Official Cupcake Day

I'm not sure how many people in Pittsburgh read this blog, but the Mayor's Office declared today "Official Cupcake Day".  Both Pittsburgh cupcakeries are celebrating; head over to Dozen to get a cupcake for $1 and stop by CoCo's where all of their Pittsburgh neighborhood-themed cupcakes are buy one get one free.

I'm totally going to have a cupcake tummy ache tonight...

Guest Baking at CoCo's

About a month ago I was hanging out at CoCo's Cupcake Cafe when owner Shea Mullen asked me "Hey, would you like to be a guest baker here sometime?"  My initial reaction was "Are you crazy?!?!  I'm an engineer, not a baker!!"  I thought about it for a little while and realized that I would probably never get an opportunity like this again, so I accepted.

Last Saturday I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30am and headed over to CoCo's for the morning baking shift.  I watched the sun rise over Pittsburgh's rivers and bridges as I drove to Shadyside -- what a beautiful way to start the day!  I found the amazingly awake and alert Kristen bustling around the bakery, getting the kitchen ready for the day's work.  She immediately set me to the task of measuring the water and sugar for the italian meringue buttercreams.  After I got the pot on the stove she assigned me the job of making all of the vegan cakes.  Exciting!  She handed me the recipes out of CoCo's big binder of secrets and I got to work.

After I finished mixing the batter (with a whisk -- no mixers here, CoCo's is hardcore) Kristen handed me a scale and had me divide the batter in half.  She added cocoa powder and red food coloring to one of the batches and had me whisk it together.  Dark streaks of purple combined with swirls of beige and red to form the vegan red velvet batter.  Pretty!
After Kristen examined my batter for lumps she grabbed an ice cream scoop and quickly filled an extra-large cupcake-pan.  Her speed was incredible; it was almost like watching one of those industrial factory robots!  When she was finished she turned to me and asked "Hey, do you want to turn the regular batch into Vegan Blacktops?"  "YES!!" I shrieked.  She handed me a bag of super dark cocoa powder and a small spoon and told me to put a spoonful of cocoa powder onto the top of each cupcake.  Then she took a toothpick and swirled the cocoa powder into the batter.  Finally she popped the tray into the convection oven.  In the whole time it took me to do two batches of vegan cupcakes, Kristen finished about four batches of regular chocolate and vanilla cakes.  Crazy!
Next Kristen had me chop up five pounds of butter for the buttercream.  (The sugar water I had put on the stove earlier had been combined with egg whites in the industrial sized mixer, and the concoction had been blending for quite some time.)  When the mixer bowl was cool to the touch Kristen had me slowly add the butter.  After I finished with the buttercream Kristen had me heat up some heavy cream and pour it on top of some chopped chocolate to make a big bowl of chocolate ganache.
Next Kristen frosted the Vegan Blacktop and Vegan Red Velvet cupcakes and dipped a third of the chocolate and vanilla cakes into the ganache to make the Audrey and Dark Side of the Moon cupcakes.  She even let me frost some of the Vegan Blacktops and dip some of the Dark Sides and Audreys.  Man, dipping those cupcakes in ganache is way harder than it looks!  I dropped a couple into the ganache; luckily the ganache was really thick so they didn't sink very far before I fished them out.  I tried gripping the cakes harder so that they wouldn't slip out of my hand, but then they ended up with dents on the bottom.  Augh!
Next we baked some Spicy Chocolate, Honey Spice, and Lemon Mint cupcakes for a wedding tasting that afternoon.  I got the fun task of sprinkling chili powder and cardamom on top of the Spicy Chocolate batter and swirling it in with a toothpick.  Kristen tackled the Honey Spice cakes while I made the Lemon cakes.  This time the recipe was a bit more complicated so I got to use a mixer.  Woot!

