The Cupcake Bakery

Whizzing back to my den after a quick shoe-shopping trip in the CBD with Kaz, I was very pleasantly surprised to see The Cupcake Bakery veritably leap into my path on my way into Town Hall Station. I had heard of this establishment, but thought the only CBD location was at The Ivy and had no idea one was to be found in the bowels of the QVB/Galleries/Town Hall station rabbit warren. I had also twice spotted girls clutching The Cupcake Bakery bags on the train in the past week. My interested had been piqued. This was destiny. I had no choice but to step up to the counter.

I of course simply could not go past the red velvet cupcake, I was keen to try someone else’s red velvet so I could get some kind of comparison to my own (as that is the only other time I’ve ever tried it). I was momentarily tempted by a lemon meringue cupcake, but the red velvet won out. As for Red, his flavour preferences are simple: chilli or coffee. I spotted a chocolate chilli cupcake – topical as he had attempted to make his own at home during the week using a White Wings mix with chilli flakes added – ack! But then saw a much more enticing looking tiramisu. The tiramisu was in the ‘deluxe’ section, costing $4.50 but my Red Velvet was a standard flavour costing $3.50. Other flavours included vanilla, vanilla-choc, vanilla–strawberry, choc-choc, choc-peppermint, banana and carrot. Deluxe included strawberry swirl cheesecake, hummingbird, custard tumble and lemon meringue. I noticed they have a coffee and cupcake special for $5, and they sell maxi-cupcakes for $55 (standard) and $75 (deluxe). These are made using the Wilton 3D cupcake pan by the way – try Peters of Kensington for $39 each if you want to make your own.

The subjects, looking nervous no?

So the tiramisu was packed in a mini-cake box (a-ha, so that’s where the extra $1 goes) and mine into a paper bag. After a suitable grace period post-dinner I could wait no longer, so out came the red velvet cupcake primed for consumption.

The cupcakes were very nice, moist and tasty. The red velvet was taste-wise somewhat reminiscent of my own attempt; chocolatey without being chocolate – in fact it smelt more of chocolate than it tasted. Texture wise it was different from mine, so I suspect this was butter based whereas mine was shortening based. Overall, I preferred mine (all modesty aside of course), but this was nice and my only real gripe would be they are a bit light on the icing – which incidentally was cream cheese.

Hmm Red Velvet cake.

The tiramisu was also nice. We cut it in half and it would seem they cut into the top, insert some coffee concoction and pop the 'plug' back in. The description on the web states it’s a coffee flavoured cake with marscapone icing and dusted with chocolate. I would say its a vanilla cake with a coffee 'injection', coffee flavoured marscapone icing dusted with chocolate. Yummy all the same, but what is with these cupcake shops and not making the cake as advertised?

You can see what I mean about the coffee filling here, and also the coffee cream icing

Size wise they are slightly smaller than Sparkles and if you are an icing fan then Sparkles has almost as much icing as cupcake, but the quality of the actual cake at The Cupcake Bakery is two thumbs up from me. I'll be back!

The Cupcake Bakery
Shop 2-4
Lower Ground 2
QVB, Sydney

Also at 320B George St and 428 Oxford Street Paddington.

http://www.thecupcakebakery.com.au/