Eat. @ The Cupcake Bakery

The Cupcake Bakery Website, 3 locations in Melbourne CBD

Having cupcakes for afternoon tea again.  I know I know, cupcakes are SO very last LAST year, since the new kid in town macaron arrived on the scene last year.  Unfortuantely after going through my macaron baking craze, I now can't bear paying so much for a cookie that costs so little to make.  Worse still, I can't stop feeling disgruntled at how much they charge for macarons with bad feet, messy fillings, flat uneven tops.....  Anyway, I know that cupcakes are also easy and cheap to bake, but at least I'm a lot fuller after forking out the same amount of money for cupcakes than macarons!

The Cupcake Bakery is a cute little shop with a mouthwatering display of beautifully decorated cupcakes.  As Valentine's Day is just around the corner, the whole shop was decked out in red, LOVE, cupids and hearts all over the place!

The cupcakes are $3.80 for a standard, and $4.50 for a deluxe.  The standard ones included the usual suspects including Red Velvet, Vanilla Vanilla, Double Chocolate, and a few less common ones like Sticky Date and Choc Peppermint.  The Deluxe ones included Tiramisu, Lemon Meringue, Custard Tumble, Molten Choc, Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake and Hummingbird.

My cupcake was the Lemon Meringue one.  I often choose this cupcake as a) I love the taste of lemon and b) lemon meringue cupcakes are fidgety to make and since I'm paying for it I might as well pay for something I'm less likely to make!  Unfortunately I was rather disappointed on this occasion.  The cake was dry, they were stingy with the lemon curd and the cake was probably not the freshest either, so most of the curd had been absorbed by the dry cake and there was none to be tasted (or seen!) when I bit into the cupcake.  The meringue icing was okay but nothing to jump up and down about.  Overall it was not worth the $4.50 and it definitely did not measure up to the same cupcake from Joy Cupcakes.

Hubby said the Sticky Date one was okay.  I had a small bite of a couple of the other cupcakes before my kids attacked them.  The Red Velvet which was very very dry, and lacked any discernable flavour.  The strawberry Swirl Cheesecake was rather average, but was quite heavy and would go well with a cup of tea.

We had the chocolate vanilla one left and popped it into the fridge.  The next day I took it out and brought it back to room temperature, but by that stage I could throw the cupcake out the window and knock the cat out with it, so it did not get sampled before it got tossed.

On this occasion, we found that the cupcakes from the Cupcake Bakery looked a whole lot better than they tasted.  I hope for their sake that this is an exception to the rule.....

Eat. Play. Shop. Recommends : that if you get cupcakes here, eat it quick before it becomes a dry and deadly weapon.

Give it a miss : if you're plannning to buy ahead.