Kristen wasn't happy with the first batch of Honey Spice cupcakes, so she re-did them.  I thought they tasted amazing (especially warm), though they were a bit denser and more buttery than usual, almost like Honey Spice muffins.  (Kristen also culled some lopsided chocolate and vanilla cupcakes from the earlier batches -- CoCo's has very high aesthetic and taste standards.)  The upside to having high standards is lots of rejects to eat.  Yum!
As the second batch of Honey Spice cupcakes baked we prepared a couple of special orders.  Kristen had me pick and clean some mint leaves and raspberries for a batch of Audreys for a wedding shower.  She also handed me a huge bag of silver dragees and asked me to put them on the top of some Ellsworth and Vanilla/Chocolate cupcakes.  I carefully settled a single dragee on the peak of each cupcake.  By this point the ganache cupcakes had cooled enough to decorate, and we carefully placed fondant crescent moons and flowers on all of the Dark Sides and Audreys.
Next Kristen made the lemon mint frosting for the Lemon Mint cupcakes while I grated some lemon zest for garnish.  She frosted each cupcake while I followed behind sprinkling lemon zest on top.   I began carrying trays of completed cupcakes out to the display case.  By the time I finished placing the vegan cupcakes and ganche-covered cupcakes in the display case, Kristen had finished frosting all of the buttercream cupcakes.  Crazy!  She pulled out a big box of sprinkles and we split up the task of decorating the buttercream cupcakes.  Unfortunately I didn't check the alignment of the lid on my shaker and when I slowly tipped it over the first cupcake a downpour of orange nonpareils came out.  Oops.  Hopefully some small child enjoyed the vanilla chocolate cupcake completely covered in orange sprinkles...
As I took the buttercream cupcakes to the display case Kristen prepared the Tiramisu cupcakes by poking a hole in the top of the chocolate cakes, pouring a mixture of coffee and Kahlua inside, and then filling the hole with coffee and Kahlua cream cheese frosting.  She frosted the Tiramisu cupcakes and I transferred them to the display case while she made the peanut butter frosting for the Peanut Butter Chocolate cupcakes.  She handed me a pastry bag full of peanut butter frosting and had me frost half of the cupcakes.  They didn't come out quite as even as hers, but hopefully nobody noticed.  I put the ones I frosted on the back of the tray in the display case, haha.

Lastly we decorated the cupcakes for the wedding tasting.  (And by "we" I mean "Kristen".)  She did an amazing job of frosting some Lemon Mint cupcakes to look like gorgeous yellow flowers while I took a handful of white fondant and attempted to dye it "eggplant".  After my fondant passed Kristen's inspection she showed me how to roll it out and cut shapes from it.  She sliced off some long thin strips to make some bows for the Honey Spice cupcakes, and handed me some tiny flower cookie cutters so I could make some fondant flowers for the Spicy Chocolate cupcakes.  She carefully shaved some white and dark chocolate into long rolls for the chocolate bliss cupcakes, and arranged all of the cupcakes on a silver platter for the tasting.  Beautiful!
We finished up the cupcakes just as the shop opened at 11am, and after that it was dishes time.  I spent the next twenty minutes washing various dishes (including a mixer bowl the size of a small bathtub) while Kristen wiped down our workspaces and cleaned up the kitchen.  After we finished cleaning up Kristen headed home (crazy how you can do a full day's work before noon!), while I helped Ananda (the other owner of CoCo's) arrange the cupcakes for the wedding tasting on a tiered serving platter.  I hung around CoCo's for another hour or so.  Amai stopped by with some friends and they tried the Vegan Blacktop and Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes that I helped make.  They seemed to like them which was reassuring -- I'd have felt feel terrible if I'd messed up any cupcakes that people actually paid for!  Shortly after Amai and her friends left I decided to go home.  I was so excited the previous night that I hadn't been able to sleep at all, and by 2pm I was ready for a nice, long nap.

Well, that was my experience being a guest baker at a cupcakery.  I had a wonderful time and I'm so thankful to Shea and Kristen for letting me pretend to be a professional cupcaker for a day.  Hopefully I wasn't too much of a distraction!

April Fools' at the Local Cupcakeries

I stopped by both of Pittsburgh's cupcakeries today to see if they were up to any April Fools' hijinks.  First up was Dozen Cupcakes.  Last year they served the daily selection entirely in mini-size, which was awesome as you could buy one of each flavor and still not feel guilty about eating them all.  Earlier in the morning I had checked their site for April Fools' Day news and noticed that they'd launched a new menu. Part of me suspected that the new menu could be a joke, but the flavors were far too normal sounding.

I arrived at the bakery just as it opened and discovered that the new menu was no joke, and that there were no surprises for April Fools'. A friend and I briefly pondered the new selection; he chose the neon pink Cherry Pop while I opted for the vegan Strawberry Lemonade.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the strawberry cake was nice and moist.  Dozen has finally made a moist cake!  The natural strawberry flavor of the light cake complemented the tangy lemon flavor of the fluffy "butter" cream.  Delicious!  As I left Dozen my stomach started to twinge a little - apparently eating a cupcake for breakfast is not the same thing as eating a donut; my stomach wasn't prepared for such a large amount of sugar first thing in the morning.  Oops.

