Chai, chai again

I started out today with the intention of picking up a Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcake from Cafe Moxo for a side-by-side comparison with Heavenly Delight's Reese's Peanut Butter, which I've had in the freezer since last week's market. But silly me got my days confused and forgot that Moxo offers Chocolate Peanut Butter on Wednesdays, not Thursdays. This means that I will most likely pit the peanut butters against each other next week instead.

Not all was lost, though. Moxo did have the final two spring/summer menu cupcakes I hadn't tried yet -- Pina Colada and Chai Tea -- and I decided to go with the Chai.

Fast forward to later in the day, when I stopped at the Qik-N-Ez by our house to check out the tip I'd gotten that the gas station and convenience store was carrying cupcakes from Java Express on Peoria Road, the coffee shop from which I've tried cupcakes several times. I've had my ups and downs with the cupcakes there, although I've mostly loved what I've had (there was a Chocolate Peppermint cupcake last winter that was so stale  with frosting so overloaded with shortening that I had to throw most of it away). Favorites I've had from Java include Lemon Raspberry, Cherry-Almond and Pumpkin. I'm on the lookout for a peanut butter that I've heard great things about from a coworker.

On this particular day, I found three flavors: Lemon Raspberry, Chocolate Toffee and ... Chai Latte! Who knew I'd stumble on two chai cupcakes at two different places in one day? Just like that, I had recovered my side-by-side experiment.

Cafe Moxo's Chai Tea  

Java Express' Chai Latte

Even though I wasn't able to try the two cupcakes at the same time (I had the Moxo Chai in the afternoon while at work and the Java Chai when I got home a couple hours later), my memory of Moxo's was still pretty clear when I tasted Java's. They were similar in cake and frosting: both featured a lightly spiced cake covered in vanilla frosting dusted with a bit of the spice. Moxo's was a bit more creative in appearance, with a mini straw emerging from the frosting. 

Neither cupcake was particularly moist, but Moxo had a bit of an edge in that category. When I asked the guy behind the counter at Qik-N-Ez how often Java delivers the cupcakes and when today's had arrived, he told me they come twice a week and this batch had been in the store since Tuesday. Two days seemed a bit iffy to me, but he insisted they'd kept the cupcakes fresh in the refrigerator until they put them on display in a plastic case at the registers. I have to admit I was skeptical when he said they keep the cupcakes in the refrigerator. I've had bad luck with cake hardening in the refrigerator, so I usually store it in the freezer. (My one exception so far is Moxo, whose cupcakes I only eat fresh the day I buy them since I had a series of cupcakes from there dry out and otherwise lose their freshness in the freezer.)

I also noticed that the Java Express Chai's icing had become slightly crusty, although that doesn't bother me with frosting as much as it does with cake. Moxo's frosting was the restaurant's usual light, fresh and fluffy vanilla, which nicely complemented the spice cake. I had never tried chai tea, so I wasn't sure how well the cupcake represented the drink. My coworker and co-sampler Marilyn, who loves chai tea, reported that, while the cupcake didn't taste exactly like the drink would, the spices were reminiscent of the drink. That was good enough for me. 

One major difference between the two cupcakes was size; Moxo makes traditional-size cupcakes while Java deals in the jumbo variety. But the biggest difference of all, and the one that put Java's Chai a nose above Moxo's in my opinion, was the cream cheese filling in the Chai Latte. Delicious and just the right complement to the rest of the cupcake. It also helped offset the cake's dryness, as did the generous topper of frosting. 

I'm a sucker for a good filling, so I have to give props to Java Express for going the extra mile in that regard. Both bakeries need to work on being consistent with moistness and freshness of cake, but overall these were both quite tasty.

Pumpkins in the springtime

Pumpkin cake may not be the first thing most of us think to eat in the spring, but I'll recommend the pumpkin cupcakes at Java Express, 1827 N. Peoria Road, any time of year. I had heard multiple raves about them, so I was thrilled to be able to buy one freshly frosted this morning at the north-end coffee shop and eatery.

Yum. Yu-UM! I knew this cupcake was going to be spot-on when I noticed the lining falling away from the edges of the cake. I've learned, over my months of cupcake tasting, that loose linings tend to be a sign of fresh cake. This was the closest to homemade of any pumpkin cupcake I've tried. The cake was melt-in-your-mouth moist. The cream cheese frosting was creamy and thick. One bite and I was sitting with my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins around the dining room table at Grandma's house on an autumn Sunday, savoring a "Ladage-size" slab of my mom's pumpkin sheet cake with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. 

Bravo, Java Express, bravo!

Cupcake Windfall Friday!

I usually try to refrain from sweets on Fridays, in light of Cupcake Wednesdays and weekend indulgences, but this week I had to make an exception. In my previous post, I mentioned making contact with Tracy Cowee, owner of TLCuppycakes, who works out of a licensed kitchen in Petersburg and often makes deliveries to Springfield. She had offered to stop at The State Journal-Register, where I work, and deliver "extras" she had brought along. That was an offer I couldn't refuse. (Want to order from her? Check out

	http://www.tlcuppycakes.com.)

