Mini Cupcakes Review

About a year ago, I bought a Groupon for a local cupcake bakery. It was still pretty new and I hadn't tried them yet. The newspaper's food columnist had raved about them. I love cupcakes, but we always got cake from our wedding cake baker. He does do cupcakes, but just regular chocolate and vanilla ones with the occasional seasonal flavor. I took the Groupon as a sign that I needed to check this place out, so I bought one. 
Well fast forward to last week when I still hadn't used the Groupon and it was going to expire. Since we were having dinner at my mother-in-law's on Thursday, I ran over to the baker (It's not far from our house) and finally used the Groupon. It was good for a dozen of their mini-cupcakes for which they are known. Since they had 12 different flavors of mini-cupcakes, I got one of each.

My mother-in-law and I split a few that night. While they are mini, they are not bite sized. Each cupcake was more like 4 bites for me.

Let's take a closer look at those flavors...

On the left is Cookies and Cream. It was the special of the week.  It was good. There were cookie pieces in the cupcake as well as the cookie crumbles in the frosting. It probably could have used more cookies in the batter to make it less like a plain cake.

On the right is Carrot Cake. I didn't eat this one at all. I don't like carrot cake, but my mother-in-law does. She said it was good, but kind of dry.

Left, Chocolate Raspberry - There was raspberry under the frosting, but I couldn't taste it very much. Then in my last bite, there was raspberry in the cupcake and it was good, but I wish it had been there for the whole cupcake. The frosting on this on was amazing. Very rich chocolate, almost like a ganache.

Right, Red Velvet - Confession: I've never had red velvet before. And frankly, I don't really need to have it again. I really don't see the point. It's not fully chocolate, just a touch. The cream cheese frosting was great, but the cake for me was just meh.

Top, Chocolate Peanut Butter - This was good. Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. It was just the right amount of peanut butter for me. Sometimes these can get overly sweet, but I liked this one.

Bottom, Chocolate with Buttercream Frosting - Good chocolate cake, good frosting. Nothing special, but it was good. They have a great frosting to cake ratio.

Left, Snickerdoodle - This was one of my favorites! The cake was cinnamon sugar and then the buttercream icing had more cinnamon sugar on it. It was a great combination of flavors.

 

Here's a cross-section of the Snickerdoodle. You can see the awesome frosting to cake ratio here.

Right, Black Bottom - This was my mother-in-law's favorite out of the ones she tried. It's a brownie bottom with cream cheese and chocolate chips in the middle.

Left, Chocolate with Chocolate Icing - Again, the frosting was amazing. The sprinkles were unnecessary, as the frosting is so good on it's own. The cake was just typical chocolate cake.

Right, Marshmallow Cream Filled - This was OK. Not as good as those Hostess cupcakes, but probably has less chemicals!

Top, Strawberry - This is their best seller and I can see why! My other favorite! Strawberries not only in the frosting, but also in the cake. I would easily take a dozen of these! And they make regular cakes too!

Bottom, Yellow Cake with Buttercream Icing - This was good, but nothing special.

So, would I buy again from this bakery? Probably. I'd definitely get the Snickerdoodle and Strawberry cupcakes again. But for regular chocolate and yellow cupcakes, I'd probably stick with my usual baker.