Our friends purchased half a dozen cupcakes for dessert from
The Cupcake Shoppe, located in the Yonge and Eglinton area. I loved the little booklet included with the cupcakes and the colourful photos inside, but that's about it.
This is going to be an honest review and I'm not holding back.
For a shop that charges $2.85 per cupcake, $15.50 for a half dozen and $29.50 for a dozen, I expected better. Sure they're nice to look at, but holy cow are they totally lacking. You'll notice that I'll be using the words, dense, dry, flavourless and waxy repetitively and that's because they are. I wasn't the only one at the table sharing these opinions.
|
JAMES BROWN, chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream: The cake wasn't sweet enough, this coming from someone who doesn't have a sweet tooth. It was dense and although it looks deliciously chocolaty, it wasn't. Not one bit. Perhaps some vanilla or coffee could have helped in that department? The frosting was okay, nothing special. It was smooth.
RED VELVET, cream cheese frosting on red velvet cake: The cake flavour was okay. A generous ooookay. The texture was really dry and the cream cheese frosting could have been more cream cheese-y. Dry cakes need more frosting, right? This needed more frosting. A splash of vanilla wouldn't have hurt either. Oh and I almost choked eating this, as it absorbed any saliva I had in my mouth. It was like a red velvet sponge and I had to drink half a bottle of water to get through it. |
|
CRUMMIE, cookies and cream butter cream on a chocolate cupcake. This cupcake was horrible. It was the worst out of them all. Same flavourless chocolate cake, but this time the frosting left a waxy film in your mouth. It felt like there was too much shortening in it; the mouth feel was off and unpleasant. Not to mention it didn't taste like cookies and cream at all, since the butter cream just tasted sweet. Those little cookie/cake crumbs mixed in there are there for show. The only thing that makes this a cookies and cream cupcake is the cookie on top, which I doubt is made in house. No thanks! |
|
STRAWBERRIES 'N CREAM, vanilla cake with vanilla and strawberry swirled butter cream. I didn't try this one, but it looks decent! But then again looks can be deceiving. At least it...looks moist and vanilla-y...and the frosting looks soft and fresh. There may or may not be fresh strawberries in it. For nearly $3 a cupcake, I would expect it. |
|
FROST ME, vanilla frosting on marble cake. This one scared me as the frosting reminded me of Play-Doh and/or clowns. Neither of which I am keen on eating. The cake was firm and that's all I can say, I didn't try this one either.I had given up hope. (This one should have been a banana chocolate cake. Call it Banana Split!) |
|
TRIPLE CHOCOLATE FUDGE, chocolate frosting on a chocolate cupcake. Um, where's the ~*triple chocolate*~? There's the cake and the frosting. Oh, wait- the five or seven mini- white chocolate chips makes for third chocolate fudgy-ness, right? I'd be prone to say NOPE, but I think that I'd be wrong. There was no gooey chocolatey injection in the cupcake, so I don't see how this is a triple chocolate fudge cupcake, at all. Same crappy chocolate cake, nothing impressive about the sweet frosting which was however the only fudge-y thing about this cupcake. I'm interested in knowing if it's made from scratch or if it's from a bucket. |
|
Just a few flavours offered at The Cupcake Shoppe. |
Would I suggest you spend your hard earned money at The Cupcake Shoppe? The answer is clearly, no. The cupcakes were a bit of a disappointment, especially coming from a store that is apparently "Toronto’s first and finest cupcake bakery". I certainly expected better tasting products, so I cry foul. Their swirls are cute, but it stops there. If you like pretty looking cakes, which no one will be eating, this is the place for you. Either Suzanne Cooper (owner) enjoys horribly textured and flavourless cupcakes or she needs to do some quality control at her shop! They say that their cupcakes are baked fresh daily, but are they left to sit out all day? Perhaps this is why their once fresh products are no longer fresh by the afternoon. Ick. Until then, I'd rather eat a slice of toast instead. At least it's supposed to be dry and I can butter it with real butter. Saves me on calories too.