Miles Traveled: 375
States Entered: 3
Cupcakes Consumed: 14
After our marathon late-night cupcake eating session, Baron and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 9am. We had lost another hour in the time zone jump between Chicago and Ann Arbor, so we were still rather bleary-eyed when we stumbled up to Cake Nouveau when they opened at 10am.
Cake Nouveau
Ann Arbor, MI
I have long admired Cake Nouveau's gorgeous, whimsical cakes. Their cakes are some of the most beautiful creations I've ever seen, transcending mere baked goods into the realm of art. I was thrilled to discover that their store was just as darling and whimsical as their cakes.
Their store is located in a cozy and upscale retail neighborhood just off of Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor. A farmer's market was in full swing the next block over and we nearly got distracted by the stalls of fresh, plump produce. A sidewalk sign invited us inside for a "Blueberry Morning" cupcake, but I had to stop first and admire the beautiful cakes perched in the window. The inside of the store looks like something straight out of Alice's Tea Party; the top halves of the walls are a deep purple while the bottom halves are painted in rolling green and white stripes. Cupcake themed art (some of which is for sale) decorates the walls. Luminous golden curtains frame the window display while a luxurious, purple velvet sofa reclines against the wall. Several small tables provide seating space for patrons who wish to stay and eat. The back of the main room houses a display case containing more cakes and tiers of cupcakes. The green checkerboard tile of the kitchen can be spied through an open door behind the display case. I think it's really awesome that the whimsical decor carries on into the kitchen.
They had several flavors of cupcakes available, but no plain Vanilla Chocolate. We settled on the exotic sounding Blueberry Morning and Chocolate Clementine. The softness of the sweet cake and its crumbly texture made the Blueberry Morning seem more like a frosted muffin than a cupcake. That said, it was absolutely delicious. The frosting was amazing and was quite possibly the best frosting I've ever had. It was light and fluffy with a liquid silk texture. The taste started off buttery but got sweeter and sweeter until out of nowhere this tangy, blueberry flavor just popped in. The sweetness slowly subsided leaving a fruity tanginess on my tongue. Heavenly. The Chocolate Clementine was yummy as well, but didn't have the same exceptional quality as the Blueberry Morning. The chocolate cake was soft and dry with a mild chocolate flavor. The Clementine frosting was almost exactly like the blueberry frosting, but with a tangy citrus flavor instead of a tangy blueberry flavor. Fantastic. I would highly recommend these cupcakes to anyone within driving distance of Cake Nouveau. In retrospect, I wish I'd tried a slice of their cake as well. You can read more details on Cake Nouveau's profile page.
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After collecting our cupcakes Baron and I sat on the couch and flipped through their portfolios. I'm totally in love with their cakes -- if I ever get married I'm totally going to call them and ask if they'll deliver across the country.
Trifles
White Lake, MI
Our next stop was Trifles, a confectionery in White Lake, MI located near the shores of Oxbow Lake. When I called Trifles to make sure they'd be open, the nice woman who answered the phone asked me what flavors of cupcakes I wanted. I explained that I only wanted two and asked what she had available. She read me her list of flavors and said it wouldn't be any problem to frost some naked cupcakes in whatever flavor combinations I would like. Nice! I requested a Vanilla Vanilla and a Vanilla Chocolate.
When we arrived at Trifles we discovered that the nice woman was actually Gwen, the owner. She presented us with a golden box containing our cupcakes and told us a little bit about her store. The store was quite small, but cozy, and full of ornate knick knacks that made the place look like a European antique shop. A confectionery case against the side wall contained many different varieties of fine chocolates. She explained that she'd recently acquired the retail space next door, and had decorated it in a different style. She led us to the new shop which was much larger and had a contemporary feel. A front foyer with a sofa, desk, and flat screen TV provided a comfortable space for Gwen to meet with her clients for consultations. The large, back area contained a long display case, a smaller refrigerated case, and an ice cream freezer which was full of ice cream. Yum! The baking accessories for sale in this store reminded me of a cross between an authentic Mexican market and Sur La Table.
