more cupcakes

1 E. Delaware Pl., Chicago, IL

Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and marshmallow creme filling

Price: $3.58
Weight: 2 7/8 oz (83g)
Value: $1.245/oz

Frosting The chocolate ganache is rich and creamy, like eating a good piece of chocolate from a box. Rating 8.0/10

Cake Moist, soft, really nice flavor. The marshmallow creme filling in the cake is moist and fluffy. Rating 9.25/10


Overall I don't know the reason for the Chinese takeout containers. Maybe because after you eat the cupcake you're hungry an hour later? I have to say though that I like the fact that they have an insert in the box that is perfectly sized to fit the cupcake, and you can get the cupcake home without even the slightest damage to the frosting. And even more, there are finger holes that let you pick up the cupcake out of the box without even having to touch the top of the cupcake. So if you're looking to give a cupcake as a gift and want to keep it looking as good as it did in the shop, this is the place for you. Oh, and the cupcakes aren't bad either. Overall Rating 8.75/10.0

* I usually just average the ratings for the frosting and the cake for the Overall rating, but I'm giving it a higher Overall rating because the marshmallow filling really did give it the flavor and nostalgia of a Hostess cupcake. Nicely done.

Su Van's Bake Shop

3351 N Lincoln, Chicago, IL


Chocolate cupcake with plain buttercream frosting

Price: $2.77
Weight: n/a
Value: n/a

Frosting The nice lady at the counter explained to me that the frosting was made with a "rue," which I learned was a mixture of flour and milk added to the buttercream. This, she says, enables you to make the buttercream real light and helps keep it from being too sweet. It worked. The frosting was super-light, almost like a whipped cream, and not too sweet...and still had the graininess that I like so much. The only drawback was that it just seemed a little "lumpy" or coagulated. I had to knock it down half a point for that. Rating 8.0/10

Cake Good substance, for the most part moist, but a little bit on the dense side so in some places it tended to seem just a little dry. Chocolate flavor was really good though. Rating 8.0/10

Overall Su Van's is just 1/2 block north of Dinkel's, so it has formidable competition. (But Su Van's is really more of a brunch/lunch place, which Dinkel's is not.) The thing I noticed about the cupcakes here is that they all look great without trying to be perfect. They just seem to me to look like what a cupcake should look like, if that makes any sense. I find that a lot of times cupcakes that have that "perfect" look are the ones that don't necessarily taste that great. But these were well put-together, good proportions of frosting to cake, and just looked really clean. And the one I had tasted really good. Overall Rating 8.00/10.0

Flourish Bakery Café

1138 W Bryn Mawr, Chicago, IL


Yellow cupcake with plain buttercream frosting

Price: $1.49
Weight: 3 3/4 oz (106g)
Value: $0.397/oz

Frosting The frosting is so light, soft and pillowy that you can literally lick it off the cupcake like you're eating an ice cream cone, rather than having to bite into it. Like my favorite frostings, it has a grainy texture and only a very slightly greasy feel . Rating 9.5/10

Cake Normally I try to get a chocolate cupcake with plain frosting, but they didn't have any this day. (They had chocolate/chocolate, but I decided to go for the plain frosting rather than the chocolate cake.) The yellow cake was very soft and moist. It had a nice flavor, but the only possible negative thing I would say is that it tasted perhaps a little too much like a cake you might get from a Duncan Hines cake mix, and it still had a somewhat "batter-like" taste. Rating 8.0/10

Overall I just recently discovered this bakery/cafe while driving around in Edgewater. My first trip back was to have a sandwich (turkey, bacon & Swiss on cranberry-pecan bread, with fruit chutney, which was excellent), and I drooled over the pastries and baked goods.

I really like this place. It's large, bright, clean and happy, and the staff is very friendly and helpful. I'm only somewhat familiar with the area, but I think the stretch of Bryn Mawr where Flourish is located, between Broadway and Sheridan, has gone through a little renaissance over the past few years. (I'm told Flourish has been there for about 3 years.) The neighborhood still has some lingering elements of its former "sketchiness," but aside from the wandering local half-way house residents, for the most part it seems to be well into the up-side of up-and-coming.

