Suckcake Emporium and Feelings of Superiority

Weeks ago, on a walk with Mitch, I spotted something downtown that was VERY exciting--the Cupcake Emporium. I'm obsessed with cupcakes (as evidenced here and here), I thought it would be a fun thing to do during Chloe's visit.

The Cupcake Emporium was a disappointment. The cupcakes looked nice enough, I suppose. Here's Chloe's carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing.

And here's my red velvet with cream cheese icing.

But the flavor and texture of these cupcakes was mediocre at best. The icing hardly tasted like cream cheese, and it had a gritty texture. The flavor of the cakes was just whatever and they were kind of dry. Blah.

It did seem like the Cupcake Emporium is actually more of a store than it is a cupcakery (nothing like Matty F's Frostings). Also, while we were eating ours we heard the cashier recommend the key lime cupcake to another customer, so it's possible that we just made poor choices during our visit.

The Suckcake Emporium did wet my appetite for cupcakes, though (like it takes a lot). So Chloe and I decided that we needed to spend an evening baking cupcakes that would be far superior. We made ourselves some carrot cupcakes and some strawberry cupcakes. Mmmm.

The carrot cupcake recipe is one from Martha Stewart. You can find it here.

During our night of baking, I also got to use one of my favorite new kitchen items, this pretty orange wisk. It makes me happy in my heart.

They are a million times tastier than the suckcakes.

We used this recipe for the strawberry cupcakes. If you're a strawberry cake fan, I'd highly recommend making these babies. We use cream cheese--smooth, cheesy cream cheese icing--on top of ours.

I do believe it's time for Porky Jean to make an appearance.