A cupcake follow up

A few weeks ago I had the Johnny Cupcakes experience. Remember? It was just that little tiny bitty event that I may have mentioned once or twice. Maybe

:)

When I was there, Just Baked provided the cupcakes for the event. So I was starving and excited that night and I truly didn't taste the cupcake they handed out. I more or less scarfed it down and called it good. As a result I didn't have much commentary (except to say that I thought it was expensive- and later learned that in the cupcake world it was actually pretty cheap)

Welllllllll, today I had the chance to try one again. I went to the mall and finally bit the bullet and bought my new laptop (and also got my iPod fixed! Yippeee!!!)
At the mall I was walking w/ the kiddo's and spied the Just Baked shop and made a beeline towards the counter.





I was suprised to see that the case wasn't full. It was about 11:30 and they had just opened a half hour before... Hm.... Was it just not stocked yet? Or do they just not bake a lot on the weekends? That didn't make sense..
And I was also surprised to see this on the counter:



I didn't know they did celebration cakes too!! It was cute- the colors matched their decor. They also had some cupcake liners for sale although I didn't check out the price tag for those



They had some appetizing options but nothing was jumping out at me, until I saw this:



It was called the Fat Elvis. I'm not an Elvis fan, really. But I think he and I could have had some amazing food binges together. Like in his later, super bloated eat a lot of food days. When I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago at the Tits N Tats Jamboree (oh, did I tell you about that? Maybe? lol) Natalie made an Elvis Comeback Special cupcake. I think I may have begged her in advance because I love anything involving peanut butter. She kindly did me the favor
Hers were delicious... the buttercream was insane, and she topped them with pretzel M & M's. Have you had those yet?! Buy some today, but beware. They are that good. I won't let myself buy a bag for fear they will take over my life. I still day dream about them. Seriously.
So when I saw Just Baked's version of an Elvis cake, I had to try it.

This is what their description reads: "Our moist banana cake topped with peanut butter-buttercream pillows then hand dipped in our homemade ganache and sprinkled with peanuts"
Basically, a little bit of heaven.

VERDICT: The cake was a faint banana. Not in your face banana, like I like my banana cake. It was also really light and fluffy. It seemed like the focus was on the frosting (which was good) and the ganache and not really the cake.
Given- the cake was moist, it was good. It just wasn't AMAZING. I let Mr. Papers have a bite and he said he liked the cake (BETTER THAN MINE I MIGHT ADD... jerk) so, whatever to each their own.
The frosting and ganache was really really good though. And I liked the addition of chopped peanuts on top.

As I reflect back... I remember why I ate the first "Johnny Cupcake" cupcake so quickly- it was because the cake wasn't dense. It wasn't enough to fill you up, you could eat like 2 MAYBE 3 before you felt you got a good taste.
This is a first in my cupcake experiences. Usually I can eat 2 or 3 BITES of a cupcake and feel like I got a good feel for it.
I wonder if this is intentional... if so, kind of smart.....

Here are some of their other flavor options:
Banana Split, Pineapple Upside Down, S'more, Samoa, Snowball, Orange Creamsicle....

If you ever happen upon one, I'd check it out. Sweet Sandy B gives it a thumbs up. Not way up, but up.

and in other Holy Cow moments... (I can't believe I almost forgot to post this) On Saturday a new person sent me a message on Twitter. She had tasted one of my chocolate chip cookies courtesy of @thehungrypanda who referred by 500th fan on FB.
I smiled as I read her message that said her husband said it was the best of his life. aw, shoot, really? blushing... I got super giddy and replied back to her so quickly she could practically see the drool dripping from my jowels. In my reply to her I mentioned Michael Voltaggio. Don't know him? Good, because that means more for me. To follow it up, I send yet ANOTHER message including his name.
GUESS WHAT? um, he read it and replied to me. twice. And yes you now know of yet another reason why THIS girl is a huge dork.


but seriously? is he not attractive? and he can cook. If he is remotely funny I'm a goner.

The Cupcake Fiasco

Agenda:
Run
Shower/Dress
Drive to LA
cupcakes, cake, treats, macarons, eat eat EAT

First Stop: Sweet Lady Janes
www.sweetladyjane.com

This spot is on Melrose. The (unofficial) Cupcake Tour was to begin at 10:30 a.m w/ breakfast at Sweet Lady Janes so that I could hit Johnny Cupcakes at 11 a.m. when they opened. But, I left late (after NOT running) and there was L.A. traffic on a Saturday a.m. wtf... So, I was late. And this store is tucked away and kind of hard to find- you could walk right by it and never know it's there.
Let see... The decor = ok. The service= ok to bad. The food= hm... Well the tiramisu was piled high in this coffee cup. It was not 'pretty' by any means, but it was tasty. Could completely taste the espresso. My friends chocolate cake was HUGE. It was served really cold so the ganache was not at all creamy. It was good, but not great. I also got a red velvet cupcake which I didn't taste until later and it was dry.
SO, overall the BEST thing I liked was the sticker on the cupcake to-go box. I like their logo.



