As I said in my entry about the Portland Buy Local Indie Biz Awards, I won a gift certificate to
Y Limes Gourmet for a dozen of their gourmet cupcakes. I decided that the perfect opportunity to use my gift certificate was for my significant other's surprise birthday party that I had been planning for the past few months. With the kindness of two of my best pals, they allowed me to use their amazing house to throw the bash at. My mind immediately thought of my recently acquired gift certificate, since the baked goods snob that my S.O. happens to be, only Y-Limes meets their highest standard for cupcakes. I browsed their massive listing of flavors and came to one of the hardest decisions I made all week; I mean how can you really decide between the Fat Elvis- a banana cake with peanut butter frosting and brown sugared bacon, the Chocolate Covered Strawberry-chocolate cake swirled with fresh strawberry buttercream or the Grasshopper-chocolate cake swirled with mint icing and chopped Andes mints. I finally settled on the Peppermint Mocha, a mocha cupcake with peppermint buttercream and chocolate ganache drizzled over the top. I knew that there were going to be a lot of coffee and chocolate lovers at this surprise party and I wanted to make sure to please them all, which this cupcake definitely did.
(I may have accidentally dropped this one on it's side prior to the photo op)
The cupcake was quite honestly huge. It was more of what I would call a personal sized cake, like those personal pan pizzas that TV commercials tout so often. I think that once everyone in the room saw the cupcakes, their eyes lit up and once they had tasted them, they had become fans of Y-Limes Gourmet. I must have told more than three or four people where they could find Y-Limes cupcakes on a regular basis (Coffee by Design, Stonyfield Cafe, Gorham Grind and the Perx-U-Up Cafe) and they were all quite excited to hear some of the other flavor offerings. This cupcake was everything I could ask for in a cupcake. The cake was decadent; not too dense and very flavorful. The peppermint buttercream was light and creamy. It was also not overly sweet, but just sweet enough. I find that a lot of cupcakes try to make up for a lackluster cake portion by having an overly sweet frosting, but Y-Limes did not have to worry about either one of those downfalls. They have perfected the delicate balance of frosting, in this case buttercream, and cake. I think it is also a singing praise for the cupcake that I could even taste it to begin with, since I have been suffering from a massive cold and can barely taste anything.
I first had Y-Limes cupcakes at the Picnic arts and crafts festival in late August, where I had their S'mores cupcake:
Just look at the attention to detail on that cupcake; the lightly toasted edges on the marshmallow frosting and the tiny crumbles of graham cracker all along the top of the cupcake. These cupcakes are a testament to the art of the cupcake. It was ridiculously delicious, in addition to being beautiful. Y-Limes is not kidding when they say that they are artisan bakery. I also would like to mention that the owner is really nice. I love it when someone who loves their product, what they do and are also just a genuinely nice person to interact with. Y-Limes Gourmet has become the front runner for the Portland cupcake scene; which is to say a lot, because the competition is becoming quite fierce. There are currently a lot of high quality cupcakes being produced in our city.