As for the cupcake, overall it was very, very nice. I especially liked the frosting, and there's no doubt I'll be going back try the chocolate version. Probably today. Overall Rating 8.75/10.0

A Taste of Heaven

5401 N Clark St, Chicago

Chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache

Price: $2.70
Weight: 4 1/2 oz (128g)
Value: $0.600/oz

Frosting The ganache covering the buttercream frosting is rich and way-super-chocolaty. The flavor in the chocolate buttercream itself, however, was a little hard to discern. The buttercream was a little dense and seemed to have more the consistency of a paté than a frosting. Without the ganache, I would probably give the frosting a 7.0. Rating 8.5/10

Cake The texture of cake was chewy, substantive and moist, with a larger crumb. The chocolate flavor was fine -- not too subtle, not overbearing. Rating 8.5/10

Overall This was overall a very nice cupcake. A word of warning, however: The ganache is so rich and chocolaty that this really should be a 2-person cupcake. I have a pretty high sugar tolerance, but even I felt light-headed and dizzy after eating this whole cupcake (and that says something).

Apart from the cake, however, I have to say I have been disappointed more than a couple of times with the service at A Taste of Heaven. The last time I went there was about 3 years ago, and I actually had stopped visiting because of the service. Previously, it seemed that the employees were more interested in talking to each other than they were waiting on the counter; this time, it seemed like I waited an unnecessarily long time for service, which was made to seem even longer by the fact that there was an employee just standing next to the counter doing nothing while another worker was helping the person in front of me. My friends will say that I have perhaps an abnormally low tolerance for poor or even mediocre service, so in fairness I should point that out; I do tend to be overly critical about such things.

Okay, I'm a diva. I'll admit it.

Overall Rating 8.50/10.0

Jewel

Various locations around Chicago



Chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting

Price: $3.78 for 6
Weight: 2 3/8 oz each (67g)
Value: $0.265/oz

Frosting The frosting is thick, slightly grainy and has a candy-like sweetness, though not overly sweet. Rating 8.5/10

Cake The chocolate cake has a nice flavor and a moist, soft crumb. Rating 8.5/10

Overall That's right, Jewel the grocery store. We've all had grocery store birthday cake -- some are so sweet and overbearing that even those of us with the most dedicated sweet tooth can't finish even a single slice, and others are so tantalizingly good we keep going back to the fridge to sneak just one last slice, again and again. This cupcake is like the good birthday cake. I bought a pack of six, and they were gone in 24 hours. Cupcake purists might roll their eyes when I say this, but in my opinion this cupcake rates near some of the best. Actually, I have to admit I wasn't really all that surprised. There are certainly better cupcakes out there, but when you can get SIX really good cupcakes for the price of one very good cupcake, you have to wonder if what you're paying for at some of those fancier bakeries is worth it. Overall Rating 8.5/10.0

Bleeding Heart Bakery

1955 W Belmont, Chicago


Chocolate cupcake with plain frosting and chocolate shavings
Price: $3.59
Weight: 3 3/8 oz (97g)
Value: $1.064/oz

Frosting Grainy, buttery but not greasy, and a slightly chalky texture...which is not necessarily a criticism. The frosting has a little density to it, and I generally prefer something that feels lighter and more whipped. The chocolate shavings added a nice bittersweet flavor. It was a solid performer, but didn't knock my socks off. Rating 7.5/10

Cake The cake also has some substance to it that you can really bite into. A cupcake this dense without sufficient moistness would have been a disaster, but this cake was very moist. Great chocolate flavor too -- rich without being overbearing. Rating 9/10

Overall I'm afraid to say anything bad about this bakery, because the people who run the place look like they would hurt me. I really don't know how to describe them: a mix of biker/punk/hipster/urban and....I don't know. Heavily pierced, thoroughly tattooed and colorfully dyed.

