Cupcakes on Location: Sophisticakes of Melbourne

If you've ever read any of my posts, you'll know that I LOVE cupcakes. I'm sure that if after my death I need an autopsy performed on me, the coroner will find a fully intact cupcake in my stomach, frosting and all! For the longest time I've wanted to eat the cupcakes at the Sunday Arts Center Market. But every time we're gone past them, Daz has ushered my away very quickly. He loves me enough that he knows that I cant control myself, and if I see cupcakes I NEED to eat them. For my health and well being its safer ton keep me away from them. But now that I have a blog, I MUST eat them, I'm not only consuming cupcakes for my own satisfaction, but its now become a vital community input, thats my story and I'm sticking to it!

So we headed down to the Arts Center Sunday Market and discovered that the gorgeous cupcakes are made by Sophisticakes of Melbourne. The display was beautiful, dozens upon dozens of cupcakes all tucked away in their little cake stands, all yelling "pick me! pick me!". I noticed a little sign on the table stating no photography, a food bloggers worse nightmare. So Daz and I made our selection and went somewhere a little more peaceful for the photo shoot.

Since we were so close to the river, we headed down to devour our cupcakes. I chose a vanilla sponge with strawberry frosting. It was light and fluffy and surprisingly not too sweet. I noticed the massive mound of frosting and my teeth started to hurt instantaneously, I was very surprised when I bite into it and discovered my fears were unwarranted. The frosting was exactly as it had promised.....strawberry flavored. It was really good, but I couldnt help compared it to Little Cupcakes. The actual cake was much better than Little Cupcakes, but the frosting fell a little short.

Daz chose cookies and cream. He is very unimaginative when it comes to choosing cupcake flavours. Its a little frustrating. Cookies and cream cupcakes all taste the same, like cookies and cream! I guess he always chooses that flavour because he knows what hes going to get. I'm always the one who loses out though. Partners of food bloggers are always long suffering, we share almost everything we eat, so he gets half of my strawberry delight and I get half of his cookies and cream....groan! Nothing against Sophisticakes, but I'm a little over cookies and cream.

From half the cupcake I had I was pretty happy though. The cake was quiet moist, and as a topping we got a FULL Oreo. Some places only put half an Oreo, or even a mini, and then there are the places that have substitutes! Shock horror!!

It was a beautiful day so we deiced to go for a stroll. We walked past the National Gallery of Victoria and contemplated going in. While walking past we noticed glimpses of colour emanating from the moat surrounding the building. Curiously Daz and I stared into the water. After quite a bit of squinting we noticed the bottom was scattered with colourful plastic knives. Not quite Excalibur, but interesting non the less. Was it a large scale art piece? or hundreds of litters getting rid of their cutlery after dinner? I thought about it for a minute, took a quick photo and continued on our walk. But even today, I still wonder what happened to all the forks?

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!

Review - Happy Home Made Cupcakes

After my massive cupcake tour of Melbourne I was contacted by Neev from Happy Home Made Cupcakes. She runs her own cupcake business from home and was keen to get me and Daz to sample some of her delicious treats. Daz and I being the cupcake fiends that we are were never going to knock back an offer like that! So today we got the best treat ever and have an entire cupcake platter prepared for us! How lucky are we!

I must compliment Neev on really thinking about Daz and I, she had prepared a combination of regular sized cupcakes and mini cupcakes. Considering that there were quite a few flavours on offer, tiny morsels are the best to taste test without getting too full along the way. I do have to confess though, they were so good that Daz and I went back for seconds! Diet starts tomorrow!

After visiting Cupcakes by Heather and Lori in Vancouver a couple of years ago, the cupcake bug well and truly took a bite. Neev started the business in March this year after a little gentle persuasion from her daughter Ameesha. All cupcakes are proudly baked from scratch, containing no artificial preservatives. And I must say Happy Home Made is the most perfect name for her cupcakes, after meeting Neev and her whole family I can see that alot of love and happiness goes into every single cupcake.

So onto the eating right!?! Listed in order of consumption. We started with a Vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting. This was Ameesha's favourite. I thought I would get some inside knowledge before diving in, and it was a good way to start. Subtle vanilla flavour with a good dose of vanilla frosting.

