ceilinged bakery.

I knew in advance what my selections would be, since I had pored over the website, and at the checkout a friendly, young girl presented me with a brown box labeled with a sticker bearing the bakery's logo.

But what was inside the box, you might ask? Well, there were seven flavors to choose from, three of them the shop's "signature" cupcakes -- vanilla, chocolate and red velvet -- and the other four seasonal varieties -- fig, eggnog nutmeg, peppermint and peanut butter. The description of the vanilla on the website -- Madagascar bourbon vanilla cake -- intrigued me, and I can rarely resist peanut butter, so those were my choices.

In order to avoid the cupcake overload I wrote about in my previous post, I decided to cut both cupcakes in half so I could try each flavor fresh and freeze the rest for later. (Here's hoping Cream and Flutter cupcakes freeze better than Cafe Moxo cupcakes.)

The vanilla was absolutely outstanding. The white cake was very good, but what floored me was the frosting: thick and obviously made with confectioner's sugar, which is my weakness when it comes to frosting. This cupcake was the closest in taste that I've found to my all-time favorite cupcakes (and frosting), at Magnolia Bakery in New York (and now Chicago). I'm not sure what role the Madagascar bourbon flavoring played because the vanilla didn't taste any different from any other vanilla I've had, but if it had a hand in making the frosting so spectacular, I'll be keeping a lookout for it in the future.

The peanut butter cupcake was also delicious, although the frosting was a completely different texture from that of the vanilla -- light, delicate and more reminiscent of the Italian buttercream used on cupcakes we ate at Swirlz Cupcakes on the Chicago cupcake crawl this past summer. I much prefer a thicker, more traditional buttercream to the lighter variety, but I also found that the lighter consistency complemented the richness of the peanut butter flavor, as well as the garnish of chopped peanuts. A heavier frosting may have put the chocolate cake-and-PB combo into bellyache territory.

Cream and Flutter seems to change its seasonal flavors often, and I want to try the chocolate and the red velvet -- not to mention the myriad of other sweets the shop sells. When I saw the whoopie pies for sale, I almost bought one in addition to my two cupcakes, but I managed to resist and promised myself to try one next time I'm in Champaign. As a U of I grad who adores and misses campus, I'll be back in the winter for at least one basketball game. Maybe on that trip, I'll be celebrating a win with a cupcake instead of consoling myself over a loss.