Cupcakes are joining the trend of all things retro and gaining popularity as a serious dessert.   Personal-sized packages of yummy goodness—what’s not to like about a cupcake?  Because our family is opinionated about almost everything and most certainly food, we decided to conduct a cupcake experiment to find out who had the best cupcakes in Atlanta.   It was going to be a tough mission, but we were up to the challenge.

We bought every cupcake ourselves in order to give an unbiased, honest review uninfluenced by free food.   This is not a comprehensive list; we did not try every cupcake available for sale in metro Atlanta, so I’m sure that we left out some great cupcakes.  Please give us grace on that point; we could only eat so many cupcakes before we got sick.

Our rating system:

1 cupcake = not very good

2 cupcakes = just okay

3 cupcakes = pretty good

4 cupcakes = very good

5 cupcakes = excellent

THE PANEL

Funkidivagirl

Funkidivagirl looks at the dessert menu before ordering her entrée and only goes to birthday parties for the cake.  Her favorite desserts involve lemon or lime.

The Keyinfluencer

The Keyinfluencer prefers cookies over cake, but he is crazy for chocolate—brownies, cake, cupcakes—he doesn’t discriminate when chocolate is involved.

Captain Cuisine & The Gastro-Teens

A recognized food critic, this kid loves food.  While he wasn’t much of a fan of sweets as a young child, he has since grown to appreciate well-made desserts.

Girly

From the age of a toddler, Girly has rarely met a dessert that she didn’t like.  She can smell sugar a mile away.  To say that she has a sweet-tooth is underrated—she has a mouthful of sweet teeth!

THE CUPCAKES

BELLY

While Belly is not a bakery, they do sell several baked goods and are especially known for their cupcakes.   At $2.50 each Belly’s cupcakes are huge and easily shared with a friend, making them a good deal.  Sadly however, as a group we were not that impressed with Belly’s cupcakes; Captain Cuisine said, “Publix is better.”   The Red Velvet cupcake was especially dry and tasteless to all of us; we rated this 1 cupcake.  The Vanilla Cupcake was a little better, but most of us thought that the icing was too sweet; all of us gave it 2 cupcakes.    The Chocolate Chocolate cupcake was the best; as The Keyinfluencer said, “the frosting had a good taste, but the cake wasn’t moist enough.”  He gave it a respectable 3.5 cupcakes, Funkidivagirl and Captain Cuisine rated it 2 cupcakes, while Girly liked it the most at 4 cupcakes.

THE ATLANTA CUPCAKE FACTORY

We have had cupcakes from The Atlanta Cupcake Factory before at parties, but this was our first time walking in off the street.  The cupcakes are $2.50 each and a good size, not too big or too small.  The menu changes daily, so we were only able to sample what was available.  As The Keyinfluencer made this cupcake run alone, he went a little crazy and got 4 different cupcakes for us to try: Raspberry Sugar Cookie, Salted Carmel Sugar Cookie, Cinnamon Oatmeal and Chocolate Chocolate.  Funkidivagirl was disappointed that lemon or key lime was not available for tasting.

The tasting didn’t start off too good.  None of us liked the Raspberry Sugar Cookie; Girly, The Keyinfluencer and Funkidivagirl all rated it 1 cupcake, while Captain Cuisine gave it 2 cupcakes.

The Salted Carmel Sugar Cookie cupcake didn’t go over too well either; it was  rated 1 cupcake with Girly and Funkidivagirl, while The Keyinfluencer gave it 2 cupcakes.  Captain Cuisine liked it and gave it 4 cupcakes, although he said that it was “a little dry.”

He also really liked the Cinnamon Oatmeal cupcake and thought it was worth 4 1/2 cupcakes.   The Keyinfluencer thought “that it tasted like a great oatmeal cookie” and gave it 3 cupcakes like Funkidivagirl, who doesn’t like oatmeal cookies, but nevertheless thought it was a good cupcake.

The winner for everyone at The Atlanta Cupcake Factory was the Chocolate Chocolate cupcake; three of us rated it 4 cupcakes and thought it was “yummy, amazing and fudgy” and “almost like Watershed’s cake”, while Girly gave it a “shining 5 cupcakes” and said, “I found my heaven cupcake!”

Although we had 2 cupcakes that we didn’t like, over-all we all agreed that The Atlanta Cupcake Factory is a solid place to purchase cupcakes because of  the homemade taste.  We will return to buy the Chocolate Chocolate cupcake and try the other flavors that we missed.

