This tucked away little bakery in Berkeley definitely has the perfect name.
After friends on Facebook started up a swoon-inducing discussion about Love at First Bite’s strawberry cupcake, I knew I had to make a trip to the East Bay to try one.
If you didn’t know this bakery existed, you’d be hard pressed to just stumble upon it, as it’s located at the back of a small retail plaza on a largely residential street.
But being that I have a nose for cupcakes, I found it handily with the help of my husband.
Love at First Bite sells 12 to 15 different cupcakes each day, priced from $2.75 to $2.95 each.
Of course, my eyes zeroed in on the “Pretty in Pink” cupcakes — the famous strawberry cupcakes made with real fruit and topped with swirls of pastel pink strawberry buttercream.
It was every bit as good as I had read. This little cake packs a whopper of strawberry flavor. The frosting was super lush, though I wish the sugar had been dialed back just one tiny notch.
Since I was there, I had to try a few more, right?
The matcha green tea one is made with the powdered ceremonial Japanese green tea and smeared with an almost avocado-hued green tea whipped cream. The cake was barely sweet, and had that lovely bitter-vegetative edge from the tea.
The “PB Affair” is a devil’s food chocolate cake dressed up with peanut butter buttercream, and a sliver of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The cake was super moist, and the peanut butter buttercream boasted the least sweet frosting of the three cupcakes.
Love at First Bite will definitely have you at first bite.