Leap Day cupcake

This week's cupcake day just happened to fall on Feb. 29, Leap Day. I would leap great distances for cupcakes, and although I was only required to step through Cafe Moxo's front door to purchase the Bistro, I gladly would have bounded several feet to get my hands on that simple but scrumptious yellow cake with a mountain of chocolate buttercream frosting.

The Bistro has no fancy fillings or extravagant garnishes, but the falling-apart fresh yellow cake and airy chocolate buttercream frosting topped with a fistful of white chocolate chips combined for the type of taste sensation that makes you want more even if your stomach is protesting. When Moxo's cupcakes are fresh, they're divine. The last several I've tried have been so outstanding that I'm tempted to retry the few I bought near the holidays that disappointed me with the dryness or staleness of their cake -- namely the red velvet and the pumpkin spice. I'm unsure of Moxo's baking schedule, but I've often wondered if those particular cupcakes had been baked a day prior to when I bought them.

While I'm waiting for Moxo to unveil its spring menu, I plan to look elsewhere around town for some new cupcakes to try. D'Lynn's Delights, which originally resided at the southwest corner of Fourth and Monroe streets, has relocated to inside Grand Avenue Deli, 330 South Grand Ave. E. D'Lynn's makes five varieties of cupcakes available individually on a daily basis -- Vanilla Bean, Chocolate Fudge, Caramel Spice, Orange Creamsicle and Strawberry Cream, as well as an array of specialty flavors available by the dozen when ordered in advance. For the full listing of flavors, visit http://dlynnsdelightscafe.comcastbiz.net/14701.html.

Do-overs

With the extravagance of Thanksgiving week behind me, I felt my old, familiar craving for cupcakes return on this cold but sunny late-November Wednesday. It was the right time to head back to Cafe Moxo and give a second chance to one of the several cupcakes I tried freezing a few weeks ago with subpar results. I was in the mood for Moxo's vanilla frosting, so I chose the Black and White, with chocolate cake and chocolate sprinkles atop the mound of light, fluffy icing.

I was eager to dig in after lunch and find out if this particular cupcake was better fresh. I was pleasantly surprised to find the cake suitably light and moist and the frosting the same texture I remembered from previous vanilla-topped cupcakes I'd tried at Moxo. Freezing the two Moxo cupcakes I'd stocked up on at the beginning of November -- Black and White and Bistro (yellow cake with chocolate frosting) -- I had discovered, upon thawing them, that the cake had lost its moisture and the frosting had thickened somehow. They just weren't as light as previous Moxo cupcakes I'd tried fresh. Despite some misgivings about the overall quality of Moxo cupcakes, I knew I had to give those varieties a "fresh" chance, and I decided not to let the bad experience color my overall opinion of Moxo's offerings.

So the Black and White notches a rebound win today, and I look forward to a renewed vigor in my exploration of Moxo's menu. Bring on next week!

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!