Flour Girls

I first checked out Flour Girls a few years ago, when I picked up a box of minis on my way over to my cousin’s house. Having no recollection whatsoever of how they tasted, I decided to stop in and grab a few cupcakes while I was in Milton on an errand for work.

I picked up two of each of the vanilla, salted caramel, lemon, and chocolate fudge cupcakes, and drove them back to the office to find out what everyone thought. Cakes, cookies and various other goodies are pretty much the norm in my office, so I wasn’t surprised to see that one of the law clerks, N, had already brought a cherry pie in to share that day too. Not that that stopped anyone from having a cupcake in addition ;). Now on to the taste test!

The salted caramel had a vanilla base, with a salted caramel filling. While the cake was universally acknowledged as being delicious, the frosting was terrible- to be honest, I couldn’t tell you what flavour it was supposed to be. It tasted like a dollop of butter, and had the same sort of texture and consistency. A and I liked the salted caramel filling (I am a total sucker for salted caramel everything), but L thought it was too sweet, and she wasn’t a fan of the cupcake overall.

E and P tasted the vanilla, and weren’t very impressed either. The vanilla frosting tasted too much like butter, and while the cake was moist, it was seriously lacking in flavour.

Moving on to the chocolate: this one was a winner. T and N tested out these cupcakes, which had a chocolate cake and was topped with fudge frosting. N described the cupcake as being melt –in-your mouth delicious and thought the frosting had a great fudge flavour to it. Both N and T really loved the chocolate cake too, which they found to be quite fluffy and flavourful.

Lastly, we have the lemon cupcake, which was a vanilla cupcake with lemon frosting. Can’t go wrong, right? Who doesn’t love the tangy combination of sugar and lemon? While J thought the cake was well done, the frosting didn’t live up to expectations, and the zesty lemon flavour was undercut by the buttery flavour and consistency.

Overall: These cupcakes were too inconsistent. While the cake was (sometimes) good, the frosting just didn’t make the cut– and what’s a cupcake without its frosting?

- G

The Social Cupcake

What an appropriate name for a cupcake shop.  I mean, what better way to socialize than over a cupcake?!

The Social Cupcake is neatly tucked away into one of Mississauga's many historic neighourhoods, Port Credit.  This bakery prides itself in its eco friendly products, only using organic free trade cocoa, free range eggs and the freshest of ingredients.  Moreover, it is both a peanut and treenut free environment which is a something that cupcake enthusiasts are seeing more frequently.

The Social Cupcake features sixty, I repeat SIXTY, cupcakes!! With traditional flavours such as vanilla chocolate to more complex varieties like strawberry rhubarb cheesecake and chocolate guinness with bailey's swiss meringue , you can only imagine how excited I was to visit this bakery!

To keep with the theme, birthday twin and I ventured on a cupcake tasting date to celebrate our birthdays and catch up (ah hem - socialize!) since some time had passed since we had last seen each other.

Given that the bakery offers a combo of 6 minis for $10 and that there were 6 readymade varieties on display today, it seemed like the perfect idea to sample one of each!  And oh did they ever look and smell soooo delicious! Side note: why don't they make cupcake flavoured perfume????

So for the moment of truth...... The Social Cupcake is a real winner!!!!!

Flavours tested:

• Vanilla
• Cookies and Cream
• Strawberry
• Marble
• Red velvet (of course!)
• Chocolate

Birthday twin and agreed that the top contenders were tied between the chocolate and red velvet.  Given that neither of us are huge fans of icing and that I am no lover of chocolate cake, the fact that this chocolate cupcake has snuck it's way into our number one demonstrates what good value it was!  You could truly taste the richness of the chocolate in both the cake and the icing without being overpowered with sugar.  The red velvet - WOW!  I really don't know if I have ever had cream cheese icing that tasted so good!  It was light, creamy, and cream cheesy - what else can you ask for in a cupcake?!  

Vanilla ranked as a close second.  It's buttery buttercream icing melted in your mouth like ice cream on a hot summer's day.  The cake was nothing short of moist.  This is what my dreams are made of... delicious vanilla cake.  

Sadly, strawberry came in as our least favourite.  Truthfully, there was nothing wrong with the cupcake.  The icing was extra light and the cake was filled with the goodness of strawberries.  I'm just not entirely sure if I like strawberry flavoured cake.  No disrespect!

As you can see, we ate all of our six minis - and no, we did not have a tummy ache after.  Hurrah! 

Overall experience - 9/10!

If you're ever in the Port Credit area and in search for a delightful treat, I highly recommend The Social Cupcake! Just be sure to arrive with an appetite because this bakery will not disappoint.  Disclaimer: expect a queue as there were five customers during our short wait on a Thursday afternoon!

- J

Prairie Girl Bakery

Greetings cupcake lovers,

I was downtown today for a recruiter appointment and given the fact that I had paid a flat fee for all day parking, I was tempted to go for a walk into the financial district and 'pop into' PGB.  

This bakery was founded by a real life prairie girl, originally from Saskatchewan.  With the help of a professional baking team, Jean opened Prairie Girl Bakery up for business and has never looked back!  It has two convenient locations for those busy-bees working in the financial district: 18 King Street East and the First Canadian Place (concourse level).

It was of no surprise that there was a small line formed in front of the bakery's location in the First Canadian Place.  After all, it is the week before Christmas!  It was just last week that I had been browsing the bakery's website when I saw that their weekly special was an eggnog and vanilla cupcake.  I knew I was going to be downtown this week so I figured, why not give it a go??  Unfortunately, I missed the lesson on calendar weeks as a child and didn't realize that the special would have been different this week.  Slightly disappointed, I decided to test the infamous Joe Prairie's Red Velvet Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese with a swirl of vanilla icing.  I didn't just walk all the way from King and Spadina for nothing, right?

PGB prides itself on using only natural ingredients, thereby only selling fresh goods to its customers.  Be warned, just because it's natural, doesn't mean that it's healthy! In fact, PGB's chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing falls just short of 700 calories with approximately 30 grams of fat!!! It's no wonder the bakery does not have an accessible nutrition guide.  So the question is, was calorie worth it?

  In short, the answer is no!  Here's why:  

There are several things that I look for when I eat a cupcake.  The most important you ask?  The cupcake itself!  A lot of bakeries overcompensate for poor cupcake quality with their icing.  If I'm eating a cupcake, I'm more concerned about the cake than the icing.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not an icing hater by any means but I like to know that the cupcake can still be delicious on a standalone basis!    

I'm not entirely sure if I didn't get a so-called 'fresh' batch but given that my purchase was at 11:30am, I think it's fair to rule that out as a crutch.  I found the cupcake itself to be slightly dry, which was rather disappointing.  That being said, red velvet flavour satisfied my expectations.

Secondly, the icing was slightly overwhelming.  I will admit that I'm not a fan of overly sweet icing so the chocolate icing may have been a bad call on my behalf.  Even though I ordered a mini-cupcake, I found that the icing to cupcake ratio was too high for my liking.  The icing itself - pretty damn good.  There was a stark contrast between the chocolate and vanilla flavours which made this cupcake unique to other red velvets.  

Overall, I give this cupcake a 7/10.  So was it a good cupcake?  Yes.  The best cupcake in Toronto?   Doubtful.

- J