Both of our cupcakes turned out to be Vanilla Vanilla. (I think Gwen had run out of chocolate buttercream.) One was vanilla cake filled with vanilla buttercream topped with vanilla buttercream and the other was vanilla cake filled with whipped vanilla buttercream topped with whipped vanilla buttercream. "Filled" was a bit of an overstatement -- I cut each cupcake in half and there couldn't have been more than an quarter of a teaspoon of filling inside. The cupcakes tasted almost exactly the same; the only difference was in the texture of the frosting with the whipped frosting being slightly fluffier. The slightly dry cake was fluffy and soft with a very subtle sweet vanilla flavor. It reminded me of a denser version of angel food cake. The frosting was a bit too thick and sugary to be a buttercream, and it had a very refreshing sweet vanilla flavor. Each of the cupcakes was topped with a triangle of gourmet chocolate which was creamy and delicious. More detailed reviews can be found on Trifles' profile page.
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Cupcake Station
Birmingham, MI
Cupcake Station is located in the center of what appears to be a very new and very upscale retail area. As we passed the Anthropologie and Ethan Allen on the way to one of the free parking lots, it was hard to imagine that we were in suburb of Detroit. Neither Baron nor I had ever been to Detroit, and this was pretty much the exact opposite of anything we'd seen in 8 Mile.
A cute cupcake themed sandwich board sign rested on the sidewalk outside of Cupcake Station. Before heading inside I examined the window display which was full of newspaper clippings and cute merchandise. I immediately noticed the cutest t-shirt ever which featured a friendly alien demanding "Take Me to Your Cupcakes!" Noticing the look of delight on my face, Baron offered me to buy me one, and we rushed inside. We headed to the right of the entrance where a tall set of shelves housed a bunch of t-shirts sporting several cute cupcake designs. We rifled through them all, but they didn't have any in women's cut. Regular t-shirts are too long for a shortie like me, so we didn't get any. Sad!
After we finished going through the t-shirts I looked up and got my first glance at Cupcake Station. I think my jaw dropped. It was huge. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the loooooooong refrigerated display case that took up nearly the entire length of the store. I walked over to it and was shocked to find it bursting with cupcakes -- 26 flavors in all. Twenty-six flavors?!?! Unheard of. Baron and I immediately began arguing about which flavor to get in addition to our Vanilla Chocolate baseline. I proposed getting a bunch of minis (like Cupcake Island, Cupcake Station seemed to carry all of their flavors in both standard and mini sizes), but that idea was quickly vetoed by Baron. Fifteen minutes later we finally settled on the Cookies and Cream. As I paid for the cupcakes Baron asked the young man helping us if it would be alright to take pictures. He said it was fine, and that we should be sure to snap some pictures of Tom Holleman, one of the owners who was standing near the back of the store.
Baron began taking pictures of the 50s themed store. Posters of old cars adorn the walls while tiny vinyl records hang from the ceiling. A string of black and white checkerboard flags borders the room. Six tables offer plenty of seating room for patrons. A glass-walled room at the back of the bakery gives visitors the opportunity to watch the bakers skillfully (and quickly!) decorate the cupcakes. This was probably the best themed cupcakery we'd visited so far.
Noticing the cupcake t-shirts we were wearing, Tom walked over and introduced himself. He asked where we were from and if we'd ever been to any other cupcake stores. We told him we had, and explained that we were currently in the middle of a cross-country cupcake crawl. We spent the next 20 minutes chatting with Tom who was super friendly. I asked him about the recent cupcake-eating contest they'd had and he told me that the winner at 17 cupcakes in eight minutes. Crickey! It had taken me three hours to eat six cupcakes the previous night! I expressed surprise that they were able to carry 26 flavors each day and move that kind of volume. Tom said that on a Saturday they typically restock the display case twice and that the line is usually out the door. Crazy!
In addition to selling tons of delicious cupcakes, Cupcake Station also hosts events (like the cupcake-eating contest) and does a fair bit of community outreach work. I noticed several formal-looking family portraits hanging on the wall, each of which featured a family and their pets seated in the store holding cupcakes. Tom explained that every so often they have a photographer come in. Families can pay to have their portraits taken in the store with cupcakes, and all of the profits go to an animal rescue organization. They also host "Ladies Night" each week where women can come in and learn how to decorate cakes and cupcakes. Neat!
