Cupcakes:The Good, The Bad and the Just Too Cute

I have been eyeing these "Fancy Cupcakes" at the local Whole Foods market grocery store for quite some time. These are works of art. There have been nests filled with eggs, flowers, roses, animals, fish..you name it, they've made it out of icing on top. So today I gave in and bought three: a rose for me, a fish for my kids and a pig for my husband (yes a pig for my husband lol).

While I was at my PTO meeting my husband had his and told me that it was the worst cupcake he ever had (he refused to eat his pig and ate the fish instead). I thought, how could this be possible??? These must taste good they must!!! For once, I'm going to have to agree with my husband. The icing was more butter than cream. It had an ok flavor, but it literally felt like I was biting into a stick of butter. Not the right texture you want in a good buttercream. The cake part of this cupcake was the driest, least flavorful piece of cake I have ever had! I really expected something from Whole Foods to be of much higher quality than this. And, for $2.99 per cupcake, I really expected it to taste really good. I was very very upset...but ate it anyway lol.

My first advice here: stay away from Whole Foods Fancy Cupcakes. If you have a Wegman's store near you, go there and get one of their cupcakes. I know not many of you have a Wegman's near you as it is a limited East coast chain. But, a week ago I ate lunch there (great Chinese food at Wegman's) and bought a "personal cupcake" I saw at the food bar checkout. It was a beautiful cupcake, piled high with a perfect rose. This one took the cake literally. The buttercream had the perfect light texture and sweet (but not too sweet) taste. The cake was light, fluffy and moist. It just melted in my mouth. I tried to find a photo online but couldn't. Sorry! The "personal cupcake" from Wegman's cost $2 and well worth the money.

Now for the just too cute cupcakes. I just checked my email and got a newsletter from Bonnin Designs, one of the online Indie Jewelry sites. Check out her Jewelry cupcakes:

She's got rings and earrings

She also has a yellow cupcake set as well. They are just too cute and very very creative. The rings sells for $20 and the earrings sell for $29. Since I was talking about cupcakes, I just had to add these to my post. You can find them and the yellow ones at

http://www.bonnindesigns.com