Nofrodelius and I like to do themed crawls – and usually it’s cupcakes. But the first year, after eating 8 different cupcakes from 4 different bakeries, we decided we needed to scale back, lest we wanted to die of sugar highs and food coma again. The second year, we were slightly more reasonable, opting for a boozy cupcake testing of just 4 cupcakes from Cupcake Royale – we didn’t quite make it through that either. Year 3, we tried an ice cream crawl, which had us eating from 3 ice cream shops – that was definitely a mistake. Never eat that much ice cream in a half day – you’ll have brain freeze and a sugar high. We also did a macaron crawl that year, which was probably our most successful attempt with 16 macarons. We hardly ever finish everything we buy when we do the tastings, and we insist on doing all of the tasting at the same time to get the best comparison.
Year 4, we’re back to a cupcake theme, but since I haven’t been to some of these bakeries, I didn’t know if cupcakes were available. If there were cupcakes, we bought them. If there weren’t, we tried other things. Now, the magic in this year’s crawl is that all the shops were located within a half mile of each other on 45th on the Wallingford side in Seattle. We didn’t have to trek all over town for our goodies, got a bit of a walk in, and stopped in at few cute shops along the way (our favorite was Paper Delights – they have the Brause blue pumpkin nib in stock!!!).
We went to Sweet Side – a custom cake bakery, Cubes Baking – a newer bakery where all their items are baked in cubes that focuses on Mexican pastries where you pick up your own pastries with tongs (similar to Chinese bakeries), and finally, Trophy Cupcakes.
Cube’s dulce de leche cupcube – like a dense poundcake in texture, not too sweet and in the shape of a square in fitting with the bakery theme. Good frosting to cake ratio, but not very strong on the dulce de leche flavor.
trophy cupcake – milky way macaron with marshmallow buttercream and caramel filling. While Trophy is a cupcake heaven, they turn out pretty amazing macarons with sparkles to boot. This one had just the right consistency of chew in the shell (which is probably one of the hardest things to get right in a macaron) and plenty of flavor on the inside. You won’t want to share this one.
trophy cupcake – peanut butter cup with a dollop of marshmallow meringue, a cookie of peanut butter frosting, and chocolate drizzle atop a chocolate cake with crumbs of peanut butter cookie. There’s a lot going on with this cupcake that gets a little buried underneath the mountain of frosting. This is a Trophy cupcake, which also means that the cake is fluffy, moist, chocolatey and delicious without fail.
sweet side – carrot cake. This dense large crumb carrot cake is chalk full of carrots nestled between layers of cream cheese frosting that lend just enough sweetness without overwhelming the rest of the cake. It’s moist and it’s hefty – this piece is plenty for two people. Sweet Side specializes in custom cakes, specifically wedding cakes, and the carrot cake is their specialty. While they don’t have a lot of baked goods for sale at their storefront, their carrot cake was definitely worthy of an entrée into our cupcake crawl. After, the cake is just an overgrown cupcake right?
trophy cupcake – raspberry chocolate; another great trophy cupcake that strikes a better balance between frosting and cake. With the surprise raspberry core, this cupcake isn’t too sweet and has plenty of raspberry flavor enveloped within its moist and fluffy chocolate cake.
We didn’t make through all the desserts in one sitting, even though we came close – the carrot cake had to wait until two days later, but it held up just fine with refrigeration. In order of desserts, here’s my ranking:
- Trophy – raspberry cupcake
- Trophy – milkway macaron
- Sweet side – carrot cake
- Trophy – peanut butter cup
- Cubes Baking – dulce de leche cupcube
Trophy knows their cupcakes, but we were surprised at how well they made a macaron, which makes the bakery all the most impressive. Sweet Side probably has some gorgeous looking custom cakes, so you can rest assured that what’s underneath it will taste as good as it look. Cubes Baking was the most interesting – and while their cupcake didn’t wow anyone in our tasting, their jalepeno cornbread and cream cheese Spanish muffin were both fantastic for breakfast the next day. I’d like to try more of their savory items to see what else they can do.
My accomplice, Nofrodelius, is off to Germany and I will miss our sugar overdoses together. I will miss our chats and I will miss her patience with the fact that my eyes are bigger than my stomach. I will miss her quite simply as a friend. BUT, that just means we get to eat our way through Germany and Paris in the next few years. Do they even have cupcakes in Europe or is that an American construct? I’m sure we can do an éclair or cheese crawl – and I’m looking forward to the next time I get to do this again with her! I’ll raise a cupcake as a toast – Best of luck Nofrodelius!