CUPCAKE TOUR #1.
December 4, 2009

I'm sure most of you will have noticed the recent commercial explosion (or exploitation?) of the humble cupcake over the past couple of years. For some reason this little side snack that's not-quite-a-muffin but not-quite-a-tart has morphed from a weird children's birthday party hor'deourve into some hip boutique item at bakeries all across town, with dedicated cupcake stores/stalls popping up every month.

Justin was at the office one day and brought up the idea of doing cupcake tours during his lunch breaks, given the recent rash of cupcake hipsterism. Fortunately for him, it took all of half a nano-second for Ivy to think it was the most brilliant idea ever conceived, so a few days later we all set off on our first little mission to find and rate some of Auckland's cupcakes.

The review's going to be rather simple. I'm not a food critic. I eat a lot of food though (shut up). So, I'm just going to rate it whatever damn way I think it feels like to me, so don't expect some kind of puritanical-epicurean (say that ten times fast) type of assessment. I'll keep it simple - instead of rating it I'm just going to give it a verdict of whether I thought it was great, or if I thought it sucked. Yeah?

#1 - City Cake Company. Mt Eden, Auckland.

- Buttercream Passionfruit

We were told City Cakes was one of the most reputable cake makers in town. By our amazing skills of deduction we figured that they probably made cupcakes, and... well, they did. Shocking? We chose the most 'normal' looking cupcake available on the day - the Buttercream Passionfruit. Evidently it's quite popular according to the lady in the bakery - who decided to finally talk to us after we sat there staring around for about 15 minutes twiddling our thumbs waiting for service. So the store experience was a little ass, but in return, entrusting our taste buds to the mystical system of baking karma we expected good things from their fare. The end result - kinda soso. Very moist texture, almost a bit too moist - I'd say it probably needs to be a little denser. The icing (or buttercream) was a little too light and was, well, for lack of a better description, was really, really... buttery. I get it, it's butter cream, but does it really need to feel like I've just chowed down on a block of butter? Passionfruit cake was nice though - but the whole thing struck me as more of a miniature spongey cake than a cupcake.

The VERDICT.

- Espresso cupcake

You know, I don't remember choosing this when I was at the bakery, but when I opened the box, there it was. I'm guessing by the name it's supposed to be a coffee flavoured pint-sized cupcake (except not always consumed by men in lycra and bicycles along Remuera Road on Sundays). Other than that I'm not sure how else to describe it, because it took all of two and a half seconds to consume it and I have a pretty crappy short term memory. Yeah, I think it tasted like coffee. Was that silver star edible? It sure was crunchy.

The VERDICT.

#2 - Little Cake Kitchen. Upper Queen St, Auckland.

- Lemon cupcake

The Little Cake Kitchen has been applauded by a lot of magazines and press about their general baked goods overall. Apparently people flock there for their sandwiches, cakes, pastries, and pies. The bakery decor is really nice - contrasting pastel pink and green walls and white counter top gives you a real deco kind of old home style kitchen feel to the whole place. It looked nice inside. According to the guy in the bakery this is their most popular cupcake, the Lemon flavour, with pink or white icing (is that a subconscious test?). It looked pretty promising. Until I decided to sniff the little icing 'rose' in the middle. You know when people smell something bad, but are compelled to share it with everybody else? Yeah, that guy was me. Does this smell like fish to you? Whatever it was, after biting into the cupcake, I learnt that it had made the rest of the cupcake taste rather........ fishy. Maybe dude forgot to wash his hands or something. Or maybe it was just a bad one? Justin's one was the same. Bad batch? Maybe? I don't know. In summary... their chicken and leek pie is nice. Ahem.

The VERDICT.

More after I brush my teeth.