'The Cupcake Bakery' Cupcakes Review
Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8:51AM 
Custard Tumble cupcake $4.50
Daniel teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;
Greetings! Welcome to the first, of hopefully many more reviews of Dan and Eliza’s to be featured on The Lone Baker.
To start us off, we decided to visit one of ‘The Cupcake Bakery’ stores, inside Melbourne Central.
Okay, no lies here… this was an extremely embarrassing experience… firstly, I was way too indecisive to actually place the order for the cupcakes, and had to ask Eliza to kindly ‘do the honours’. This was an entertaining decision, as I was privileged enough to hear Elly awkwardly ‘Fumble’ around with the Cupcake names ;)
As I handed the bakery employee the money however, thinking I had given her a $20 note, I stood, and stared at her waiting for my change for a substantial amount of time. I was asked strangely if I wanted anything else, to which I replied; ‘My change would be good’. An awkward pause, and some puzzled moments of following explanation revealed that I had indeed given her the EXACT change… The Cupcake Bakery’s staff are kind, willing to laugh, and joke. We found this out quickly!
I did mostly enjoy the cupcakes, for aesthetic reasons at least. The shop window revealed quite a vast selection of ‘butter frosting swirled’, ‘glittery’ and ‘ridiculously chocolate-y (in a good way!) cakes, all of which leaving the customer a very strong desire to scoff down some cupcakes fast.
Elly and I selected 3 to taste test, ‘Red Velvet’, ‘Vanilla Strawberry’, and the ‘Custard Fumble’- I mean, ‘Custard Tumble’, which was a decadent cake from the stores more ‘deluxe’ range, with a debatably difficult to read label in front of the product.
red velvet, strawberry vanilla & custard tumble
-So, this spot right here, was initially where I was to have my cupcake review. Though, due to self-consciousness and fear of having the ‘inferior’ review of the two, I have stepped down and given Eliza this position. But in all seriousness, hers was naturally way better than mine, and covered everything awesomely. Thanks! :P
Eliza teenage friend of the the teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but in the case of The Cupcake Bakery’s window display of all their different styles of cakes, it was hard not to. A good five minutes were spent by Dan and I just looking at and admiring the fancy little treats. The Vanilla Strawberry cupcake, topped with a swirl of icing and pretty pink sugar, and the Red Velvet with its colourful cake and cute-as-a-button, heart-topped icing looked so good I wanted to hang them from a necklace or smear them on a T-shirt, or something equally as unorthodox. While the pièce de résistance of our cupcake quest, the Custard Tumble (or the Custard ‘Fumble’ as I incorrectly read AND ordered) with its miniature mountain of profiteroles and caramel sauce looked so good you wanted to eat it… which I guess was the point.
vanilla strawberry $3.50
And the icing and decorations certainly didn't disappoint when it came to eating it; but while the icing didn’t, the cakes themselves did. The Vanilla Strawberry cupcake was a nice enough vanilla buttercake, but its ‘strawberry filling’ was really nothing more than a dollop of strawberry jam on top of the cake- more of which was on my half than on Dan’s. But to be fair, I’m sure The Cupcake Bakery hadn’t anticipated a pair of teenagers buying a bunch of cupcakes and dividing them in half for one another using an expired metcard, and purposely put more on my half.
metcard; public transport ticket & makeshift cupcake divider
Who would have known, though, that the quaint little Red Velvet cupcake was meant to be a ‘red coloured chocolate cake’?
I certainly didn’t. To be honest, I just thought it was ‘red’ flavour at the time, and it wasn’t until a few days later that Dan pointed out to me that it was meant to be chocolate. You couldn’t have picked it. I didn't. The Red Velvet was the only cupcake of the three we tasted that I really had a problem with. Again, my half was fine, but when I tasted some of the larger half that Dan snuck for himself, there was something horribly bitter about it. It was almost as if there was an ingredient that shouldn’t have been there, or the baking soda wasn’t mixed in properly. It didn’t make the whole thing overly appetizing. It did look really cute though.
inside a red velvet cupcake
Then there was the Custard ‘Fumble’. This little slab of decadence kind of proved to be a bitch to cut in two using our metcard-knife, and most of the toppings ended up smeared on my leg. Beneath the pile of choux pastry, there was a concealed pool of custard embedded into the top of the cake, which I guess is where the ‘custard’ part of the name comes in. Like all the others, though, the garnishes on the cupcake turned out to be better than the actual cake itself. The ‘vanilla almond buttercake’ was really no different to the vanilla buttercake of the Vanilla Strawberry cupcake, and nothing extremely special. The mini profiteroles and caramel sauce made the $4.50 paid for the cupcake all worthwhile though.
review & photos; Eliza Nicoll & Daniel Paxton-Zahra
The Cupcake Bakery can be found at...
shop GD006, Menzies Lane, Melbourne Central, La Trobe Street, Melbourne
Reader Comments (2)
Very nice reviews you two... well done! Eliza, I think you have a particular gift for food review !!!
Loved the review - I never knew the met card had so many uses, it made me laugh out loud - Thanks Jen