Review - Cupcakes by Paolo

I LOVE cupcakes

Recently I was contacted by Paolo from Cupcakes by Paolo who runs a made to order cupcake business. He wanted me to try some of his cupcakes. Since I love anything cupcake I gladly and gleefully said yes...yes please!! Paolo not only sells his cupcakes on a made to order basis, but his cupcakes are also stocked at Lutong Pinoy within the Footscray Market. Double score for me! Lutong Pinoy is a Philopino takeaway food store that makes some delicious Halo Halo. I do have one piece of advice though, if you want to try his cupcakes from Lutong Pinoy you better get in early, they sell out pretty fast!

So onto the cupcakes, the STAR's of the show! When we arrived we had some gorgeous cupcakes already arranged on a platter for us. Wow, we definitely got the royal treatment. I snapped a couple of photos, and then I was given an uber cute box to take them away and sample them. It was 9 am, despite my love for cupcakes, I know having a cupcake breakfast is probably not the healthiest thing in the world. So I decided to eat them a little later in the day.

First up we had the Aromatic Mocha -"A moist chocolate base with espresso buttercream icing dusted with powdered chocolate. Inhale the rich Aroma"

The cake was delightfully fluffy, a shot of coffee flavor is offered in both the frosting and the cake which ensured you get a double hit of espresso. I love the extra touch of cocoa dusted on top. In a way I wish I had eaten this for breakfast. It would be a great way to start the day. There were two Aromatic Mocha in the box for me, later that night I was meeting up with a few friends, so I skillfully dissected the cupcake into three and handed them out to my friends. They absolutely loved it, in fact one of them exclaimed "that was exactly what I needed"....I need to win lotto, but each to their own!

Next we had the Divine Orange - 'A light and fluffy orange base with orange buttercream icing garnished with a orange gummy, so orange its divine'

Nom Nom Nom. Orange in a cupcake, what else can I say! I've never experienced a cupcake that is actually refreshing. Not too sweet, and slightly tangy, I love the little extra touch of a gummy orange on top, it was great. Daz cut the cupcake in half but left the gummy intact. He ended up taking a great whopping bite out of the gummy leaving huge teeth marks. I wish I had taken a photo, it look almost violated!

Exotic Buko Pandan - "A light and fluffy pandan base with a pandan buttercream icing garnished with coconut shavings. Bring the holiday home."

Think Homer Simpson drooling over a doughnut, freeze the second where drool actually spills out of his mouth, that was me when I took a sniff of this beauty. So coconutty, so fluffy (check out the massive air holes in the cake), the intense green color of the cake and icing was completely reflected by the intense flavor that it offered. There was only one in the box, but at that very second I wished all of them were Buko pandan flavor! By far my favorite. If I had super powers, it would be the ability to instantly metamorphosize one of these into my hand....oh and xray vision! I've been told that this is the most popular flavor, I can totally see why.

Pavlova Passion - 'A light and fluffy passion fruit base with a wall of Italian meringue flooded with a passion fruit icing. Taste the passion'

Daz and I were divided by this one. He stood on the side of deadly against, and I was strongly for it. I adored the deep tropical passion fruit flavor with the marshmallowy Italian meringue, I could have eaten 3 more. But Daz instantly hated it, which is kinda strange because he usually likes passion fruit. We don't always have to agree on everything, makes life a little more interesting "awwww babes you don't want the rest of that cupcake? here I'll help, I'll eat it for you"

And lastly we had the Pineapple Crush - 'A light and fluffy pineapple base with pineapple buttercream icing dusted with pure icing sugar. Its like falling in love all over again.'

I was a little disappointed by this one, but I think that's my fault. I had left it to very last, because as you might have noticed I love tropical flavors and pineapple is just delicious. All week I had been eating dehydrated pineapple, so I was expecting the cupcake to be just as intense, sadly it wasn't. It was still a very fluffy and enjoyable cupcake, but I think the Buko Pandan cupcake has ruined me forever!

Overall I love ALL the cupcakes on offer from Cupcakes by Paolo. Its obvious that the cupcakes are baked with a huge amount of love and attention. There was no hint of dryness at all and every single one was fresh. Something that I'm slowly, but surely, getting more in tuned in recognizing. Its been about 3 days since I had a cupcake and I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms, not even good old cake can keep the cravings away anymore. Looks like I'm going down to Footscray on the weekend!

You can purchase single cupcakes for $3.00 from Lutong Pinoy at Footscray Market within the food hall, right next to the lift.

The power of cupcake within my hand!