Next stop was CoCo's Cupcake Cafe where I found a bunch of holiday-themed cupcakes.  There were ghosts, Easter baskets, Christmas trees, and little hearts.  How funny!   The daily Vegan Red Velvet cupcake was also advertised on the chalkboard as "Vegan Red Meat".  Ewww!
Did anyone else hear about any cute April Fools' pranks at other cupcakeries?

This Probably Only Makes Sense to Yinzers...

A couple of weeks ago CoCo's Cupcake Cafe hosted a trunk show for Neighbor Teaze, a line of t-shirts by fashion designer Julia DiNardo.  Each t-shirt pokes a little fun at one of Pittsburgh's unique neighborhoods.  For the trunk show CoCo's made a themed cupcake for each of the 10 neighborhoods featured in the Neighbor Teaze line.  They invited me to come out and taste-test the new cupcakes at a planning session a couple of days before the trunk show.  I also stopped by the trunk show and sampled the final versions of some of the cupcakes - they were super pretty and super scrumptious.  I'm sure these themes won't make any sense to non-Pittsburghers, but they're pretty cute to those of us familiar with the neighborhoods:

	The Ellsworth CoCo's moist chocolate cake topped with their famous vanilla Italian meringue buttercream
	Highland Park "Java Jazzy"!  Espresso cake infused with amaretto topped with amaretto cream cheese frosting and a light dusting of finely ground coffee beans
	Lawrenceville "Chocolate Stout" - Slightly spiced chocolate cake infused with The Church Brew Works' orange stout dipped in chocolate ganache
	North Side "Black & Gold" baby!  Yellow cake dipped in chocolate ganache topped with a fondant Steelers logo
	Oakland Just like mom's "chocolate chip cookies"!  Coco's classic vanilla cake with mini chocolate chips mixed in topped with vanilla Italian meringue buttercream with more mini chocolate chips swirled in and a dusting of brown sugar
	Point Breeze CoCo's Carrot cupcake: moist, buttery old-fashioned carrot cake topped with a rich, silky cream cheese frosting
	Sewickley CoCo's classic vanilla cake topped with a thin sheet of decadent hazelnut ganache and a petite fondant flower
	Shadyside A "Walnut Street Special"! Chocolate cake dipped in chocolate ganache garnished with candied walnuts
	South Side CoCo's Vegan Margarita cupcake: vegan vanilla cake soaked with tequila and lime juice, topped with a bold lime frosting, rimmed in sugar, and garnished with a fresh slice of lime
	Squirrel Hill "New York Cheesecake"!  CoCo's classic vanilla cake baked with a dollop of cheesecake filling in the center topped with cream cheese frosting and a dusting of graham cracker crumbs

Here are some pictures from the Trunk Show:
Word on the street is that the new neighborhood cupcakes have been put into rotation on CoCo's menu, appearing periodically on Baker's Choice Thursdays.

The End of a Quest

I have a confession to make.  Despite the fact that I've sampled over 250 gourmet cupcakes, my all-time favorite cupcake is still Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Classic Yellow cake topped with Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Milk Chocolate frosting.  I don't know if it's the hundreds of preservatives and artificial chemicals, or the childhood nostalgia, but I just can't get enough of that super moist, sweet, vanilla cake or thick, rich, fudgy icing.   

Words cannot express the shame I feel that my favorite cake comes from a mix and my favorite frosting is packaged in a plastic tub.  Whenever someone asks me what the best cupcake I've ever had is, I tell a little white lie, suppressing the part of my brain that is screaming "Duncan Hines yellow cake with Betty Crocker chocolate frosting!"  Ever since I embarked on this little cupcake adventure, I've been on a quest to find a vanilla/chocolate cupcake better than my favorite prepackaged duo.  Such a cupcake would have to have a cake just as moist and sweet as Duncan Hines' and a chocolate frosting just as thick, gooey, and rich as Betty Crocker's.  Though I've sampled a couple of vanilla cakes that have come close, I've never had a chocolate frosting in the same ballpark.  For some inexplicable reason, although thick, fudgy frosting is readily available on chocolate cakes served in restaurants, I've never found a gourmet cupcakery that has offered it.  Cupcakeries tend to go with buttery, fluffy buttercreams, or super thick, super dark ganaches.