Then we moved onto Coconut cupcakes with meringue frosting. Daz loves anything meringue, so this one was pretty close to his heart, and I adore coconut. The crunchy intense coconut on top was a delight. You would think that anything with a meringue frosting would be overly sweet, but the sugar levels were just right. That's absolutely perfect for me, its means that I can eat more without feeling like I'm about to fly out of a room on a sugar high!

Next we had Dark brown sugar cupcakes with caramel and cinnamon butter cream frosting. This was good, real good. The kick from the cinnamon was unexpected and freakin delicious! Daz really loved this one, he was raving about it all the way back home. We were even lucky enough to get a couple to take home....they didn't last long....sigh.

We left the best to last. When I looked at the Chocolate Mud cupcakes with Caramel frosting topped with violet crumble and a drizzle of caramel I knew we were in for a treat. They looked like miniature volcanoes exploding with flavour, with a trickle of caramel magma flowing over the side. Deep, dense, intense chocolate flavour topped with subtle caramel and crunchy violet crumble. Hmmmm these were my favourite. I'm crazy about dark chocolate and there was a good dose of it in these cupcakes.

Neeve is an absolute delight and I'm so pleased that I got the chance to sample her baked goods. If you would like to order some of her cupcakes you can contact her through her blog at Happy Home Made Cupcakes or drop her an email at neevrap{AT}hotmail.com

Cupcakes in Melbourne

Competing in the cupcake challenge has intensified my already insatiable appetite for cupcakes, recently Daz and I decided to go on a grand cupcake tour of Melbourne, for research purposes of course. I searched the Internet for anything cupcake related that existed in Melbourne. We set out early in the morning, had some breakfast, bad mistake, then proceeded to eat our own weight in cupcakes, along the way we almost made ourselves violently ill from eating too much frosting. So here's what we tried.

Little Cupcakes

Shop 7 Degraves Street Melbourne

No cupcake tour would be complete without making a stop at the infamous little cupcakes. So we started at the best and worked our way through my list. We tried a selection of mini cupcakes. My thought process was, they're tiny so I can eat more of them. They are $2.50 each or $2 each if you purchase 4 or more, and everything you buy is served with the most friendly smile you will ever see. Top score for customer service! We tried, cookies and cream, strawberry, Belgium chocolate and chocolate mocha.

Cookies and Cream Cupcake

Chocolate Mocha Cupcakes

Belgium Chocolate Cupcakes

Strawberry Cupcakes

Every single one was delicious! The frosting was so light that it wasn't sweet at all. I had intended on only consuming half, but I just had to eat all of them right there and then. My favourite was the strawberry, so full flavoured and cute with its little silver balls.

The Cupcake Bakery

495 Collins Street Melbourne

A relatively new addition to Melbourne, this bakery was first started in Sydney. A friend of mine had been to the bakery the week before and warned to stay away from the Chocolate cupcakes, she thought they were a bit dry. We tried the Choc Mint (Standard - $3.50) and Tiramisu (Delux - $4.50).

The service at the cupcake bakery is fantastic. I got into a conversation with the owner about cupcakes, and even told her I was a food blogger, something I don't do often from fear of being attacked. They even have a massive cupcake on display!

So we grabed our cupcakes and sat down to enjoy the cakey goodness. I would love to say that the choc mint cupcakes were wonderful, but unfortunately it was a little dry.

The tiramisu was moist and very tasty. It was a little on the dense side, something that is good in a mud cupcake, but I don't think this cupcake was intended for that purpose. I doggy bagged half of my choc mint cupcake, I thought it would be best to save my stomach at the early stay in the tour.

Let Them Eat Cake

147-149 Cecil Street, South Melbourne

We didn't actually get to sample any of the cupcakes at Let Them Eat Cake. Whenever I go somewhere food related, I usually ask if I can take photos....as a courtesy. I don't have to explain why I take photos, I just don't want to surprise anyone and make them upset. At let them eat cake I was so excited about all the pretty cakes in front of me that I totally forgot to ask if I could take photos. I took two snaps and then I was attacked. And I'm not kidding. I had heard that they were pretty rude at let them eat cake, but the lady behind the counter exceeded rude! She told me off for taking photos, even after I apologised, she still attacked me. She demanded I delete the photos from my camera, which I wasn't going to to. I still wanted to order something and thought that she would put it behind her, but as I was ordering she was still talking down to me and pointing out what a "bad thing" I had down. I didn't want to be spoken to that way any longer, even after I had said I was sorry, so Daz and I left empty handed. As Daz and I were walking out she was still screaming across the counter at us, with a shop full of people! I've decided that I'm going to go back, buy some cupcakes, then take photos of her and the inside of the shop from the street. I'll be on public property there so she wont have any say. Ha Ha.....take that rude cake lady!

