Saturday, January 22, 2011

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Tulips Cupcakery




This weekend I made it a priority to purchase a cupcake. Instead of just one, I bought four mini-cupcakes. I love mini-cupcakes primarily because I love variety. The more flavors that I can have at one time the better. Completely off topic, but this is why I love the Gelato Fiasco so much. They will let me have as many flavors as I want in my small serving of gelato. It is the same way with these mini-cupcakes. I can have four different flavors while not feeling like a gigantic pig.

I went to Kamasouptra in the Portland Public Market knowing that they sell cupcakes from Tulips Cupcakery. I had been told by a few of my friends that they had mini-cupcakes and I couldn't wait to try them myself. I bought each flavor that they had, which by going by the Kamasouptra menu for the day (as I can't remember what the lady who waited on me told me) I think they were: Chocolate Orange, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Lemon Chiffon and Pumpkin with Maple Cream Cheese. I'm not sure if it was actually a Lemon Chiffon cupcake, because there were three cupcakes with a chocolate cake part and the one pumpkin cupcake. My co-taster did say that one of the cupcake's frosting did have a bit of a lemon taste to it, so perhaps it was that one that was the Lemon Chiffon.

I'll start off saying that I liked the cupcakes, purely due to the fact that they were mini-cupcakes. I love miniature versions of anything! The best mini-cupcake was definitely the Pumpkin with Maple Cream Cheese. The cake was moist and the frosting was a perfect compliment to the cake. The flavor and the amount of frosting didn't overwhelm the cake. The first runner up was the the Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcake. Both my co-taster and I love peanut butter mixed with chocolate. The frosting was the peanut butter part and very light. The disappointing part was the cake for this cupcake and the other two cupcakes. It was dry and I am not a fan of a dry cupcake. I don't know why it was dry, maybe because they were tiny or maybe they were a few days old. I am going to go back and try one of the larger cupcakes sometime in the future to get a better idea of the flavor and to see if maybe the tiny cupcakes dry cake was a fluke. Also, it was kind of hard to have an accurate representation of the other two cupcakes, as their flavors were slight and not as powerful as the Pumpkin and the Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes.



Along with my four mini-cupcakes I had a lemonade from Kamasouptra. They have their own fresh squeezed lemonade made when you order it. It is the best lemonade, right up there with fair fresh squeezed lemonade. Every time I go into the Public Market I have to get one. The Pumpkin cupcake with Maple Cream Cheese was really good. I hope that Tulips Cupcakery has a larger version of it the next time I go into the Market. I'm really a sucker for pumpkin baked goods, especially a moist cupcake.

Both pictures are done my friend, Joel Desmond, of the Maine Effect.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

So far, I have failed on this diet. I have eaten cookies at Bard, but only because there were no cupcakes there that day. We in fact only went into Bard in the hopes that there would be some Cupcake Cha Cha cupcakes there, but it was surprising to me how good their chocolate chip cookie was. I also got a hot chocolate, which was almost a necessity as it was this past Monday and during a blizzard. So, I think I will allow myself a weekly treat of a cupcake and still continue the blog since it's obvious that there is no way I can give up ALL treats, but hopefully at least most of them.