Tom insisted we try more than two cupcakes and asked us what our favorite flavors were. Baron mentioned that he loved pink cupcakes, especially strawberry. Tom fetched us a Strawberry Delight cupcake from the display case and a couple glasses of water, and told us to enjoy while he went to the kitchen to get his partner, Kerry Johnson. The Strawberry Delight was comprised of strawberry cake topped with strawberry buttercream decorated with a single slice of strawberry. The cake was super moist and cool with a refreshing taste of fresh real strawberries. The frosting was like thick silk; cool, smooth and sweet with the same delicious flavor of real strawberries. Unlike many strawberry cupcakes which taste syrupy sweet and artificial, this cupcake was 100% real. It was like a little piece of heaven -- easily the best strawberry cupcake we've ever had.
Tom came back shortly after we finished the cupcake and introduced us to his partner Kerry. We spent several minutes chatting with Kerry, telling him all about our cross-country adventure. Kerry educated us about cupcakes, explaining that vanilla cakes are the hardest to keep moist and that they'd gone through over 150 vanilla cake recipes before arriving at the one they currently use. As we spoke with Kerry Tom snuck another cupcake in front of us, the What's Up Doc. The What's Up Doc is a carrot cake topped with cream cheese frosting and a little icing carrot for decoration. The cake was very moist with a spicy flavor that was perfect in strength, neither too strong nor too weak. It had a nutty, carroty texture, and Tom explained that they add shredded pineapple and coconut to the cake to increase the moisture, though you couldn't really taste their flavors directly. Unlike many carrot cakes, this one wasn't greasy or buttery. Awesome! The frosting was super thick and creamy with an amazing cream cheese flavor that was very sweet, but not overly so. Perfection. At this point Baron and I were completely blown away; we'd just finished eating two perfect cupcakes. Had we just found cupcake Nirvana?
Tom and Kerry offered us a Red Velvet cupcake, but we had to politely decline. As much as we wanted another cupcake, we had to save room for other stores! As we walked back to our car we pondered the possibility of skipping the rest of the stores and driving straight back to Pittsburgh. After all, once you've found the Holy Grail, you don't keep wandering around the planet looking for more cups. In the end we decided to keep forging ahead lest we miss any more fantastic cupcakes.
Later that night we finally got a chance to eat our Original (vanilla chocolate) cupcake, and we ate the Cookies and Cream cupcake the next morning. They were both very good, but didn't match the sheer perfection we'd sampled earlier. We don't know if the quality of the cupcakes diminished over the time we waited before eating them, or if Tom and Kerry had just given us their two top cupcakes to sample in the store. Guess we'll just have to go back sometime and try them fresh!
The vanilla cake was moist and buttery with nice vanilla flavor, though it wasn't very sweet at all. The frosting was super thick and very sweet with a rich milk chocolate flavor. It was almost like slightly softened fudge. Yum! The Oreo cake was soft and tasted like a sweet vanilla cake with a subtle Oreo aftertaste. The Oreo frosting was thick and buttery with a crumbled cookie texture. It tasted exactly like someone blended a vat of Oreo filling with a couple chocolate cookies. Delicious! You can find more details about all of the cupcakes we ate on Cupcake Station's profile page.
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Papa Joe's Gourmet Market
Birmingham, MI
Papa Joe's Gourmet Market is exactly that -- it reminded us a lot of Fox & Obel in Chicago, sort of a cross between a Whole Foods and a Williams Sonoma. I couldn't find any cupcakes in the bakery area so I asked a woman for help. She initially thought that they were all sold out until another employee mentioned they'd been moved to the front of the store with the muffins. They only had one flavor available and it was sold in a four-pack. I think they were Vanilla Chocolate, but it was hard to tell as they weren't labeled and the frosting color was a very pale pinkish-brown. The cake was very moist with a faintly sweet, buttery flavor. It had a slight vanilla aftertaste. The moisture in the cake was a bit greasy, making me think that it had been made with shortening. The frosting was super fluffy and creamy with a primarily buttery flavor. The more I ate the frosting, the more I could taste a hint of chocolate in it. Overall the cupcake was refreshing and sweet, but fairly buttery. As a note I saved the three cupcakes I didn't eat and shared them with Amai and two other friends five days later. Amai hated hers, but my other two friends really liked theirs. I finished Amai's cupcake (she didn't want more than a couple bites) and found that it tasted exactly the same as the one I'd eaten five days earlier. Read more on Papa Joe's profile page.