When Baron and I set off on our Cross Country Cupcake Crawl, one of the rules I implemented was that we had to purchase a vanilla/chocolate cupcake from every store we visited.  My hope was that I'd find my fantasy gourmet vanilla/chocolate cupcake somewhere among the 31 stores on our itinerary.  No dice.  Defeated, I gave up and assumed that there was no such thing as a "gourmet" version of the classic box-mix/plastic-tub vanilla/chocolate cupcake.

Well, I am thrilled to report that after over a year of searching, I have finally found a gourmet version of my favorite cupcake.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Vegan Blacktop cupcake from CoCo's Cupcake Cafe:



This beautiful little cupcake is comprised of moist vegan vanilla cake with a layer of dark cocoa baked on top, topped with vegan chocolate buttercream and a dollop of dark chocolate ganache.  Yes folks, you read that correctly.  It's even freaking vegan.

The cupcake smells like a little piece of childhood heaven, giving off an aroma of buttery vanilla cake and rich milk chocolate.  The cake is CoCo's exceptionally moist vegan vanilla cake.  It's dense and moist with a classic buttery, vanilla flavor.  Scrumptious!  The chocolate frosting is, in a word, amazing.  I can't believe it's vegan.  It's nice and sweet with a thick, sugary texture and a rich milk chocolate flavor.  Freaking fantastic.  The cake and frosting are well balanced, both in flavor and texture.  Neither flavor dominates - the delicious blend of rich chocolate and buttery vanilla is a like a timewarp - Ratatouille style - back to birthdays in elementary school.  The thick, creamy frosting is a good counterpoint to the dense, moist cake, and the dark chocolate ganache adds an even richer, more decadent flavor to the mix.  The ganache is super, super dark and super, super sinfully delicious.   Normally I take my time eating cupcakes, carefully savoring every bite and every flavor as long as I can.  My friends usually get annoyed at the 10 minute mark.  I think I wolfed this one down in less than a minute...

Anyway, I've run out of words to describe this truly magnificent find.  It's exactly like a rich, upscale version of a classic mix cupcake.  I never in a million years would've guessed it was vegan if I hadn't already known.  Good job, CoCo's, you have truly outdone yourself.

Who Makes the Best Cupcakes?

Today Cupcakes Take the Cake linked to a MSN article entitled The Country's Best Cupcakes.  In the article author Amanda Petrusich gives her picks for the country's 11 most original and most delicious cupcakes.

As soon as I spied a cupcake from Chicago's Cupcakes on the list, a red flag went up.  Both cupcakes I had from there were a disaster, and their reviews on Yelp are pretty mixed.  I immediately wondered, had Ms. Petrusich actually sampled her selections?  Just how many cupcakeries had she visited, in her quest to find the country's top eleven cupcakes?

In response, I'd like to present The Top Eleven Cupcake Shops Violet has Visited.  Coming from a scientific background, I feel that a few disclaimers are in order:

1. I have not visited every cupcakery/bakery in the world, nor sampled every cupcake said shops offer.  Obviously, I cannot definitively say that these are the best places in the world; that's why I'm calling this list "The Top Eleven Cupcake Shops Violet has Visited", and not "The Top Eleven Cupcakeries in the World!!11!!1!"
2. Everyone's palate is different.  These are my favorite places.  Your mileage may vary.
3. To date I've sampled almost 250 cupcakes from 56 cupcakeries and bakeries around the world.  These are the creme of that crop.

Bittersweet
Chicago, IL
Technically Bittersweet is a patisserie, not a cupcakery, but the Carrot cupcake I had there far surpassed most carrot cakes I've had from "gourmet" cupcakeries.  And, at $2.00 a pop, their amazingly delicious, high-quality cupcakes are a total steal.



Cake Nouveau
Ann Arbor, MI
Cake Nouveau is a fantastically whimsical, gorgeous little cake shop.  In addition to slices of decadent looking cakes, they also offer a wide selection of exotic-sounding cupcakes.  Their Blueberry Morning won one of my elusive 5-star ratings, and the Chocolate Clementine was delightfully scrumptious as well.  Cake Nouveau's strength is definitely its art style -- their bright, playful store won "Cutest Store" during our Cross-Country Cupcake Crawl.