Next, walked to Johnny Cupcakes (www.johnnycupcakes.com). Let me take the time here to say it was the most beautiful day. Perfect temperature, not a cloud in the sky. Slight breeze and the best weather for a white dress.
Here is the shop:


The store was smaller than I thought. And it was right next door to Agent Provocateur. So, got to check out some racy items as I walked past. As I had anticipated, the decor was awesome and the staff VERY friendly. The same girl from the Suitcase Tour was working and she was actually talking about the tour to another employee. She had just returned 2 days prior and said she was still wiped.



I bought the dark grey hoodie I've been eyeing, a shirt for #1 and some stickers. Happy girl... Then, we went to KidRobot (www.kidrobot.com). That was the toy store I talked about in the earlier post. Loved!! And I want to get more of those mini-Dunny's and some zipper pulls. In case anyone wants to buy some for me. ;)

Next, drive over to Beverly Hills. There was an art fair going on right off Santa Monica so there was MAD traffic. BUT- as I was driving by out of the corner of my eye I see this grouping of paintings. My heart skipped a beat. I yelled out in glee- I LOVE THOSE PAINTINGS!!! I had seen 2 of them at a gallery in San Diego last summer. They were gorgeous- huge canvas paintings of these womens faces with this deep dark black hair... Oh my... Breathtaking. I WISH I knew who the artist was. ..
ok- back on track- Valet Park the car right off Rodeo (lol, the cheapest car by far) and walked to Crumbs www.crumbs.com :


They have some charity cuppies for Oprah and Tony Hawk. I have a similar idea for a cupcake- but that will wait until later ;) They also had a sampler pack so we got that and one GIANT cupcake and saddled up outside for a taste test.



Liked the sign outside a lot- didn't like the mini cupcakes. Again, they were really dry and the frosting was overpowering. The ding dong cupcake was particularly disappointing because we thought that it would have a cream filling. It didnt :(

Then, walked down the street to Sprinkles (www.sprinkles.com). We were warned that there would be a line. Seriously? Yeah, serious. We waited in line for about a half hour to get in.



I loved the clean lines of the store and they do an EXCELLENT job of branding. I mean, their forks and knives had their logo heat pressed in! insane... So were the prices. $4/cupcake. BUT, they did taste good. Better than Crumbs.



Off we went with bags of cupcakes and headed towards the Regent Beverly Wilshire and Paulette (www.paulettemacarons.com). Paulette was the only place I found in the area that was selling Macarons ONLY. I don't think the trend has taken off in LA yet.
It was tucked away on a little side street right off of Beverly.



The Macarons were beautifully displayed and I had a hard time choosing which ones to buy for the 'rents. I also got a salted caramel one to taste myself. I have to preface the taste test by saying I haven't had many Macarons in my time. So I'm not expert. But this one tasted just OK. I wasn't blown away.

As we were walking back to car, an unfortunate accident occurred. I spied Famous Cupcakes right across the street! How did I not find this in my google searches?? Hm.. Well, we had to try it out. Famous Cupcakes uses the Kardashians to hoc their goods. (www.famouscupcakes.com)


The store was VERY bright and airy. But empty. No customers. It had the most seating of any bakery we had been to thus far, and it had the ability to be great. But it just fell short. Seriously it was almost painful to even think about ingesting ANOTHER cupcake, but we had to. So we ordered one- the plain vanilla.

From what I recall, it was good, but not great. The frosting had SO MUCH powdered sugar in it. It was too much. But I got a lot of great ideas for displaying cupcakes and I REALLY liked the super bright colors of the frosting. Although I didn't want to even imagine what it would do to your teeth.



Last 2 stops were in Santa Monica. I was about done here. I was tired, didn't want to sit in traffic and really didn't want to eat any more cupcakes. But, I had the most anticipated store left- Vanilla (www.vanillabakeshop.com).

I love their website and their whole motif. I'm a sucker for the damask I guess and the color scheme... it's so elegant and chic. The store didn't fail me:



At first, I was somewhat let down that there wasn't a huge selection of pastry/cupcakes available. Then I realized it was about 3pm and that there SHOULDN'T be a selection at this point.
They had some cakes on display- nothing huge and fancy like on their website, but you could get their jist. We got 3 mini cupcakes and ate 2. They were definitely good. Right amount of frosting, not too sweet and the cake was still moist. The carrot cake was MUCH better than the carrot cake at Crumbs. This shop got my thumbs up FOR SURE.


