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 Sugar Spot

Welcome back from the holidays and happy 2014!! We hope you have been staying warm this winter season. Back in December, J and I were invited to The Sugar Spot just off of Avenue Road in Toronto for a little tasting by Nicole, sole owner and operator of the cupcakery and candy shop.

Nicole working away with her little helper

My articling pal, A, joined us, and despite the heavy snowfall, we were not deterred from our taste-testing mission! We were welcomed to the bakeshop on a very blustery day by Nicole and her young daughter. Nicole is a self-taught baker and candy-maker who does it all pretty much on her own. The bakeshop has ready-made cupcakes, but also makes custom cakes to order, with gluten and nut free options. The bakery also offers a variety of handmade candy and chocolate.

I tried the bubble gum, chocolate with cream cheese frosting and chocolate with chocolate frosting cupcakes and the cake batter chocolate bar, while A tried the gingerbread cupcake and cookies and cream chocolate bar, and J tried the dark chocolate bar.  The bubble gum frosting was very bold and provided a deliciously sharp bubble-gum flavour, which was really unexpected on a cupcake. The cake was a bit doughy/floury and did not have much of a vanilla flavour, though. The chocolate cupcakes on the other hand consisted of moist cakes with a rich flavour, and your run of the mill frostings (of which there was a generous amount on each cupcake). A thought the gingerbread cupcake had a good spice to it, and enjoyed the cream cheese frosting. She thought the cookies and cream chocolate bar was pretty good, but found it too sweet for her own taste. She also doled out a dozen mini cupcakes to her soccer team, who loved them.

While the cupcakes were pretty average, the dark chocolate bars at this bakery are the real gems. Each one is handmade, and truly decadent. They are what Nicole describes as being of single origin- which made for a truly flavourful, rich and delicious bar of chocolate. J described it as being amazing and some of the best dark chocolate she has had- it wasn’t too bitter with just the right hint of sweet. The cake batter bar was equally as delicious, and tasted just like the cake batter we all look forward to licking from the bowl. Definitely worth dropping into The Sugar Spot for!

- G

A Quick Fix!

If you’re craving a cupcake, you may be a bit hesitant to go to the grocery store and grab cupcakes from the bakery. Grocery store cupcakes are usually too sweet, heavy and have a manufactured flavour, never completely satisfying one’s desire for the ultimate cupcake. I discovered the FSB cupcakes at Metro on one of my usual late night dessert outings with my roommate, C. After a day of classes, we would have a lengthy dinner at home, and to prolong our eventual return to our desks and books, hit up the grocery store for something sweet with our after-dinner tea. The FSB cupcakes were adorably packaged in single containers and came in a multitude of flavours. Naturally, I couldn’t resist. I first picked up a couple of milk chocolate cupcakes and my roommate and I happily devoured them. The chocolate cake was incredibly moist and featured a creamy, milk chocolate centre, which was slightly toffee flavoured. The frosting had a strong chocolately flavour without being overly sweet, and was fairly light, with an almost whipped consistency. Over the next few weeks, my roommate and I sampled a few other flavours, and they were all pretty scrumptious: the salted caramel, red velvet, and Boston cream among others. I’d say the best cupcakes were the ones with the chocolate cakes.

After I finished writing the bar exam, and was ready to crawl out of hiding, J and I met up for lunch at a little Italian joint near her workplace. I wanted to bring along some cupcakes in keeping with our tradition. I didn’t have much time to go to a speciality bakery that we hadn’t already tried yet, so I popped by Metro and picked up four different flavours for us: Red velvet, salted caramel, milk chocolate and peanut butter chocolate. After we finished our meals of veal and chicken parmesan, we dug into the cupcakes. J was pretty impressed by the richness of the cakes and the perfect symmetry of light and sweet in the frosting.

Bottom line: if you are ever in a pinch and want that gourmet cupcake experience, don’t think twice about grabbing some of these FSB cupcakes from Metro!

- G

The Beginning

Once upon a time, there were two girls - Gobhina and Joanne.  The two first met in grade ten business class at Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School.  At first, they were merely classmates.  It took several years until the friendship began to first blossom.  Bonding over things like mistaken cultural identity, prom committee and the aspirations of going to the University of Waterloo brought them closer together during their final year of high school.  It was to her dismay that Joanne did not get accepted to her program of choice at University of Waterloo.  Feeling saddened about having to part from her new friend, she decided to accept an offer received from Wilfrid Laurier University, only a few blocks away.  

The pair tried their best to stay in contact, in spite of their notoriously busy social and academic schedules.  This involved cheesy chick flick dates, halloween parties and frequent dinner dates to Jamaican Jerk.  However, it wasn't until Gobhina's exchange to Paris that they discovered their mutual, unfathomable love for cupcakes.  There could have been no better place for this to happen; after all, Paris is the city of love!

Many years have passed and the girls have continued their tradition in indulging in cupcakes while catching up.  Today, they have decided to step things up a notch and to undertake the mission of finding the best cupcakes in Ontario.