CHOCOLATE PINK CAFÉ

We have been to Chocolate Pink Café a few times and enjoy the lounge/coffeehouse atmosphere as well as the desserts.  We have had several different kinds of desserts there such as the Key Lime Pie, but this time we specifically concentrated on the cupcakes.

Funkidivagirl’s favorite cupcake was the Pink Lemonade; she liked the “burst” of lemon filing and said that “it tastes like a lemon bar” (her favorite dessert).   She gave it a solid 5 cupcakes and Girly agreed.   Although neither is a big fan of lemon, both Captain Cuisine and The Keyinfluencer also liked this cupcake; both gave it 4 cupcakes.

We also tried the Red Velvet cupcake because the Café’s staff said it was an Atlanta favorite.   Funkidivagirl and Captain Cuisine agreed that the cupcake had a delicious, true red velvet flavor and that the icing was tasty and light; they both rated it 4 cupcakes.  The Keyinfluencer thought that it was good enough to rate  3 cupcakes, while Girly thought the icing was too creamy for her; she gave it only 2 cupcakes.

It is worth noting that The Keyinfluencer’s mother really likes the Coconut cupcake, although none of us have tried it (we do not like coconut).

The cupcakes are very small for the expensive price of $3 each, so this is not the most economical place to buy a cupcake, but they are good and the cozy atmosphere makes for a nice over-all cupcake experience.

PIECE OF CAKE

Funkidivagirl was excited to try the cupcakes at Piece of Cake because this is one of her very favorite places to buy a cake; she loves the Orange Cake!   The cupcakes are $2.25 for the small size (which is still a respectable size) and $2.75 for the large ones.  We got 3 different flavors of the small cupcakes: Red Velvet, Lemon and Strawberry.

Unfortunately the Red Velvet cupcake was slightly disappointing; while the icing was very good, the cake tasted below our expectations; it was a little dry.  Two of us gave it a solid 3 cupcakes, Captain Cuisine added ½ a cupcake for a rating of 3 ½ and Girly liked it the best at 4 cupcakes.

More disappointing to Funkidivagirl was the Lemon cupcake; “Where’s the flavor?,” she asked.  While it wasn’t a bad tasting cupcake, the lemon taste was barley perceptible.  Most of us gave it a rating of 2 cupcakes, while Captain Cuisine really like the icing and rated it 3 cupcakes.

Piece of Cake redeemed itself with the Strawberry cupcake, which was delicious.  Both the icing and cake were very fresh tasting; we could tell that real strawberries were used.   Funkidivagirl and The Keyinfluencer rated it 4 cupcakes while Girly gave this “awesome, good and creamy” cupcake a shining 5 cupcakes.   Captain Cuisine is not a fan of strawberry cupcakes, but even he loved the icing; he gave it 3 cupcakes.

Piece of Cake is still one of our favorite places to buy a cake, but we weren’t too impressed with the cupcakes.   The consensus says that If we were in the area and wanted a cupcake, we would stop, but we wouldn’t make a special trip.

THE LITTLE CAKE  BAKERY

­­­­­Although up against steep competition by Piece of Cake down the street, Little Cake looked promising.  The cupcakes were a decent size for the $2.50 price and the flavors were interesting.  We decided to try Strawberry and S’Mores, a popular weekend special.

The Strawberry cupcake elicited the same response from all of us: yuck!  “Not good at all,” “gross,” and “tastes like baking soda” were some of the detailed responses.   It was the direct opposite of Piece of Cake’s Strawberry cupcake.  We all gave it 1 cupcake.

The S’Mores cupcake was somewhat better.  The taste of the chocolate cake was decent, but the graham cracker bottom was soggy.  It didn’t taste like S’Mores at all; there should have been toasted marshmallows on top.   Funkidivagirl and The Keyinfluencer both gave it 2 cupcakes, Captain Cuisine liked it enough to give 3 cupcakes and Girly thought it was good enough to score 4 cupcakes (she really liked the bit of Hersey’s bar used as garnish).

We were not impressed with The Little Cake Bakery and won’t be going back, especially with Piece of Cake right down the street.

MATTY CAKES

We already knew that Matty Cakes has a great Red Velvet cake; we have ordered it many times for Christmas and birthdays.  But we were curious to see if the cupcake was just as tasty.   First of all, the $3 cupcakes are HUGE at Matty Cakes and must be shared; that is just too much cupcake for one person!

