As with politics, when you have two opposing viewpoints, you listen intently, weighing both sides to form your own opinion.
Call this then the politics of cupcakes.
When my sis-in-law Jennifer urged me to try the cupcakes at Teacake Bake Shop, I was eager to do so, especially when she heard my teeth were practically disintegrating from all those achingly sweet frosting bombs at so many other bakeries.
But when Single Guy Chef got wind of that recommendation, he cautioned me that he had found Teacake’s cupcakes just so-so.
Hmmmm, hmmm, I thought.
So what was a Food Gal to do except try some for herself, right? So recently, my hubby and I made our way to the Emeryville location (Teacake also has branches in Corte Madera and Lafayette). Each day, about nine or so different cupcakes are available.
We toted home a Pink Velvet with cream cheese frosting, a Chocolate Sour Cream with dulce de leche buttercream, and a Peanut Butter with peanut butter buttercream.
The cupcakes ($3 each) are pretty, decorated simply with a clean, modern sensibility. I took a bite of the Pink Velvet. My sis-in-law was correct that the frosting was not overly sweet, and actually had a nice tang from the cream cheese. The cake itself was not super strong in cocoa-flavor, and the texture a little dry.
The chocolate cupcake was fudgy tasting, and the frosting was thick, creamy, and tasted dreamily of caramel. But again, the cake was a little on the dry side.
The peanut butter buttercream on the last cupcake tasted like peanut butter, whipped almost straight from the jar. I liked how it tasted of nuts, rather than sugar. But — you guessed it — the cake was a tad dry once again.
Mind you, we did buy the cupcakes toward the end of the day, around 4 p.m. And the bakery stores the cupcakes on baking sheets on open-air shelves, rather than in an enclosed case. Could this be the reason why the cakes tasted tired, and not nearly as moist as they should have been?
In any event, this was definitely a case where I actually liked the frostings better than the cakes, themselves.
So, in this debate — sorry, Jennifer — I’m going to have to give this win to Single Guy Chef.