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Party Cakes (sold in Westborn Market)
Berkley, MI
Party Cakes is a bakery that specializes in cakes, but they also sell muffin-sized cupcakes at the local Westborn Market. (They will also take special orders for standard sized cupcakes, but you must order a minimum of one dozen.) At first glance Westborn Market appeared to be another Papa Joe's, but with a different name. (As we were checking out Baron noticed that the name of the parent company on the electronic register was the same as Papa Joe's, so perhaps they're owned by the same people.)
There was some confusion as the woman I'd spoken to at Party Cakes told me that their cupcakes were sold in four-packs at Westborn market, but the only cupcakes I could find were hanging out in a refrigerated display case in the bakery section. The woman working behind the counter assured me that the singly-sold cupcakes were from Party Cakes, so I bought one each of the two flavors available: Vanilla Vanilla and Chocolate Vanilla. These cupcakes were massive and had the most ornate decorations I'd seen so far. Each flavor was decorated in several different ways, and I chose one cupcake adorned with a beautiful sunflower and one topped with a cute butterfly. I was initially worried that all of the icing used for the decorations would make the cupcakes far too sweet.
The vanilla cake was crumbly and dry with a sweet, vanilla flavor. The frosting was soft and creamy and didn't seem to have any flavor other than "sweet". It tasted more like powdered sugar than anything else. The excessive frosting drowned out the vanilla flavor of the cake, making the chalky flavor of the sprinkles the predominant flavor of the cupcake. The chocolate cake was also crumbly and dry, but with a soft texture. It had a slightly bitter dark chocolate flavor that was lost under the large amount of sweet frosting. In fact, I couldn't even feel the texture of the cake when I took a bite of the cupcake, making it seem like I'd eaten a spoonful of frosting. Overall these cupcakes were fairly generic; their only pizzaz was in their decorations. You can find more details on Party Cakes' profile page.
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Astoria Pastry Shop
Royal Oak, MI
I first heard about Astoria Pastry Shop (and many of the other Detroit bakeries we visited) on a Slashfood article about a Detroit cupcake taste test. When I called Astoria pastry shop to confirm that they would have cupcakes for sale on the day we visited, the woman who answered the phone told me "sorry, we don't sell cupcakes." Confused, I mentioned the Slashfood article (and the awesome picture of the monstrous chocolate chocolate cupcake) and she replied "Oh! That's our frosted chocolate muffin." Though not technically a cupcake, we decided to visit Astoria anyway since the Slashfood article gave them such high marks.
Astoria is located just off of 11 Mile Road in yet another super-nice retail district. When we arrived at Astoria the first thing we noticed was that they do sell cupcakes, in two different flavors. We weren't up for getting three cupcakes, so we stuck with the chocolate frosted muffin which was so huge that it was easily the size of three standard cupcakes anyway. The super long display case (even longer than the one at Cupcake Station) was filled with a wide variety of baked goods and pastries, and it was pretty difficult to stick to just the muffin. There was a very large "flower arrangement" made out of ice cream cones on the end of the display case, and Baron asked the cashier how quickly they sell the cones. The man said "Never, because we don't sell ice cream." Heh. There was plenty of seating at Astoria (both tables and barstools) but we were in a rush so we took our cupcake to go. The nice man packed our cupcake/muffin into a box and wrapped it with string. Nice!
The "cake" did in fact taste exactly like a chocolate muffin. It was dense and slightly dry with a rich chocolate flavor. Chocolate chips baked inside the muffin provided bursts of creamy, chocolate flavor to the mix. The chocolate frosting was super thick with a moderate milk chocolate flavor. It tasted fatty -- it didn't have the slick, greasy taste of butter, but had a richer, heavier, fattier taste. I'm guessing it was made with shortening? The sprinkles added a nice crunch to the texture and didn't have that soft chalky flavor I loathe. A solid chocolate muffin/cupcake that could easily feed a family of four -- the rich chocolate flavor becomes a bit overwhelming after 2 or 3 bites. You can read the full review on Astoria's profile page.
