Cupid's was founded by a young mother who found herself wanting some 'grown up time' during her time off from her teaching career. One thing lead to another and before she knew it, she had a full blooming business to run! Cupid's, like many other cupcake bakeries, is a peanut free zone. However, this wasn't always the case. It was upon receiving her son's peanut allergy diagnosis that the owner decided to switch gears and move in this direction.
First impressions - the bakery was very cute, cozy and busy! There was even a quaint wooden table, painted white, with matching chairs conveniently placed by the window for those customers who wished to dine in.
There were six flavours available that day; naturally, I selected one of each in the mini-cupcake variety.
Starting from the top left, we have Prince - a signature chocolate buttermilk cake with dreamy blue vanilla frosting, topped with chocolate shavings. The cake was nothing short of chocolatey but was a bit on the dry side. The frosting was... fine. As G put it, nothing special; just generic buttercream.
The red velvet (to the right), was rather disappointing. The cake was not moist nor was it very flavourful. Let's back up a few steps. When I think of a froth worthy red velvet cake, I imagine an ultra moist, rich chocolate cake. Quite frankly, it's what I picture heaven to be made out of..... mmm. Okay, back to the cake. Yeah, it wasn't spectacular. However, the frosting was delightfully delicious. I think it was the best cream cheese frosting I've tasted so far in our adventure!
Triple chocolate threat - here we come! Chocolate cake with chocolate chips, topped with chocolate frosting and chocolate shavings. Now that's a lot of chocolate!! We loved the idea of chocolate chips being incorporated into the cake. Creativity points awarded! The added texture, not to mention flavour, was very tasty. Unfortunately, the cake seemed to be lacking in chocolate flavour. This was a chocolate cake, right? To make matters worse, the frosting had a liquor flavour to it... it almost reminded me of those terrible brandy/rum filled chocolates offices have during the Christmas season. Who even likes those things??
Pucker up! Lemon yogurt cake with freshly squeezed lemon juice and zest, accompanied with lemon frosting. I don't think I've ever seen yogurt incorporated into a cake before. Truthfully, I wasn't sure how I would feel about this but I was delightfully surprised when my tastebuds exclaimed after having my first bite. Five stars on delicious cake! It was very rich, moist and filled with lemon flavour. It texture was more on the dense side, which we chalked up to the yogurt base. The icing was very light and complemented the cake very well. That being said, it wasn't as lemony as expected but I almost feel like it would have been too much lemon if it was. Definitely a judges favourite!
Princess - a vanilla buttermilk cake topped with strawberry puree frosting and sparkly sprinkles. My vanilla goddess was gravely disappointed with this cake. I mean, how can you go wrong with vanilla?? Sigh. We found that the cake was very dry and floury. If it wasn't for the strawberry filled frosting (it REALLY did taste like fresh strawberries), this cupcake would have been a complete write off.
Last but not least, the nutless German. Keeping with the peanut free concept, this German chocolate cake is made without pecans and is topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting, a pool of homemade salted caramel and a mount of toasted coconut. At least that's what their menu says. The cake was good; the frosting was decent - run of the mill cream cheese frosting. But we couldn't help but ask ourselves, where were the promised salted caramel and toasted coconut??
Overall experience - 6.5/10
Many hit or misses - too many misses to drive across Ontario for!
- J