Crabapple Cupcakes

Shop 6/163 Commercial Road, Prahran Market

I like crabapple cupcakes. Most of their cupcakes are quite dense and if you get them fresh, they are delicious. I've been to crabapple cupcakes a couple of times and every time I always seem to get the raspberry white chocolate mud cupcakes...mainly due to the frosting I wish I could make frosting like that! So on this occasion we tried the raspberry white chocolate mud, lamington and flourless chocolate mud cupcakes.

Lamington Cupcake

Raspberry and White Chocolate Mud Cupcake

Fourless Chocolate Mud Cupcake.

I was a little disappointed in the lamington cupcake. To me it just tasted like a vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting and coconut sprinkles, nothing like a laminton at all. I dont know why, maybe t needs a really fluffy light sponge cake with a oozzy chocolate sauce. It was still really nice, just not like a lamington.

Planet Chocolate

Highpoint Shopping Centre L03 7326, Highpoint, 200 Rosamond Road, Maribyrnong

Whatever you do, never...and I mean NEVER buy cupcakes from Planet Chocolate. Yes they look kinda cute and have the potential to quench a cupcake thirst, but they do the exact opposite. I asked the girl behind the counter what flavour she had and it was a choice between vanilla and chocolate. I decided on vanilla. When I asked her what type of frosting it was she told me it was cream cheese so I was sold. She Literally threw the two cupcakes into a bag, I was worried they would get damaged and look terrible. To my luck they were as hard as a rock and could have been tossed off the top of a 3 storey building and still stay intact.

The cream cheese frosting was not cream cheese at all. It tasted like a big wad of lard, and no cream cheese frosting I know could withstand a nuclear attack. Lesson learnt, keep walking past Planet chocolate.

Peterson's Cakes

117 Chapel St, Windsor

On our way to crabapple we drove past Peterson's Cakes, and saw a lovely wedding cake made entirely out of cupcakes which apparently is all the rage now. I was pretty sure that they they didn't sell cupcakes over the counter, but the store on chapel street has a cafe section and Daz was a little thirsty, so we stopped in for a look see.

I walked all the way around the shop and saw no cupcakes. Sigh. Daz had a drink and a little rest on a chair, then I got up to pay the bill when low and behold I saw it. The last cupcake left in the entire shop. Yes it was more of a patty cake than a cupcake, and yeah it was a little worse for wear, but I gotta give it a try right....I'm on a cupcake tour, I just have to. I handed over my $2 for the patty cake/cupcake. I sat it down, had a good look at it and then ate it. It was really nice. I total surprise. Despite it probably being older than me, it was pretty moist and the icing was nice. The taste reminded me of cupcakes my mum and I used to make when I was little. It was good, ugly, but good.

After exiting Peterson's Cakes, Daz told me he had to give up. His head was hurting and he was a little sugared out. I could have kept going for ages, it was only 2pm, the day was still young. I still had more places on my list to visit, but for the sake of our relationship, we drove home and Daz had a rest. He promised that next weekend we could finish the tour. The other locations are;

Sweet Source in Carlton
The Replete Providore in Hawthorn
Cooks Food in Toorak (not sure about this one)
Switchboard cafe off collins street,
The Lounge Bar Cafe on Swanston street
Sophisticakes of Melbourne @ The Arts Center Sunday Market (my review here)
Wild Holly Cakes in Brigton.
Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses
Happy home Made cupcakes (my review here)
Cupcakes by Paolo (my review here)
Amsterdam St cafe in Richmond for Sugadeaux Cupcakes
I've even been told that Costco have cupcakes, so I'll have to try them!

So stay tuned for part two of the cupcake tour, In the meantime, do you have any suggestions of cupcake venues I should try?