But none of that should distract you from checking out this bakery. It may be a little pricey, but it by far has the most character of any bakery/cafe I've been to, and based on this cupcake alone I'd say it's a pretty good one at that. Plus, I don't know anywhere else you can get chocolate covered bacon.

Overall Rating 8.25/10.0

Swirlz

705 W Belden, Chicago

Chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache and vanilla buttercream
Price: $3.31
Weight: 3 1/4 oz (93g)
Value: $1.018

Frosting Smooth and light like whipped cream; slightly greasy and no graininess. The buttercream sits atop a bed of bittersweet chocolate ganache. Rating 8.0/10

Cake Very moist and chocolatey. The cake has good weight and substance you can sink your teeth into. Rating 9.0/10

Overall This cupcake has a unique blend of textures, owing to the ganache sandwiched between the buttercream frosting and the cake. But not only is the texture interesting, the combination of the rich chocolate cake, the bittersweet ganache and the buttercream makes for a flavor that is more complex than a typical cupcake. The only thing about this cupcake that held me back in my rating was the buttercream - it's no secret that I prefer a little graininess in a frosting, but the flavor here was just a little on the bland side. Overall rating 8.5/10

Sweet Occasions and More

5306 N Clark, Chicago
4639 N Damen, Chicago

UPDATE: As of the end of August 2008, Sweet Occasions and More is no more.

Chocolate cupcake with plain frosting
Price: $2.75
Weight: 3 3/4 oz (107g)
Value: $0.733/oz

Frosting The frosting was very light and grainy, and it had a slightly chalky texture Rating 9.0

Cake Slightly chewy but soft. Chocolatey and moist Rating 8.5

Overall Sweet Occasions started with a small shop near Lincoln Square, and a couple of years later opened a second, much larger store in Andersonville, and soon it will be opening a third in Edgewater. The cupcake here was quite pleasing. However, having eaten probably a dozen cupcakes from Sweet Occasions, I feel I should mention that they haven’t all been as good as this; I’ve also had a couple that were really disappointing. Nonetheless, Sweet Occasions is one of my favorite shops because it offers a good variety for anyone with a sweet tooth: cake slices, pie slices, brownies, tarts, ice cream, candy, imported chocolates, and probably other things that I haven’t noticed because I was in too much of a hurry to stuff a slice of cake in my mouth. The ice cream is excellent and rich, and the cake slices are HUGE (though now also a bit pricey). There’s a lot to like about this place, not just the cupcakes. Overall Rating 8.75/10

Alliance Bakery & Café

1736 W Division, Chicago

Yellow cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting
Price: $2.37
Weight: 3 1/2 oz (100g)
Value: $0.677/oz

Frosting This buttercream has a slightly dry, chalky feel at first, but it gives way to a nice creaminess as it melts in your mouth. Slightly grainy, light and buttery flavor, and while I wouldn’t say it’s greasy, it has a somewhat slippery mouth feel. Rating 8.0/10

(Speaking of greasy, I should say that I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. I prefer a texture that is slightly grainy, but naturally a buttercream is going to have a buttery texture, which is going to feel a little greasy. However, too greasy just makes me think that there’s shortening in it, and you don't want your mouth to feel as though you just took a swig of vegetable oil. So, slightly greasy is okay, but greasy greasy is not so good. )

Cake Moist and spongy. The cake as some substance to it, meaning it’s a little heaver than a Sweet Honeybee cupcake, for example, but has a slightly chewy quality you can sink your teeth into. Rating 8.0/10

Overall I generally try to review chocolate cupcakes with plain buttercream so that comparisons between cupcakes are meaningful. However, according to the woman at the counter, Alliance doesn’t make chocolate cupcakes as part of their daily offering (though they can be special-ordered). So, I was left with a standard yellow cupcake. Overall, this was a nice cupcake – the sponginess of the cake was a pleasing texture, and it was a good balance with the light buttercream frosting. Overall rating 8.0/10