We rolled ourselves out of the store and called it a day. I was beyond full and so sugared out.
Final verdicts:
Vanilla had the best tasting cupcakes overall. Sprinkles was also REALLY good. The cake was moist, the frosting a bit much- but I loved their branding. All the other places- not really worth the $4/cupcake.

Wow... reliving it is exhausting! Especially after being baking NINE cakes tonight, along with a dozen cupcakes, 4 batches of cookie dough and one batch of Creme Anglaise. I'm BEAT.

So now you know- Sweet Sandy B's Cupcake Tour of LA is done and I saved you all the leg work. I hear that Orange County has some awesome bakeries too. We'll see if I'm up for it next time I'm home.... but right now, the thought is disgusting

Johnny Cupcakes

Johnny Cupcakes

This caused quite the commotion in my life yesterday.
I'm still tail wagging and purring about it this morning.

Click on the title and check out Johnny's video blog about his stop in Royal Oak at 323 East Gallery. or click this: www.johnnycupcakes.com/blog It's Day 23..

It's about 8 minutes, and while the first 6 minutes are great, the last 2 are dear to me. You can see my container of treats on his podium and then, the last minute.... The last minute is the best. My name sounds so lovely coming from his mouth. Just sayin'

Crazy Town (my life, not the band)

Can't think of where to begin as I have a lot to say/show after this weekend. Here's me jumping in- try to follow:

I want to first show you a tiny bit of what my kitchen looks like after I decorate a cake. This gives me anxiety just looking at it-



and that's not even showing what the other countertops look like or what the sink is filled with. heart palpitations..

So- I delivered the cookies, bread and U of M graduation cake on Friday. Forgot that my cake was also commemorating the fact that our President was going to be delivering the commencement speech at my Alma Mater. Kind of proud.
Well, I had an awesome day on Friday. Overall a great start to my weekend. Met up with some friends, caught up on some girl time- happy girl I was. I went to sleep that night and had a nightmare about that dumb cake though. This is what my life is about now- waking up in a cold sweat about someone hating my cakes.

Saturday- busy BUSY and loo-oooong.
Had another session with Libby set up and had to bake/decorate some things for her to use. This is where my Mom juggling skills come into play- took the kiddies to breakfast, played, baked, decorated, nap, get ready and be on time for Libby. Um, I wasn't on time. Poor thing had to wait while I finished getting dressed.
This is what I wore for our photo shoot-



Her idea was something along the lines of whimsical/bright colors/flowers.. This is the girliest dress I own so it seemed to fit the bill. Can't wait to see how the pictures come out... we drove ALL OVER town and ended up at a cemetery. To take some pictures with these:




Which were the cupcakes that I made for my friends birthday. He had a show that night and I was going to go deliver them, after the photo shoot... Down in the D. And also somehow go to a meet and greet for someone called Johnny Cupcakes :)

If I could clone myself I think I would. OK- Libby is quick and efficient (I however am not) and she made quick work out of me and the goodies. I changed into my David Seibei shirt that arrived just in the nick of time and high tailed it out of Dodge to get to the next part of my day.

SO... I could go on about Johnny. I would if any of you care to know- but it involves about 4-5 hours of standing in line, driving to the Magic Stick TWICE, handing out cookies, making small talk, running into old friends... yeah, nevermind. Too much to say. It was exhausting but great. Here I am w/ Johnny:



yes, he is holding up a container of my cookies. Which he claimed he loved. I believe him ;)

And here is what Just Baked made for his appearance:




By the time I got inside the gallery to get to the cupcakes I was starving. My stomach was eating itself. I inhaled the cupcake and can't even begin to comment on what it tasted like. It wasn't awful, and that's about all I can give you. I did get a menu from their store and sweet Jesus are they pricey. $2.95 PER cupcake. They have four locations so clearly most people don't think that's too much. For.One.CUPCAKE. Maybe they are flecked with gold?

Alright, so I get my shirts, I ate the cupcake, I got my poster signed and I limp out of there. Wearing 4 inch wedges for 5 hours of standing in the same spot (for the most part) did a number on my soles and my wonky knees. I hobbled to my car and got myself into some more shenanigans....

I'm exhausted just reflecting on the weekend. But, yesterday I got this lovely picture on my phone:


I wish more people sent me pictures of them w/ their cakes. Even though it's not a picture of my friend eating the cupcakes, I like that the candles are all lit up and I know that people who love him are all standing with him at that moment. And my cupcakes were a part of it. I LOVE that....

I need a day off from the weekend. But you know I'm at work. Working.