High on Sugar, Short on Bliss: Sinful Bliss Cupcakes Review

I did not bake this weekend.

Why?  Because I was eating ALL the things, of course.  Yes literally ALL the things.  I had things to do, people to see, sweets to consume, pounds to gain.  And it looks like this weekend will be a repeat. Crap.  And now that it is officially Spring in the Bay there are just so many festivals and fairs and gorgeous sunshiney Sunday mornings to take advantage of!  (Take advantage is code for having me stuff my face while you live vicariously through me.)

Later this week I hope to bring you crepes, creme brulee, ice cream sundaes and  ice cream sandwich cookies.  But today.. .a review! The review is for Sinful Bliss Cupcakes in Pleasant Hill, CA.

This place is pretty close to me.  Close enough that I pass by it when I go to the movie theater or Michaels.  Close enough that friends and acquaintances will check-in or Facebook pictures of the cupcakes. I'd even yelped them to see if they were worth investing my oh co carefully allocated calories on.  But I had yet to go despite them being around since 2012/2011ish.  But last Wednesday I took a friend there for a post-dinner treat. Or at least I had hoped it would have been a treat...

The shop is in the middle of Crescent Plaza, next door to a frozen yogurt place.  I love the little canopy on top.  So much promise!

Once inside, there is the register and display place.  Behind the register is this cute little wall decal that welcomes you and encourages you to eat cupcakes.  Like that's needed...

On the right hand wall, there are black frames with the menu and pricing.  Cupcakes are $3.25 and minis are $2 each.  They also announce specials of the day and month.

The cupcake display is pretty solid.  There is lots to choose from.  Lots.  I spent a good five minutes taking pictures and debating what I would get. Not only is there good variety but almost all, if not all, of the flavors are available in the mini size!

We ended up with four in our little box.

Red Velvet, Salted Caramel, Raspberry and Coconut Macaroon. 

I didn't try the Red Velvet since it was for a friend, but the sugar crystals on top of the cream cheese frosting really deterred me from wanting to try it anyways.  The amount of sugar should have been a sign!

I had the raspberry which I did not take a picture of because I put it in my mouth too fast.  Oops.  I like food, okay?  The cake was good, it had chunks of raspberry in it which I loved, but the cake was not super moist.  It wasn't dry either though, it just... was.   The frosting part.was pure sugar.  Way way too much sugar.  I usually like to scrape off half the frosting anyways, but in this case I HAD to.  The frosting was also a little dry. 

The Coconut Macaroon was actually a pretty huge divergence in what I would normally get.  But i got it because I am trying new things.  I am not a fan of coconut, but I am giving it a try!  And actually the toasted coconut part of the cupcake was not that bad at all.  I think I will explore this coconut thing a  little more in the future.  The part that was bad... was again the sweetness. The caramel PLUS the frosting was too much.  I could barely taste the chocolate.  And if I can't taste the chocolate?  Well, then there is a serious problem!! At least it looked pretty?

My friend for the salted caramel.  He liked the salt/caramel and said the cake was fine... but he had the same reaction to the frosting; TOO SWEET.  CupKate's version of the Salted Caramel is on chocolate cake and the first time I ate one, I had to rethink all I knew about cupcakes.  That was not his reaction.  Or even close to it...

So would I recommend this place to a friend?  No, not when Kara's is one town over.  Or when you can stalk CupKates. (I also tried a new place that I have yet to blog about that is amazing and might be beating out my CupKate truck as new favorite. But more on that one later.) 

Would I come back?   Maybe. If I was next door, and really wanted a cupcake and the flavor of the month looked interesting and someone else was paying for it and they happened to be a hot guy with abs. 

What?  Could totally happen. 

xoxo,
Anna

OMG Froyo and Cupcakes Under One Roof: Smallcakes Review

Yes, a cupcake will always help.

We all know I have a sweet tooth.  So when I am trying to be good and want that sugary sweetness, instead of cupcakes or cookies I try and do fro yo instead.  (Fro yo for those of you who live under the saddest rock in the whole wide world is frozen yogurt.  I like frequenting the more asian-y owned businesses that have fun flavors, exotic fruits and mochi.)

Frozen Yogurt is totally healthy. It's like 100 calories for 1/2 a cup.  But I get like a whole cup.. and a half.  With enough add ons to have a caloric total of one million.  So "healthy" is really all in my head.  In any case, I love me some fro yo.

So imagine my surprise and intrigue when my friend Katie who lives in Fremont told me about a place nearby that was a fro yo shop... and ALSO sold cupcakes.  This was mind blowing.  How does this work?  I had to find out how.

So Sunday afternoon we headed over to the small cupcakery which is in front of the Pacific Commons Shopping Center in Fremont.  The reason that it called to Katie in the first place was not only the joint fro yo cupcake store front but because it also had signs everywhere saying Smallcakes had been on the Food Network, the View and the MTV Music Awards.

Turns out Smallcakes is a popular Cupcakery out of Kansas who has begun to franchise.  And they were on the first seasons of Cupcake Wars!  It appears that in California these franchises are a duo between Fresh Berry Frozen Yogurt Cafe and Smallcakes.  Which makes more sense why you can buy cupcakes where you eat your froyo.

Basically how it works is that you walk in and first thing you see is their display of cupcakes behind a little glass case.

They change the flavors each day.

They have a list though, of what days you can get each flavor.  I like that.  Variety is good. :) 

The rest of the store is set up like a regular fro yo bar, with the machines against the wall and a topping bar that leads you to the register.

Really if it wasn't for the cupcake display and the huge signs, you'd have no idea about the cupcakes that are baked daily within.



They have minis, but i did not realize this until after I ordered a whole big one.  I'll have to ask beforehand next time!

Katie got a Red Velvet Cupcake with a huge mound of cream cheese frosting.

I had her eat it slowly so she could decide whether or not it was good.  This is her contemplating just that.

I tried it as well -- even though i do not actually like red velvet (I KNOW I KNOW IM HORRIBLE.)

The verdict was that the cake was really good.  It was so moist.  The frosting was a little meh though.

After a serious 5 minute deliberation in which the guy behind the counter learned to hate me, I chose a carrot cake cupcake with just as much frosting.

Seriously though, the carrot cake was BOMB.  (Do people still say that?)  I mean, I know that I am going to get a cupcake when i have it in my hand and its like a brick.  LOL.  Heavy means baked with love?   You can definitely tell that the cake is freshly baked that day.  No but really. IT WAS SO GOOD.  I want to know exactly what was in it.  The nuts on top were fantastic too.  I love a crunch in my sweets.

This was the same frosting as the red velvet so it still got a meh.  Too sweet for my taste.  As you can see below, I literally scraped 75% of it off.

Despite the frosting though, IT WAS SO GOOD.  I think the base cupcake was better than CupKates or Cakeo.  Alas, that overly sweet frosting!   

However, they definitely got points for their packaging.  I'm a sucker for that stuff. 

Speaking of which, I found this cupcakery in Los Angeles who's decor and packaging is beyond adorable and I want nothing more than to drive down there and eat me some cake.  Its called Frosted and it  is officially on my things to do in 2012.  Just wait and see.

xoxo,

Anna

P.S.  In case you were wondering, no I did not have fro yo too.  And to answer the follow up question, yes I did want to have some on the side.