No Need to Chase Down the Truck – The Summer Mint Chocolate Chip “Ice Cream” Cupcake from Yummy Stuff!

“Ice cream man, ice cream man!” *cracks front door open*  “Wait for me, I got money!” *pitter patter, pitter patter; picks up piggy bank and shakes vigorously* “Gimme back my money you PIG!”  Ah, little Michelle Tanner in the episode of Full House where she gets her very first piggy bank and then wrestles with it to get her monies out when the quintessential symbol of summer makes it trip down the street, singing its melodic, happy tune, offering the sweetest, tastiest and frosty, lickably yummy treats.

It’s summer and few things bring a smile to the masses like an ice cream truck!  Popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, sundaes, and mouthwatering soft-serve ice cream cones tantalize the tastebuds during these hot summer months.  I looove ice cream and it’s arguably one of my weaknesses.  Vanilla and chocolate swirl soft serve?  LOVE!  But when you combine ice cream inspiration with CUPCAKES?!  I am nine ways to Sunday ecstatic!  Yummy Stuff, located on Queen Street West in Parkdale just east of Roncesvalles, has done it again this summer with another knockout cupcake for the month of June.

Last June we were treated to an ice cream inspired Neapolitan cupcake: a strawberry filled cupcake frosted with thick, creamy vanilla and chocolate frosting.  It was fun, it was pretty, and it was delicious.  I love Neapolitan ice cream and Neapolitan inspired things.  The colour combination just makes me happy.  This June?  MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP!  And not just ANY mint chocolate chip.  A chocolate fudge cupcake with a nice big “scoop” of mint chocolate chip frosting with actual chocolate chips in it, topped with an adorable, cute-as-a-button mini ice cream cone!  It literally looks like an upside-down ice cream cone on a chocolate cupcake!

The cupcake ($2.75) is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted and it is hands down, one of the cutest and most creative.  I adore Yummy Stuff’s cupcakes and sweets and I only wish their monthly flavours were available all year-round!  It’s so much fun anticipating what flavours Morag and her team will come up with but gosh is it ever a bummer when there’s only a month-long window of time to enjoy it.

You guys have to make your way to the shop, it is an awesome cupcake and it is bang on in presentation and execution.  Their chocolate cupcakes are fabulous and this frosting is to die for.  The chocolate chips make it so fun and yummy and they totally give it some good texture and crunch.  And ME, the girl who used to hate mint chocolate and mint chocolate chip anything and everything devouring a mint chocolate chip cupcake.  It’s crazy!  I love it to pieces and I can honestly say it’s one of the best in the city.  I was “dipping” my mini ice cream cone into the frosting and inhaling the chocolate cake and it was so much fun to eat.

And speaking of making your way to the shop, folks in the east end are now lucky enough to have one in their neighbourhood!  YES, Yummy Stuff has JUST opened their 2nd location in the city and they opened their doors for business on the Danforth for the first time this past weekend!  Even though I made my visit to their Queen West location for this cupcake, I am most certainly planning a trip to the east end location some time this summer!  The 2nd location is smack dab on the Danforth at 1938 Danforth Ave., across the street from East Lynn Park and just a few blocks west of Woodbine Ave., so it’s totally walkable from the subway.  And if you want to make a fun foodie outing, head out to their new location on a Thursday when East Lynn has their farmers’ market from 3pm-7pm.

Congratulations Yummy Stuff!  All the best at the new location and keep making delicious sweets because we love them!  And if I can, I am coming back for another mint chocolate chip cupcake!

*****

Yummy Stuff is located at 1660 Queen Street West in the west end Parkdale neighbourhood, east of Roncesvalles Ave.  They are open Tuesday-Sunday, from 10am-7pm from Tuesday-Friday, 9am-6pm on Saturdays, and 12pm noon-5pm on Sundays.  They are closed on Mondays.

Their *NEW!* 2nd location just opened up at 1938 Danforth Ave., across the street from East Lynn Park, just a few blocks west of Woodbine Ave.  Their hours at the Danforth location are 11am-7pm Tuesday-Friday, 9am-6pm Saturday and 12pm-5pm Sunday.  This location is also closed on Mondays.  Visit their official website here.

The Cupcake Connection, Vol. 008 – Scrumptious New Flavours, Giving Back to the Community & More! Part I

After a good month of macaron munching in March, we’re diving straight back into cupcake mode!  It’s been months since my last Cupcake Connection post and while I’ve continued eating cupcakes (c’mon, it’s ME we’re talking about here), I couldn’t take photos of a few of them (I know, foreshame.  It was late and dark when I was eating them and one of them even got squished!  Very delicious, but so not sexy) and I have a bit of backlog going on with the ones I did take photos of so bear with me while I sort everything out over the next month.

There’s a LOT to catch up on, so much so that it feels overwhelming at times.  So many cupcakes, so little time!  Luckily for me, I have the support of many of my favourite cupcake shops giving me the goods to pass along to all of you so we’ll never be at a loss for great cupcake news.  We have quite a bit to cover (this is Part I of II!) so let’s jump right in and get started!

