So the carrot ginger cupcakes seemed to be popular at work today. I had reports that the cream cheese icing was a bit too sweet. I can adjust that. The candied carrot strips were a hit. YAY! The ones that sat overnight on the silicone mat on my counter actually dried quite nicely and were tasty by themselves today. I need to get a screen or something to dry them on for better air circulation.
Tonight I made a carrot ginger cupcake with cream cheese icing. I attempted to candy some carrot strips for decoration, but don’t think I cooked them long enough. I’ve never made candy before, so I’m not sure about how to do that….
So I tried the White Chocolate Wasabi cupcake at Yellow Leaf today. Beautiful cupcake. The light purple plum icing and light green wasabi cupcake were very soothing together….like a lavender plant in bloom. There was a tiny hint of wasabi in the cake, just enough to tell there was something “not sweet” in there. The icing was delicately flavored with sugar crystals sprinkled over it to add a bit of crunch.
Mr Shuck had the Root Beer float. This was also a very mild tasting cupcake. Only a hint of root beer in the cupcake. (Good for me as I don’t like root beer, but then it wasn’t my cupcake.) Icing was scooped on top and tasted like vanilla ice cream. The chocolate (?) straw added some whimsy.
Unfortunately for Yellow Leaf, I had another French Toast cupcake. It wasn’t as amazingly delicious as I remembered, so it was KNOCKED OFF the Top 5 list and replaced with Trophy’s Strawberry Lemonade. I don’t know what I was thinking….
Photos to come shortly.
click photo to enlarge
Mentioned today:
So, I got the pictures from un-reviewed Yellow Leaf visit.
Ginger Tea: Excellent. Fresh ginger zinginess. Usually Yellow Leaf’s icing isn’t that flavorful, but the ginger icing was. The flavor reminded me of Hagen Daz Five Ice Cream: Ginger. Creamy and ginger-y is very unexpected. Coincidentally, Mr Shuck’s shirt was the same color. This one makes it to the top 5!
Boston Cream: Vanilla cake is always good at Yellow Leaf, but the vanilla icing is pretty tasteless. This could use more chocolate than the thin layer on top. Also not enough of custard filling. It was okay, but not great.
Dulce de Leche: I haven’t decided how I feel about this one. The filling was very significant and tasted like the canned dulce de leche: a slight burnt taste, extremely sweet. The icing had a mild caramel flavor.
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So, I was at Yellow Leaf AGAIN today. Wednesday will probably be my usual day for cupcakes since Mr Shuck is downtown. The earlier visit was due to guests in town. That’s how I am justifying this anyway. That’s part of the whole addiction, right? I’m not denying that I have a problem….
Tiramisu: Yellow cake with some liquor flavor that neither Mr Shuck nor I could identify. Marsala wine is apparently traditional for tiramisu, but I don’t think I could recognize it anyway. There was a tiny bit of espresso flavored filling. The cupcake was topped with (I assume) a marscapone icing dusted with espresso/cocoa powder. It was a good one!
Vanilla Toffee: As always, Mr Shuck and I loved the vanilla cake. The scoop of icing is simple and rests on a nice crunchy layer on top of the cake, I assume from toffee chips sprinkled on before baking. There is a great contrast in textures between the firm cake, the crunchy and almost sticky toffee chips and the silky icing.
Strawberry Macaroon: Coconut flavored cake with lightly flavored strawberry Italian butter-cream sprinkled with coconut flakes. There was a bit of a strawberry cake layer, but I’m not sure if it was intentional or if the icing soaked in a little…
Chocolate Cookies and Cream: Devils food cake with cookie bits dipped in chocolate topped with a scoop of icing and half a chocolate filled Oreo®. Also a textural party going on between the crisp cookie bits and creamy icing. Yellow Leaf’s chocolate icing reminds me of chocolate ice cream.
As always, if you click on the picture, you can see a larger version.
We were in Yellow Leaf today with my aunt and uncle who were visiting. Flavors tasted: Ginger Tea, Boston Cream, and Dulce de Leche. More information on these flavors to come….I had to use my aunt’s camera so I have to wait for her to send me the photos.
