Cupcake Jones

So…on the way back from Portland today, we stopped at Cupcake Jones. Seriously, does anyone expect me to go somewhere and not visit the local cupcakery? We went there on our engagement trip and LOVED the cupcakes we got that day: Root Beer Float for James and Chocolate Covered Pretzel for me.

We got an assortment:

Downtown Cupcake Brown: delicious devil’s food cake filled with sour cream chocolate ganache topped with fresh grated dark chocolate.
Pearl: white velvet cake filled with vanilla bean pastry cream, topped with vanilla bean buttercream icing and a hand made white chocolate pearl (we got the mini, so no filling)
Raspberry Truffle: chocolate cake filled with chocolate raspberry ganache, topped with raspberry buttercream, chocolate shavings, and a raspberry (also a mini, so no filling)
What’s Up Doc: moist carrot cake filled with vanilla bean pastry cream topped with cream cheese icing and a hand made candied carrot
Chocolate Chip Cookie: fluffy brown sugar chocolate chip cake filled with chocolate chip cookie dough, topped with vanilla bean buttercream and a homemade chocolate chip cookie
Pupcakes: apple and oat cupcakes for the puppies!

The review so far:

The puppies loved the pupcakes. I don’t think this means much since they also lick their butts, but they have said, “No” to treats before.
Downtown Cupcake Brown: The cake part was a bit dry. I didn’t like the sour cream chocolate ganache. The chocolate icing was good.
Chocolate Chip Cookie: So far, I’ve only had a mini, but there’s a big one with filing waiting on me. The cake was good: moist, not dry. The icing didn’t have much taste. Update 7/13/09: Today I ate the big one with the filling. The cake was fairly moist, but the filling was dry. It kindof tasted like cookie dough, but was a little dry. I know they can’t put raw dough in a cupcake, so I don’t know what I was expecting.
What’s Up Doc?: YUMMY! flakes of carrot and dots of spices were visible in the moist cake. The icing was “perfection” according to James. I thought it could have more cream cheese flavor. The stuff in the middle was just okay according to him. I ate a mini and it was really nice.
Pearl: Plain, plain, plain.
Raspberry: This review courtesy of James: Dry cake, but good frosting.