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Main Street Cupcakes
Hudson, OH
Our last stop on our cross-country cupcake adventure was Main Street Cupcakes in Hudson, Ohio. We hadn't planned on spending 45 minutes at Cupcake Station, and as a result it was going to be a close call getting to Main Street before they closed. I called them as soon as we were on the highway to reserve some cupcakes. The super friendly woman read me off the list of like 20 flavors they were offering that day, and after some consultation with Baron we selected the Root Beer Float and Chocolate Lava.
As we exited the highway and drove through Hudson, we realized that we'd somehow wandered into Pleasantville. The huge gorgeous houses were centered on even, perfectly manicured lawns. Every two blocks we passed a charming white church with a tall pointy steeple. The roads were perfectly smooth with fresh, bright paint, and moms strolled the sidewalks pushing strollers while dads held the leash attached to the family dog. The more we drove the creepier it got until we arrived at Main Street Cupcakes and discovered a single parking spot open right in front of the store. As soon as I hit my turn signal the SUV following behind me stopped, politely giving me plenty of room to parallel park. We weren't just in Pleasantville, we'd entered the Twilight Zone. It was enough to make this former LA/DC resident more than a little twitchy.
We exited our car about 15 minutes before Main Street's closing time, and as we walked up to the entrance a woman threw open the door and shouted "Hi! Are you Violet? We were just about to give away your cupcakes!" Apparently they'd been sold out for quite some time and patrons had been asking about the two cupcakes set aside. Good thing we arrived when we did! The staff at Main Street Cupcakes were super friendly (too friendly...?) telling us all about their cupcakes and where they had been. (Like Dozen, they had a huge map of the US on their wall with pushpins indicating the cities their cupcakes had traveled to.) The inside of Main Street was quite spacious, very modern, and very elegant, like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine. There were a couple of large, wooden tables inside as well as a few smaller, wire tables out on the sidewalk. We took our cupcakes to go and as we were leaving the friendly woman offered to take our picture outside the store. Nice! As we got into the car I whispered to Baron that we weren't getting any drinks until we reached the next town; clearly there was something in the water here. Normal people are not this polite, friendly, or cheerful.
The moist cake in the Root Beer float tasted like vanilla at first, but as time passed the flavor of root beer got stronger and stronger, peaking at the perfect amount of root beer-iness. The buttercream was super thick (making it more like icing) with a sugary texture. It's flavor was nearly identical to the cake, except that the root beer taste was a bit more subtle. Overall the cupcake tasted like a vanilla cream soda with a mild root beer aftertaste. Yum! The Chocolate Lava cake consisted of dark chocolate cake filled with a fudge center topped with chocolate ganache. Only about 1/5 of the cupcake was actual cake; 1/5 was fudge filling and the other 3/5 was ganache topping. The cake was slightly dry and crumbly with a very mild dark chocolate flavor that wasn't at all bitter. Nice! The fudge filling both looked and tasted exactly like hot fudge. Yum! The chocolate ganache was super thick and gooey with a sweet chocolate taste that had a hint of a coffee aftertaste. Overall it didn't really feel like you were eating a cupcake; it was more like you were swallowing spoonfuls of hot fudge. It was so rich that I couldn't really eat more than a couple bites, even on an empty stomach. I kind of wish the cake had been real lava cake with a molten cake batter core, rather than a dark chocolate cake filled with thick hot fudge. Check out more detailed descriptions of the cupcakes on Main Street Cupcakes' profile page.
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Well, that was our Cross-Country Cupcake Crawl! Baron and I got back to Pittsburgh at 10pm, after a relaxing dinner of real food at the Cracker Barrel. We are very much looking forward to taking a bit of a real vacation as well as a small break from cupcakes. Check back in a couple of days for a cross-country cupcake-roundup post.
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