CoCo's Cupcake Cafe
Pittsburgh, PA
Okay, I'm not just biased because I live in Pittsburgh -- I've lived in many cities around the country and I have no special loyalty to "the Burgh".  It's just a plain truth that CoCo's makes some of the best cake in the country.  In fact, I've gotten totally spoiled on their moist, soft cakes -- all other cupcakes seem dry in comparison.  Their authentic Italian meringue buttercream is famous around Pittsburgh,  and their Carrot cupcake is the best carrot cake cupcake I've ever had.

Crumbs Bake Shop
New York, NY
The only "chain" cupcakery on my list, Crumbs has somehow managed to maintain a high-quality product while rapidly expanding their business to new locations around the country, unlike another chain-cupcakery I know of whose name rhymes with "twinkles".  Their Raspberry Swirl won one of my 5-star ratings, despite the fact that I hate raspberries.  At $3.50 each their cupcakes are a might expensive, but they're also ginormous and can easily be shared with a friend.

Cupcake Station
Birmingham, MI
Cupcake Station is amazing.  I have no idea how they mange to keep 26 (yes, that's right, twenty-six!) flavors in stock every day.  And they don't do it by skimping on quality!  We stopped by on our Cross-Country Cupcake Crawl and were blown away when we were served two 5-star cupcakes in rapid succession.  Their Strawberry Delight was named Best Cupcake of our entire Cross-Country Cupcake Crawl.

Dots Cupcakes
Pasadena, CA
Looking for an alternative to Sprinkles' dry cakes and Yummy's sugar bombs?  Dots is your place.  Sure the staff can be a little bit snarky, but the delicious cupcakes are totally worth it.  Their cute, modern cupcakes are delectably moist, and they have one of the best strawberry cupcakes cakes I've ever eaten.  The frosting is a hair too sweet for me, but it's orders of magnitude better than Yummy's super-saccharine icing.

Dozen Cupcakes
Pittsburgh, PA
Well, at least Ms. Petrusich and I agree on one cupcakery!  And I'm not just biased because I live in Pittsburgh, I swear.  Dozen makes some of the best frosting in the country; their citrus frostings in particular are to die for.  I'm a cake person myself, but if you were to give me a bucket of their Key Lime frosting and hand me a spoon, I'd happily eat the whole thing in one sitting.  Other frosting aficionados may want to check out their Cosmo, Lemon, and Old-Fashioned Fudge frostings.

The Cupcakery
Las Vegas, NV
The Cupcakery's sign proclaims it to have "The Best Little Cupcakes in Las Vegas", and at the time of my visit I had to agree.  (Though two more cupcakeries have opened in Vegas since I last visited, so the current accuracy of that sign is questionable.)  Their thick, fudgy chocolate frosting is absolutely fabulous, and their Bugsy (carrot cake) cupcake garnered one of my 5-star ratings.

Pink Moon Cupcake Bakery
Powell, OH
When you think of gourmet cupcakes, Powell, Ohio is not exactly the first place that pops to mind.  That said, cupcake lovers visiting the Columbus area would be missing out big-time if they didn't take the 15 minute detour to Powell.  Not only does Pink Moon Cupcake bakery have a large selection of delicious (and exotic) cupcakes, they also have plenty of eclectically furnished seating space and the absolute cutest cupcake-packaging I've ever seen.  Be sure to try the cake on the Key Lime Margarita -- it's like eating a soft, fluffy cloud.

Primrose Bakery
London, England
With a bright, welcoming atmosphere, Primrose is a younger, fresher version of "Grandma's Kitchen".  A whiff of the fresh, warm cinnamon rolls on the counter is enough to distract a cupcake-lover from trying their cupcakes, but be sure to at least sample their chocolate buttercream (tastes just like Cadbury bars!) and their lime frosting.  Primrose excels at presentation -- our cupcakes were served to us on a glass pedestal cake platter with elegant china.

Wicked Bakery & Cafe
Phoenix, AZ
I hate Red Velvet cake, but even I had to admit that Wicked's Red Velvet cupcake was really freaking good.  I think the secret is Wicked's technique of covering their cupcakes with a special glaze before they frost them; locking moisture into the cake while simultaneously giving them an added zip.  The thick cream cheese frosting was sinfully rich; one of the best cream cheese frostings I've had.

Well, that's my pick for top 11 cupcake purveyors in the world (that I've visited).  I'll try to keep this list updated as I continue my cupcake travels.