New York City Vegan Cupcake Party

The Power Players: Chocolate cupcakes from Babycakes, Lifethyme, Terri's and Champs.

With a panel of six omnivores, we tasted and reviewed all four of these lovely cupcakes.

Surprisingly, the Babycakes selection turned out to be the Bill O'Reilly of cupcakes. A unanimous complaint was dry, crumbling cake. An unpleasant aftertaste was noted by one reviewer.  (Monica's note:  I'm slightly biased toward Babycakes since they were the first vegan bakery cupcake I had ever had and they were heavenly.  However, this time the cake was a little drier than I remember.  Don't count them out though because they have delicious baked goods.)

Quotables:
"Good mouth feel."
"Dry and crumbly.  Frosting ok, but a little greasy."
"Pretty presentation"
"Taste was good - very chocolatey"
"I liked the cake better than the frosting, which was kind of thin." (Our fault on the frosting, we didn't keep it in the refrigerator.)
"Good amount of frosting."
"Did not fall apart but not as moist as I wanted."
"Cake good, firm and moist"

Terri's cupcake, a chocolatey coffee flavored cake with a vanilla frosting.  We got some mixed reviews on this one.  Some people thought the cake was bland, others liked it.  Some thought the frosting was too sweet, others said it wasn't sweet enough.

So here are some quotables:
"Moist cake and good consistency"
"Frosting not sweet enough"
"Frosting good texture and stiffness, confusing flavor"
"It was easy to bite into"
"Frosting much sweeter - good to me!"
"Good frosting to cake ratio"


The Lifethyme cupcake was unfortunately destroyed by poor handling during transit (Tara quote: "I effed up.") Tasters recoiled at the frosting, which was said by the majority to be the flavor and consistency of mayonnaise.

Appearance aside (and they did look amazing at the store before Tara got her hands on them), these were delicious cupcakes.  The cake was really good, however the frosting was a little iffy.

Quotes:
"The texture was nice of the cake"
"Frosting was kind of funky"
"Cake was really good."
"Best cake so far."

Hooray for Champs, swooping in at the last minute to delight everyone! The cake was richly chocolate and moist. The frosting was a light, refreshing vanilla (as taster Natasha noted, "Frosting was the bomb.com.").

This cupcake definitely got the best reception.  A slightly denser cake than the other three with a delicious wonderfully textured frosting.

One review card said, "moist cake, flavorful frosting, cake to frosting ratio perfect."  Pretty much sums it up.

Some more quotes:
"Great frosting - texture + taste"
"Best all around"
"Nice presentation"
"Best non-normal cupcake ever" (I'm assuming that a compliment from a non vegan.)