In a parallel storylines, two of my colleages, Jayette Bolinski and Kathryn Rem (the SJ-R's food editor) were also dealing in cupcakes. Jayette, who is president of the PTO at her son's school, was preparing to host a cupcake-tasting experience that she had assembled as an item for a PTO auction. She had secured six dozen cupcakes -- a dozen from each of six bakeries -- for the event, and TLCuppycakes was one of the vendors she chose.

Meanwhile, Kathryn (whom Jayette invited to be a tasting expert of sorts at the "cupcake party") had, by chance, spent part of the day in the Petersburg area researching a story. While she was there, she stopped at two bakeries -- Mama's Bakery in Salisbury and OMGosh Bakery and Desserts in Petersburg. When she returned to the office Friday afternoon, she didn't come emtpy-handed -- she brought back two cupcakes from OMGosh and one from Mama's.

It was late afternoon when Tracy arrived at the SJ-R with two cupackes for me (an Ultimate Hot Cocoa and a Pumpkin Cream Cheese) and a dozen for Jayette (those flavors, plus Grandma's Apple Pie). I had asked Kathryn and Jayette to split my two cupcakes with me, and Kathyrn had generously offered to share her cupcakes with us, so we took a break, holed up in the office dining room and sampled the five cupcakes. Here are our evaluations:

We started with OMGosh's Snicker, which, as Kathryn noted, was "heavy!" OMGosh makes oversized cupcakes that appear to be nearly twice the size of your average, residential-kitchen cupcake. The Snicker, overall, was one of our favorites. The cake was lusciously moist, with a creamy caramel-peanut butter filling throughout the cake and moussy chocolate frosting that was flavorful but not too rich.We also loved the bite-size Snickers candy garnish.

Next up was Pumpkin from Mama's Bakery. It looked pretty good, but when we tasted it, two of us found the cake was dry, possibly a result of overbaking. The cream-cheese frosting, however, was a wonderful texture and flavor, likely made with confectioner's sugar, that I felt saved the cupcake.

We followed up Mama's Pumpkin with our other Thanksgiving-inspired cake, TLCuppycakes' Pumpkin Cream Cheese. This one blew us away, and I think we all agreed it was our favorite of the bunch. The cake, lusciously moist and perfectly spiced, embraced a creamy, spicy vanilla filling. We all agreed that the cake actually tasted like pumpkin pie. The buttery cream-cheese frosting was just the right complement to everything, and a candy-corn pumpkin topped the festive confection. There's no doubt that TLCuppycakes' Pumpkin Cream Cheese has made my Thanksgiving list of things to be thankful for!

Though we parted with pumpkin, we stuck with TLCuppycakes, moving on to Tracy's Ultimate Hot Cocoa cupcake. Tracy had told me that she used actual hot cocoa, made on the stove the old-fashioned way, in the batter for the Ultimate's light, springy chocolate cake. I give her extra points for taking that step, as well as for the whipped chocolate filling that was waiting to greet us from within. To further demonstrate the theme, she topped the cake with a vanilla frosting that tasted of real whipped cream. Garnishing the cocoa cake was a sprinkling of hot cooca mix.

Finally, we tackled OMGosh's massive Peppermint cake. This one was top-to-bottom peppermint, and we felt the flavor was a bit too strong -- and the peppermint extract had a "fake" taste to it that lingered longer on our palates than we liked. The cake was white, which I found interesting, since most other peppermint cucpakes I've seen have featured chocolate cake. The white wasn't a bad choice, but it was laced with the peppermint extract, as was the light, Cool Whip-like frosting. We felt the frosting may have contained shortening, which was a turnoff to two of us. I have to say, though, that I thought the light consistency of the frosting was a smart choice for the frosting. With a flavor as strong as peppermint, a heavier frosting might have been too overwhelming. I just wished it had been made with butter instead of shortening.

We love these occasional cupcake sampling sessions, and I joked that we need to do them quarterly. Who knows if we actually will, but one thing's for sure: It's hard to imagine a better afternoon workday break.



Tastes like fall

It was hot like summer at the farmers market late yesterday morning, but the mood at Heavenly Delight was decidedly autumn as pumpkin cupcakes joined the dozen or so options on the table under the tent bearing the big pink cupcake signs. Pumpkin cake is one of my all-time favorite desserts, so it was a no-brainer.

HD's pumpkin cupcake has cream cheese frosting and a garnish of orange-colored sugar.

The cake was incredibly moist -- so much so that it fell apart while I was trying to remove it from the paper. It was messy, but I didn't mind licking my fingers. The cream cheese frosting somehow tasted better to me than it did on last week's carrot cupcake, probably because I like pumpkin cake better than carrot cake in general.

This is one to check out if you're at the Wednesday or Thursday farmers markets!