Upon tasting we were not disappointed; their Red Velvet cupcake was just as good as their cake.  In other words, it was delicious!   The icing was fluffy and light, yet intense with flavor, while the cake was moist with a distinctly Red Velvet taste.  Everyone gave it an enthusiastic 5 cupcakes and agreed that it beat all other Red Velvet cupcakes that we tasted, hands down.

Next we tried the Pumpkin cupcake.  The icing was light–like whipped cream–and delicious; a dusting of cinnamon gave it extra flavor.  The cake was dense and spicy; it tasted just like pumpkin bread.  We love pumpkin bread, but we wanted a cupcake.   This was pumpkin bread in the shape of a cupcake.  Girly didn’t mind this last point and gave it a score of 5 cupcakes, but Funkidivagirl and Captain Cuisine gave it 4 cupcakes; it was delicious, but lost a point due to it’s lack of cupcakiness.  (The Keyinfluencer was unable to taste this cupcake.)

Matty Cakes’ cupcakes are good and consistent with the quality of their cakes.

CAMI CAKES

Cami Cakes is the newest cupcake emporium in Atlanta and like The Atlanta Cupcake Factory and Little Cake, they only make cupcakes.   The cupcakes are a nice size for one person, not too big or too small, and priced right at $2.50.   Over the course of two visits we tried several flavors of Cami Cakes: Red Velvet, Classic Chocolate on Chocolate, CinnaSwirl, Lemon Drop and Sweet Potato.

Red Velvet was our biggest disappointment from Cami Cakes; it wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t taste like Red Velvet.  We all agreed that it deserved 3 cupcakes—pretty good, but not great.

The Keyinfluencer was excited to try the Classic Chocolate on Chocolate.  He said, “I am a chocolate cake fanatic, but this fell short for me.”  He gave it 3 cupcakes, along with Funkidivagirl.   Captain Cuisine liked it a bit more, giving 3 1/2 cupcakes as a rating, while Girly thought it was “very moist, very good; I’ll give it 4 cupcakes.”

CinnaSwirl tasted just like a cinnamon roll and was pronounced “very good” by everyone.  It garnered 5 cupcakes from Captain Cuisine and 4 cupcakes from the rest of the family.

Lemon Drop was a big hit with Funkidivagirl, who is very discriminating about her lemon desserts.   It’s a rating of 5 cupcakes from her all the way!   The entire cake tasted like a lemon pound cake—yummy!–and the icing was a favorite of everyone, even The Keyinfluencer who doesn’t like lemon or icing.  Both he and Girly gave it 4 cupcakes.  Captain Cuisine, while not a fan of lemon cupcakes, liked the icing so much that he rated it 4 1/2 cupcakes

Sweet Potato was our favorite cupcake.  Girly gave it the lowest rating of 4 cupcakes because “I don’t like sweet potatoes, but I like this,” while everyone else gave it an outstanding 5 cupcakes.   We were all amazed by the real sweet potato taste in the cake and loved the cinnamon icing; it was very fluffy and light.   The Keyinfluencer said, “This might be the best cupcake that I’ve ever had.”

Captain Cuisine said that Cami Cakes cupcakes are “multi-dimensional in flavor.”  As a bonus, the cupcakes are not only delicious, but also beautiful to look at; each cupcake is perfectly frosted and creatively embellished.

THE WINNERS

Best Chocolate Cupcake: The Atlanta Cupcake Factory

Best Lemon Cupcake: Chocolate Pink Café & Cami Cakes

Best Red Velvet Cupcake: Matty Cakes

Best “Special Flavor” Cupcake: Sweet Potato at Cami Cakes

Best Place to Hang Out While Eating a Cupcake: Chocolate Pink Café

Best Over-All Place to Buy Cupcakes in Atlanta: Cami Cakes                                           (with The Atlanta Cupcake Factory in second place)

We hope that our cupcake review has provided insight for your quest to find the best cupcake in Atlanta.   But we’re not done, oh no!  We won’t rest until we tried every cupcake in Atlanta…America…the WORLD!

*Funkidivagirl & Captain Cuisine had a chance to try the Key Lime cupcake at The Atlanta Cupcake Factory recently and both loved the moist texture and perfect Key Lime taste.  Funkidivagirl (who loves key lime, and therefore very critical) gave it an enthusiastic 5 cupcakes and Captain Cuisine was in complete agreement.  *Girly also tried it a few weeks later and gave it a “shining 5 cupcakes.”

