Ta-Da!

FINALLY! Things to post. I just noticed that I've made it a pattern to start each blog with an exclamation. Huh.

Mom and I went hunting for cupcakes last Friday. We drove all over the west side of Portland (pretty much...) and ended up in Beaverton at Bliss Cupcakes. Or Cupcake Bliss. Not really sure which way it went. ;)

The shop owner was very, very nice. She even showed me the cupcake of my dreams displayed in their window. It was the size of a baby watermelon. It sure looked amazingly scrumptious for $30. I ended up trying just one bite-sized red velvet cupcake.

Wasn't very good. Not really at all.

To be honest, it was pretty bland. I'm a big red velvet fiend and it's really hard to find an absolutely delectable red velvet cake made by others. This just wasn't up to par.

Our next stop was almost scratched off the list due to awful construction happening on Glisan downtown, preventing us from easily reaching Saint Cupcake. Well...really there is no SUPER easy way getting there. All those one-way streets make it almost impossible not to get frustrated trying to reach the building and then find parking. (Joke was on us. Turns out there's another location on the East side of Portland on Belmont, MUCH closer to home. GRRR!)

When we arrived at the perfectly pleasant pink bakery, a Land Rover pulled away from the curb leaving the best parking space available open for us. "A Good omen," Mom said.

However, I didn't take it as a good sign when the first thing I smelled outside of the car was burnt cake. Still, about five families showed up right as we did and all bolted for the front door at once. We made our way inside the bustling shop and followed the commotion.

Inside was an L shaped counter with about 14 different flavors of cupcakes sitting behind a plexi-glass shield. All beautifully decorated with fun flourishes. Since there were so many people shouting out orders to the various workers, when it was my turn, I simply said I wanted to try one small size of each cupcake on the long side of the L. (Ten of them it turns out.) We were in and out in about six minutes, tops.

From the top, left to right: Hot Fudge on Chocolate, Chocolate Buttercream on Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Lemon Berry, Red Velvet, the Malt Ball, Coconut, Hot Fudge on Vanilla, Buttercream on Vanilla, and Buttercream on Chocolate.

Easily, without a doubt the best out of this bunch was the red velvet and the malt ball. The Malt Ball was simply amazing to put it lightly. To some it may sound like too much, but really, it's not. A cupcake infused with maltballs topped with chocolate buttercream frosting and chopped malt balls... twas divine. The red velvet also blew me away. Like I said before, it's hard to find a really good red velvet cake. And this my friends, was a really good red velvet cake. Shane and I both agreed these two were keepers.

The rest of the flavors were about 50/50 on which I'd recommend to try for fun. The coconut was actually very good- Even Shane liked it and he hates coconut.

From there we went down a few blocks to Cupcake Jones. I'd heard very, very good things about this place so I had high hopes. A lot of their cupcakes are filled with various flavors of ganache. They were only offering 6 flavors on this particular day so I again, ordered one of each in the small size.

From the top, left to right: Downtown Cupcake Brown, Grasshopper, Mocha Mudslide, The Pearl, Lime in the Coconut, and Velvet Painting.

These flavors were quite different from any I'd had from Saint Cupcake. Shane raved about the Downtown Cupcake Brown (Devil's food cake filled with sour cream chocolate ganache, topped with rich fudge icing and hand shaved chocolate). The Pearl (White velvet cake filled with vanilla bean pastry cream, topped with vanilla bean buttercream icing.) was equally as amazing. We split the two in half and savored each bite.

Yet...again, we settled on the red velvet being the best. Between the two, Cupcake Jones probably takes the cake on this one. (Har har, get it? ;p) Both cake and frosting were equally tasty.

As for a decision, I'm not sure. Debating on making them all myself because simply, it would be a LOT cheaper. We shall see what our budget allows though.

Shane and I discussed having a small cake at the top of a tier of cupcakes. And like every great cake, there's a great cake topper. Now we talked about this detail in particular quite a few times. We agreed we didn't want to be traditional or boring. (It's a little hard to find an action figure-sized interracial couple that looks like us...) Looking around online, I found some great pictures of video game and cartoon themed wedding cakes that looked brilliant. Very non-traditional in a traditional sort of way. After showing them to Shane, we both got really excited about this aspect and started brainstorming ideas. And this is what we've come up with:

Characters from the Japanese anime series Bleach. I'm going to end up painting the guys' hair though to match Shane's and maybe add some little flourishes here and there on them just so they match the bridal party somewhat. :p Should be fun!!

So there you have it!! Not exactly an adventure but there's an update. :)