The Bistro

I dipped into my frozen cupcake stash this afternoon and pulled out one I've been anticipating -- Cafe Moxo's The Bistro -- yellow cake with chocolate frosting and white-chocolate chips as a garnish. Maybe it was the fact that the cupcake had been frozen and I didn't let it thaw out quite long enough, but it wasn't as awesome as I had expected. It was good, don't get me wrong, but the cake wasn't as moist as the yellow cake made by Heavenly Delight for its Golden Chocolate cupcake. Again, that might have been because I didn't let it thaw enough. This was the first Moxo cupcake I've had after freezing, and I have one more to go. It's possible that Moxo's don't freeze as well as HD's. Or maybe the cake was just a bit dry. The moussy-chocolate frosting was great, and I liked the white chocolate chips with this one.

I'll definitely be trying this one again -- fresh next time!

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!