*Funkidivagirl was able to try the Red Velvet cupcake at Cami Cakes again as a special birthday treat and it was really yummy this time; she gives it 4 1/2 cupcakes!   There was also a new cupcake there, Orange Cream, that is going to give Piece of Cake’s famous orange cake a run for it’s money.  Ooooh….it is so good!   It is sweet, so you gotta like sugar, but that wasn’t a problem for Funkidivagirl, Captain Cuisine and Girly who all gave it 5 cupcakes.

*Another trip to The Atlanta Cupcake Factory had us trying both the Lemon and Strawberry cupcakes.  Everyone was in agreement that both cupcakes were great–especially the icing–and deserved 4 1/2 and 4 cupcakes respectively.

I have joined a new group: PB & J For Purses.  Well, there is only 1 founding member, me, but you are welcome to join!  The mission of PB & J For Purses is to free up disposable income for the purpose of buying purses (or shoes or make-up or whatever gets your groove on).  Each week I get an allowance to use for lunch, tea at Starbuck’s, books, etc., but I have found that if I eat lunch at home (PB & J is always good), brew my own tea and get my books from the library, pretty soon I have saved up enough money to buy something better than a gourmet salad.  Accessories are my thing, so most of my PB & J money goes to purses, boutique jewelry, watches and sometimes shoes.

After a recent movie date with Girly to see G-Force (oy!) we did a bit of shopping.  First I bought this large wristlet from the new Coach Poppy Collection.  I think that the size and color will be perfect for my upcoming beach resort get-away; big enough to hold my iPhone, room key and lip gloss but still fabulous.  And you know I like the bling!

Speaking of lip gloss, I made a quick dip into Sephora to pick up a new tube of Fresh Sugar Desire.

As I have said before, I always manage to find funki gear and good deals at Belk.  I know, I know–it’s hard to believe–Belk?–but it’s true!  I just love my new Dolce Vita sandals and they are even more lovable at 60% off; my daughter says that they look like a summer version of my favorite Minnetonka boots.

See? Membership has it’s privileges.

One of my friends commented that I have just been Betty Crocker-like as of late.  True, I am being more domestic than usual, but summer inspires me to be more creative in the kitchen.  And what’s more fun than creating homemade ice cream?  Last summer the kids and I started making ice cream about every 2 weeks.  We bought this book as a starting point and it has some really good recipes:

However last week, I was jonesing for some banana pudding ice cream.  See, there used to be an ice cream place called Hank’s in Atlanta across from the zoo and my family was addicted to the banana pudding ice cream.   When Hank’s moved we were devastated.  ” Ahh,” I thought last week, “I can just make my own!”  But there wasn’t a recipe in the book.

A sidebar moment to wax poetic about my iPhone:  Despite the love I have for my iPhone, generally I don’t use the web feature too much, but as I headed to the grocery store with the recipe book in my hand, that’s when I got the urge to make the banana pudding ice cream.  ”Shoot,” I thought, “I have to go back home and see if I can find a recipe online.”  ”Wait a minute,” I said to myself, “I can just look it up on my iPhone!”  So that’s what I did–googled “banana pudding ice cream” in the middle of the grocery store.  I found the recipe below and walked around the store iPhone in hand gathering the ingredients.   Big props for the iPhone!

Back to the banana pudding: So I found this great recipe on Joy The Baker.  She has this fantastic blog full of recipes, life musings and the most beautiful photos of food.   Looking at her photos of the banana pudding ice cream inspired me to try her recipe.  

A few my notes on the recipe: As she says in her blog, this recipe makes a lot of ice cream.  My ice cream maker holds 1 1/2 quarts and the recipe made 2 batches for me.  This was a problem because I only have 1 freezer bowl, therefore the 2nd batch didn’t freeze as well.   Next time I will 1/2 the recipe or better yet buy another freezer bowl.   My family had 14 (small) servings eaten over the course of 3 days.   Depending on your ice cream maker, you can either eat it right after mixing/freezing or put it in your home freezer for awhile.   Be careful though because if you leave it in the home freezer too long, the ice cream will be rock solid and very hard to scoop (that happened to me and we had to let it soften for quite a long time). 

And finally, I must say that oh my goodness THIS IS THE BEST ICE CREAM THAT I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE!   This is the kind of goodness that makes you mutter while you are eating it, close your eyes while it melts on your tongue and lick the bowl clean when you are through.   

If you have an ice cream maker, I suggest that you make this if you have any idea what’s good for you.

