Blue Grass Bummer

One of my favorite things to do during the summer is head to Norris Lake, TN.  Unfortunately, since I moved to Chicago it is not as accessible.  A couple weeks ago I decided to fly into Cincinnati and drive down to the lake with one of my friends.  The drive is 4 hours, so some people question why I don't just fly the whole way.  Well, to be honest I love this drive.  It is nice to be in the car on a beautiful day, windows down, music playing. and just taking in the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee.  The route passes straight through Lexington, so we stopped at Baby Cakes (http://www.bb-cakes.com/) to see what kind of cupcakes Kentucky had to offer.  I chose a brown sugar pear and Alyson ordered the chocolate. 

Brown Sugar Pear - The cupcake smelled like corn bread.  It had a moist consistency, but tasted like flour.  It also did not taste like pear at all.  The icing had a smooth texture, but I felt like I could taste the powdered sugar.  Almost like it was just mixed with water and nothing was added.  I liked the presentation and thought the cupcake was fairly creative.  The only problem is that I did not taste pear or brown sugar??  They may want to rename.

Since Alyson ordered the chocolate, I will let her give you the scoop.  

First things first--thank you Jenny for inviting me to participate in your fabulous and fun blog! I have been procrastinating my write-up as a coping mechanism for the high-pressure that comes with critiquing a cupcake alongside one of Jenny's expert reviews. The only things I have expert-level knowledge of are celebrity smut (and maybe multiple pet ownership) so you can understand my anxiety. That said, I like to judge people/things so hopefully this skill set translates into an objective and compelling analysis of my cupcake consumption.

I do love sugar, and am a devout fan of the chocolate cake/vanilla frosting combination, so I chose this basic but not boring cupcake for my review.  The cupcake had a decent moist texture but definitely had a flour-y flavor that distracted from the chocolate itself.  While Jenny's Brown Sugar Pear cupcake had more of a pleasant corn bread flavor, the chocolate cupcake was straight up APF. The icing had a nice light texture but tasted a little too buttery--also, I prefer the heavier composition of buttercream frosting.  The bakery put a little drizzle of chocolate syrup on the top that brought a weird wet component into the mix, which I guess added to the presentation? It is hard for me to judge creativity when I purposely chose such a basic combination. But I can judge the presentation of the bakery itself, which in all honesty was a little too edgy (read: messy) for my liking.

When (err, if) Jenny comes back to Cincy I will definitely be taking her to Take the Cake in Northside to try some truly delicious Midwestern cupcakes!

Overall I would say this is a pass for both of us.  Maybe next summer Lexington will have more to offer.

xo

j and a