for he's a jolly good fellow
for he's a jolly good fellow!
that nobody can deny.
april 26 marked my 29th birthday and my wonderful cnet'ers descended en masse around 3pm with 2 big boxes of cupcakes and rousing, jolly song.
the cupcakes were from kara's cupcakes, a pretty new joint in the marina on scott street at chestnut. jen mchugh was gracious enough to pick up the cupcakes on her way to work and thank you jen! these were some amazing cupcakes. and i love carrot cake. love carrot cake. love it.
there won't be a comparison because all 2 dozen gooey morsels of veggie-turned-sweets were of the carrot cake variety. no complaints here. but seeing as people loved the recent cupcake showdown, i thought i'd provide a detailed analysis of these delicious things.
visual analysis
it's very small but has an impressive amount of frosting to cake ratio. the cake rises about 1.5" tall while the frosting is 1" tall itself! the creamy, off-white stuff is piped on with a large round tip bag, and includes a candy wafer of sorts as the topper. upon close inspection, the frosting looks slightly wet, or even greasy, if you will.the cake is a very dark golden brown color and feels dense and hefty. it's wrapped in a standard paper cup.
cake analysis
the 1st bite is tough to take because there's so much frosting. but, it's a good one. extremely moist with plump and juicy dark raisins as well as pineapple melted into it (i think). you get strong hits of pumpkin spice, then a slight brown/bitter flavor, finished off by little walnut crumbles. it's a very complex cake with several layers of flavor and texture, much more like a dense, moist bread. interestingly, texture is more crumbly that expected, especially given how moist it is. you can't help but get icing all over your lips. it's all a bit messy. the cake was also mildly burnt on the bottom. this i understand, as it's difficult to get carrot cake cooked correctly. the batter is so dense and packed with ingredients, it's hard to get the inside to set fully without burning the outer layer.
frosting analysis
now this has an interesting texture to it. when touched, it feels spongy, similar to how marshmallow cream has a bounce to it. but when you bite into it, it literally melts away. very light and fluffy but with a pronounced greasy feel on the lips. sweet and buttery notes are blended well with cream cheese. when eaten with the cake, the sweetness complements the other flavors. kara's frosting does lose a few points because i found some sugar grains in it, causing a slight gritty feeling in the mouth. perhaps the sugar wasn't blended properly? but on the positive side it doesn't affect flavor at all. and you would never notice the difference if you eat both cake and icing together.
in summary, this was an excellent cupcake. sweet, moist, carroty, cream cheesy, just wonderfully well done. i recommend it whole heartedly and i think kara's cupcakes will do quite well.
thank you everyone for celebrating my birthday with me!!
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3 comments:
woot for bday boy!
I concur! The carrot cupcakes were delish. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of carrot cake unless the cake is super-moist and flavorful, and the icing is super-rich and cream-cheesy. Kara's were all of the above. The way I dealt with the cake-to-icing ratio was to remove about 3/4 of the cake from the bottom, eat it, and then devour the remaining iced 1/4 cake top. Separating the two was relatively easy since the cake was so moist, it didn't crumble at all in the process.
So, Lawrence, I have to ask -- what kind of camera are you using for these photos? It really does a great job. That close up of the partially-eaten cupcake definitely qualifies as "food porn."
great question laura! i actually use a canon powershot digital elph sd600. the camera, while not hardcore slr-inspired, has enough bells and whistles and strong enough pixel rendering to satisfy my use. it's a great camera for the above average user and an excellent value at only $250. it's nice and slim as well.
when i take pictures at home, such as the plated dinners, the subject is placed directly under halogen lighting (my dining room chandelier) and i take shots on the auto setting with no flash. close up shots are taken with the macro setting on. the big thing is avoidng camera shake and unfortunately the sd600 doesn't have image stablization. you need to fork out another couple hunderd for that. i've tried fiddling around with the manual settings (iso, exposure, etc.) but haven't found the right setting. plus i tend to forget which were good settings or not. oh well.
the cupcake closeup in this post is auto, macro, no flash, flourescent light. i got lucky there. =)
so yes, i recommend canons over most cameras, although competitors are getting closer to the canon standard in image rendering at value pricing. the one qualm i constantly hear (and have experienced myself) is canons tend to break down easily. oh, and the flash tends to be too strong in most cases. which is why i don't use it most of the time. but i still love my canon. i bought the exact same camera after losing it while snowboarding in january. =)
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