The Great Cupcake Adventure

so, last week kind of blew. it was mostly stressful and emotional and unpleasant and bleh. EXCEPT for one shining afternoon, right at the end, that (fittingly) coincided with an overall turn for the better.

it was The Great Cupcake Adventure.

to fully appreciate the splendor of this story, you kind of have to love cake. if you don’t, i’m sorry for you. in a number of ways. anyhoo...

the GCA had been in the works for about a week or so – my new friend, b-dub (short for B.W., which is, in turn, short for many more initials and a much fancier name), and i were going to get together for a little get-to-know-you coffee klatch. but, since both he and i are rabid dessert connoisseurs who value the all-important icing-to-cake ratio (which must always, ALWAYS find the icing coming out on top), we weren’t about to just drop our bums onto a couple of stools at tim horton’s and split a donut.

no, no. we needed to find someplace awesome.

someplace with fantastic – perhaps even fantastical – desserts.

and we did.

after some googling, i stumbled upon a tiny outfit on queen st. east called babycake. one glance at their website and we were sold – pretty, multi-coloured confections with fun names and even better-sounding flavours. pricey? oh yes. but maybe...just maybe...they’d be worth the small fortune we’d wind up paying.

b-dub and i, armed with big dreams and even bigger appetites, met at the restaurant out of which babycake sells its wares. they don’t have their own dedicated storefront yet, but you can pick up their goods from inside one of two side-by-side eateries. thing is, much to our surprise and delight, the whole transaction feels very covert and exciting – you walk to the bar, look over a glossy list of that day’s available flavours (printed on a postcard), request what you’d like...and then someone goes to the back, disappears for a while, and returns through the front entrance (i.e., from OUTside) with your stuff all neatly boxed and bagged for your convenience. “i feel like we’re buying drugs!” whispered b-dub. and it did have that this-is-a-secret sort of vibe to it.

anyway, because b-dub and i don’t mess around, we went whole hog. we ordered a dozen.

that’s right. ONE DOZEN.

12 cupcakes to split between the two of us. as i said, we are rabid dessert connoisseurs. we paid and then learned, to our chagrin, we couldn’t actually eat the cupcakes in the restaurant because it was, in fact, closed. since we were near neither b-dub’s home nor mine, we opted instead to haul our precious cargo to an adjacent park – being careful to avoid the prostitutes, the thugs and the semi-conscious. oh yes, it was ALL about the ambiance. we found a picnic table under the world’s scrawniest tree and, both being of fair complexion, clung to its meagre shade as we opened our boxes.

cue: a small chorus of angels and an explosion of heavenly light.

inside the boxes were perfectly formed, cheerful-looking cupcakes, just waiting to be savoured.

so, savour we did.

because we’re smart like that, we ordered two of each (one for b-dub, one for me) of the four flavours we thought sounded the most amazing, and one each of the four runners-up. using nothing but a plastic knife and a heart full of anticipation, b-dub sliced the four singles in half and we began.

[note: our dining conditions were not optimum. the weather was very humid and warm, and neither of us had an ice-cold glass of anything to accompany our meal. i had about a half cup’s worth of warm water in a bottle in my bag, and poor b-dub had nothing. ideal conditions may have resulted in even greater enjoyment, i suspect.]

i’m having trouble remembering which cupcake was consumed first, it’s all just a blur at this point, but i know that we alternated chocolate and vanilla bases, and we split:

the classic – the Polar Bear. vanilla cake. vanilla icing. simple. delicious.

the PB&B, a chocolate cupcake with peanut-butter icing. super-moist cake and a light, peanut-buttery frosting.

the Crazy For Coconut. i thought it was VERY very sweet...possibly too sweet.

and the Velvet Underground, which the makers list as a fan favourite. it’s red-velvet cake with cream-cheese frosting, and it was...only okay. kind of bland, but it made for a nice sorbet amidst its fellow contenders.

the four doubles.

saved for later, we each brought home a Blue By You, a Snowball (i thought it was disappointing; b-dub said it was his fave), an Ebony & Ivory and...the cupcake we went for in the first place...The Princess (so, so scrumptious and totally worth the price and the effort).

the entire GCA was, in a word, delightful. we spent a few hours in the park, chatting and sampling fantastic cupcakes. and then, buoyed by skyrocketing blood sugar and a blissed-out post-meal afterglow, we said goodbye and rode off (on a streetcar) into the sunset.