 

Gathering the ingredients

 

My daughter mashes the bananas

I do not have a photo of the finished product because I was too distracted EATING IT.  Trust me, it’s a beautiful thing.

 

Banana Pudding Ice Cream

     adapted from recipezaar

4 ounces Cool Whip (1/2 of an 8ounce container)

7 ounces sweetened condensed milk (1/2 of a 14 ounce can)

scant 1/2 gallon milk (reserve about 1 cup for you morning cereal)

1 (3 1/2 ounce) package Jello Banana Cream Instant Pudding

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 bananas (mashed)

1/2 box of vanilla wafers, crushed

In a bowl mix cool whip, condensed milk, vanilla, banana pudding and about 1/2 of the half gallon of milk.  Add chopped bananas and vanilla wafers.  

Pour mixture into an ice cream maker.  With machine on, pour in the rest of the half gallon of milk.  

Stir the mixture and begin freezing according the manufacturers instructions.  My ice cream machine took about 15 minutes to get to soft ice cream.  

Remove very soft ice cream and place in a freezer friendly plastic container.    Serve with slice bananas and vanilla wafers.  

When I first read about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Twitter & Facebook (where, I must admit, I get most of my breaking news), I thought that it was a joke.  As a former graduate student of African American Studies, I respect Professor Gates and laughed at the thought of him doing something that warranted the use of handcuffs.  However, after reading several legitimate news stories I learned that in fact his arrest was the sad truth.   Even sadder was my thought upon learning why he was arrested: “Of course.”   While I was shocked that it was Professor Gates, I was not shocked that it happened; racial profiling is something that many African American and Latino males have experienced.

Los Angeles used to be (still is?) a city that was notorious for racial profiling by the L.A.P.D. and it’s something that I witnessed first hand as a college student.  One evening about 10:00 p.m. my friend and I were driving back to his mother’s house.  He was born and raised in L.A., so well versed about L.A.P.D.;  he was purposely driving the speed limit and making complete stops at each stop sign.   Still, when we were a block away from the house he got pulled over by the flashing blue lights.  In my naivete I made a slight move forward to get something that had fallen on the floor and my friend pushed me back against the seat.   He knew what I didn’t: that move could have cost us our lives if the police thought that I was reaching for a weapon; they shoot first and ask later.   We were asked to exit the car.  When I began to protest, my friend shut me up with one look.   I complied because I thought if my Public Enemy-listening, not-afraid-of-anybody friend was complacent, then I had better be too.  I sat on the curb while they put my friend face down on the grass.  They searched his car (of course they found nothing), ran his plates and driver’s license (both clean) and then released us.  There was no apology, no explanation–nothing to explain our detainment except for the obvious.   It was a very scary and sobering experience.  And even more devastating was the silence from my friend on the way home.

How does a young man reconcile distrust of the very people who have sworn to protect and serve him?  Most African American males I know do not trust the police.  Even my husband gets paranoid if he sees a police car in the rear view mirror.  I tease him and ask, “Are you running from the law?”, but it’s ingrained in him to think the worst.   He’s not speeding and all car registration is up to date, but he knows that it doesn’t matter because it is all too common for a black man to be pulled over for absolutely no reason at all. 

Is this what I am supposed to tell my son when he starts driving in a few years?–Son, if you get pulled over, don’t talk back, don’t make any sudden moves and comply with anything because they will just as soon lock you up or hurt you than be concerned with your rights as a citizen.   Even when my son was a child and I gave him the “stranger danger” talks and told him to look for a police officer if he ever got lost, I cringed inside.  I knew that while I was telling him one thing as a child, there would be other instructions as a young man.

As professor Gates knows, racial profiling is not just limited to driving.   It seems that sometimes the diversifying of a neighborhood brings paranoia as well.  I can only assume it was paranoia that led the 911 caller who reported Gates to describe him as a “big black male wearing a backpack”, when in fact he is not a big man and was wearing a blue blazer.    My neighborhood has a crime watch email loop to inform each other of any criminal or suspicious activity.  While I appreciate the emails about criminal acts and truly suspicious behavior, the repetitious emails such as “there’s a hooded black male riding his bike down Hickory Street” are starting to get on my nerves.  

As Professor Gates says on The Root, he is but one man that this has happened to, one man in too many. The good news is that unlike many of those who have no voice, he is in a position to create dialogue, write essays, make films and in general call attention to racial profiling.  

Maybe then I can believe again in the “Officer Friendly” of kindergarten days.

How does that feel, master?