Fortunately, my aunt was chatty with the owner and baker, so we got information on upcoming flavors. We also got to taste the frosting for the Breast Cancer Awareness cupcake for September and October: cherry pomegranate. I normally don’t like anything pomegranate, but this was good. Other flavors to come: a wasabi cupcake dipped in white chocolate with a plum frosting. Sounds interesting. I am also looking forward to sweet potato for Halloween.
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So, there was really only one “cupcake” in the bunch of treats, but they were so cute, I had to post.
We (Mr Shuck, Mrs Shuck, and the 3 canine Shucks) took a walk down to a new doggie boutique, West Seattle Dawg, to check them out. Dayna (I think) helped us and was very friendly. The dog treats were very reasonable for dog-bakery items. We got 2 plastic to-go containers (about the size of an old Big Mac box) for a little over $10. She also gave us substantial samples in store of their doggie ice cream. I wish I had taken a photo: bone shaped yogurt bars topped with whipped “cream” and bacon bits. So cute. The dogs loved them, even though they were a bit difficult for them to eat since the plastic bowls kept sliding around on the floor. When we got home we discovered that she had put a bag of doghouse shaped crunchy treats in as well.
The review from the dogs: 4 paws up! As soon as they hear the plastic clamshell open, they go CRAZY! I opened a cupcake container from Yellow Leaf and they almost attacked thinking it was for them.
My hard drive issues came before cupcakes for a couple of days. I was very grateful for new Yellow Leaf cupcake flavors whilst I was restoring my computer to as close to normal as it can be.
Strawberry Lemonade: I like Trophy’s Strawberry Lemonade better, but Yellow Leaf’s is Very good. The cake is fairly dense with a good texture. The interior photo shows that well. 2 different layered cake flavors is nice. The icing isn’t as strongly flavored as Trophy’s, but Yellow Leaf’s icing has a nice silky feel. The lemon icing wasn’t as flavorful as the strawberry, which was very fruity.
White Chocolate Pretzel: This is probably my second favorite Yellow Leaf flavor and one of my favorite cupcakes so far. My palate is not as sophisticated as it could be, so I don’t know if it was white chocolate cake or vanilla. Either way, it was delicious. There was a layer of white chocolate gluing some pretzel bits directly on top of the cake, then pretzels mixed with white chocolate icing on the top. I love the mix of sweet and salty and the contrast of crunchy pretzel with silky smooth icing.
Black Forest: Was just okay. Chocolate cake with cherry glaze topped with icing. I think of Black Forest as very cherry/chocolate. This one seemed like chocolate cake with vanilla icing. Not much cherry flavor.
Chocolate Orange: I didn’t like this one, but James did. Chocolate cake layered with orange cake topped chocolate glaze then orange icing. The orange tasted a bit artificial.
Some people might choose to drink when presented with stress. I fortunately have a husband who brought me home cupcakes. 6 lovely little cakes from The Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company. Today’s selection:
White Chocolate Pretzel
Chocolate Orange
Black Forest
Carrot (for him)
Strawberry-Lemonade
Chocolate Toffee (a repeat, but a good one!)
Reviews and photos to follow.
So, I called Yellow Leaf today to see what flavors they had for the day. Mr Shuck was 2 blocks away volunteering, so I called him to see if he’d pick me up a Mexican Chocolate cupcake. He agreed. I thought about it ALL DAY. I got in the car at the end of the day and was told he forgot! I still love him. Since I was in the cupcake mood (when am I not?), we stopped off at Coffee to a Tea in West Seattle to see what Sugar Rush had to offer for the day. I chose a vanilla cupcake filled with chocolate mousse and dipped in chocolate ganache.
My review: Extremely cute cupcake. I loved the little flowers. Very “Life is Good“. The ganache frosting was lovely. (I actually think the description said that it was truffle dipped.). The chocolate mousse inside was creamy, but tasted a lot like J-ello chocolate pudding. The cake was spongey. I don’t think I like the texture of sponge cake. I would eat it again if it was presented to me, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to purchase one.
Rating: ♥♥
The Cupcake Addict's Cupcake Collection 