Cupcake Craving — Restaurant in California

If your cravings include dry and flavorless then this place is for you! I stopped in for the first time today, I purchased 4 cupcakes. A lemon raspberry, carrot cake, vanilla rum and some sort of chocolate fudge. These cupcakes are a little pricey so you have a certain expectation when paying a pretty decent price. Honestly I wouldn’t call these a cupcake, although they look like an amazing cupcake they fall extremely short. The cake is more of a sponge texture, very dense. Extremely dry! 1st up lemon raspberry; had no lemon flavor, overly colored yellow with artificial dye, the raspberry center tasted ok. It was nothing special and overly sweet. 2nd the carrot cake, more of just a spice cake, also very dry, minimal flavor. Nothing about this cupcake tasted or smelled like carrot cake except the carrot drawn with icing. 3rd the vanilla rum, I had high hopes for this one based on the description of it. Again very spongy and dry, no flavor. This one was supposed to have a custard filling, there was a pea size amount of custard in the top of the cupcake. The almonds on top had the most flavor. 4th up and by far the worst the chocolate fudge, this one was topped with canned frosting if I had to guess Duncan Hines milk chocolate, so it at least tasted somewhat as a chocolate cupcake should. Unfortunately the cake part was as if you took a boxed cake mix and left out the eggs and oil. These cupcakes are not something myself or my family would crave, but if you are not looking for flavor or a good tasting cupcake then this place is for you!! As for myself and my family we will not be back. I hope this...

Short version: Lots of cupcake and cookie varieties. Reasonably priced. Good, fresh, moist cupcakes. I'll go again.

Longer version: While my wife visited Michael's "for just a moment" (read: At least 30 minutes), I and my two tween children visited Cupcake Craving.

The kids both got chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. There were several versions of chocolate with chocolate to choose from and my children, being rugged individualists, both chose the most basic version. (Kids. What are you going to do?) Neither of them would let me share their cupcakes, so I can only pass on their reviews: a thumbs up from my son and a "really good" from my daughter.

I got a maple bacon cupcake. I'm going to nitpick at it a bit, but it was good. I will definitely go back to try other flavors, but I probably won't order this one again. I'd expected the cupcake to be maple, but it was (or seemed to be) vanilla. It was a good cupcake, moist and not cumbly, but it wasn't maple. It had lots of bacon bits. That should be a positive, but the inside bacon was very limp and chewy and kind of flavorless. Not bad, but not great. The top was iced with a delicious maple ganache sprinkled with bacon bits. The icing was fabulous. The bacon, unlike the inside bacon, was more jerky than crispy. Good bacon flavor, just hard to eat. I can't fault them too much for this. Almost every maple bacon donut I've ever had has the same problem putting crispy bits in moist pastries. Like I said, it was good, just not what I'd hoped.

But I will go try some other flavors next time. Definitely somewhere...

So far the worst cupcakes I've tasted. Very thick and dense like a store bought muffin. The frosting and buttercreams were made great. I tried the Banana cupcake that was supposed to be stuffed with Caramel but when I cut it in half The cupcake was so thick the caramel was barely there. It was about less than a penny size and hard instead of a soft caramel. It may also be that the cucakes were served so cold almost frozen and that hardened their caramel. I also tried Maple Bacon cupcake, that was possible the worst. It was so dry and crumbly and had bacon bits all through out the cupcake. It was really really bad. I gave it to my 6 yr old and he just threw it away. And I bought the coconut praline which had no frosting only topped with toasted coconut. The cupcake was so dry and hard to swallow. I took one bite and had to throw it away. Im not writing this review to be mean, I am writing this in hopes that the baker reads this. I would look into improving the batter used to make the cupcakes. They should be light moist and fluffy. When I dig my fork into it, it should be effortless. Somehow They are coming out waay to thick and dry. I would also look into the fridge that you have them displayed in the front and make sure you are storing them at the proper temperature to avoid freezing them or serving them too cold. That can change the tastevas well. Wish you the best...