You’ll Need a Wheelbarrow to Carry All of These – New Flavours and Flavours of the Month

Just when I think I’ve made a little bit of headway in trying the many cupcakes and flavours in Toronto, I get whip-lashed with a whole truckload of new and exciting flavours!  Seriously, it’s 1 step forward, 5 steps back!  But tis the spice of life and I wouldn’t want it any other way because without new fun and creative flavour combinations, the cupcake scene would get boring real fast and that’s the last thing any of us want.  Let’s start with Prairie Girl Bakery.  Talk about busting out the sweet treats!  Prairie Girl has unleashed 7, count ’em, SEVEN new Treats of the Week flavours ($2.95 for regular size, $1.75 for minis) to their rotating menu!  HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL.  These 7 flavours include:

• Blueberries & Cream (Golden Buttermilk Cupcake with a swirl of Real Blueberry Icing and a swirl of Classic Cream Cheese Icing, topped with a Chocolate Blueberry)
• Chocolate Coconut (Dark Cocoa Cupcake with Vanilla Bean Icing topped with Toasted Coconut)
• Chocolate Flake (Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Bean Icing topped with Chocolate Flakes)
• Grasshopper Pie (Dark Cocoa Cupcake with Green Mint Icing topped with Cookie Crumble)
• Malted Milk (Dark Cocoa Cupcake with Malted Milk Icing topped with a Maltesar)
• Neapolitan (Dark Cocoa Cupcake with a swirl of Real Strawberry Icing and a swirl of Vanilla Bean Icing)
• Tiramisu (Golden Buttermilk Cupcake with Tiramisu Icing, Marsala Wine Syrup topped with Chocolate Flakes)

I would inhale all of these, but the ones I am most excited about are the Blueberries & Cream, Grasshopper Pie, and Malted Milk.  Prairie Girl has rolled a few of these out already this month so if you’ve missed them, don’t fret – their Treats of the Week operate on a rotating menu so they’ll always come back and you can know in advance now on their website where they list their upcoming Treats of the Week 4 weeks in advance which I ABSOLUTELY LOVE!

Next on the list?  Yummy Stuff on Queen Street West.  Their April Flavour of the Month ($2.75) is an ultra cool, psychedelic Cherry Almond Cake!  And I do mean psychedelic.  We’re talking bright turquoise vanilla frosting topped with juicy red maraschino cherries on cherry-studded almond cake.  I could float up to cupcake heaven right now.  I LOVE almond baked goods and this sounds and looks amazing (you can check out the photo Yummy Stuff posted on their blog HERE).

Taken in 2009, well before the birth of Ate by Ate! For the Love of Cake’s amazing Lemon Meringue cupcakes.

A little further south you’ll find For the Love of Cake, where they’ve brought back their classic S’mores and my beloved Lemon Meringue cupcakes ($2.65) for the month of April (and if demand is high, possibly for even longer!).  The Lemon Meringue was the very first flavour I tried at For the Love Cake back in 2009 (can you believe it’s been that long?!) and it remains, to this day, one of my favourite cupcakes.  Annnnd speaking of S’mores, my dear  Short & Sweet Cupcakes has added two mouthwatering flavours ($2.90) to their permanent menu on Fridays (Boston Cream!) and Sundays (S’mores!).  It pains me that I haven’t tried either of them yet so let’s hope that I can sink my sweet teeth into at least one of them in the coming months!

And then there’s Dessert Lady in the heart of Yorkville.  They’ve expanded their selection to include 3 NEW flavours ($3):

• Double Chocolate Cupcake with Hazelnut Crunch Buttercream
• Passionfruit Cupcake with Caramelized White Chocolate Buttercream
• Sweet Corn Bacon Cupcake with Salted Caramel Popcorn Buttercream (SAY WHAT?!)

And here I am thinking maple bacon cupcakes were way out there – this 3rd flavour knocks it out of the park!  If you love wild and wacky flavours, especially sweet and savoury combinations, I think you’ve met your match and I dare you to try it and report back!

Community and Cupcake Shops – Giving Back

Cupcake shops are more than just lace and frills.  Many establishments are partnering with different organizations in and around the city to make a difference in their communities.  Prairie Girl Bakery and So Into Cupcakes in Scarborough have both formed relationships with charitable organizations and programs in an effort to help others and to further deepen their growing engagement within the food community.  Prairie Girl Bakery and Second Harvest are joined at the hip via ongoing donations, and are also affiliated with the following causes:

• The Women in Capital Markets/Dress for Success event (https://www.wcm.ca/default.aspx?tabid=10000115&eventid=10000267)
• Parkinson’s Society of Canada Cut-a-Thon (https://www.cutathon.ca/emergency_shutdown.html)
• The Bike for Tykes annual event (http://coasttocoastagainstcancer.org/bft/)
• The Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation fashion show (http://www.wellspring.ca/)

And more recently, So Into Cupcakes has partnered with Toronto’s Fresh City Farms!  I found out about this through their Facebook page and it’s wonderful as more and more people are signing up to have fresh, local, organic produce delivered to their homes.  These memberships not only support our farmers, they provide ongoing support to local food co-ops and local food organizations.

Phew!  That was a lot to get through and we’re not even close to being finished.  Thankfully, there’s always room for Part II so stay tuned for more delicious cupcake news!

The Cupcake Connection, Vol. 007 – My Cup of Cupcake Tea! The Lemon Earl Grey at Desmond & Beatrice and Tea Cupcakes in the City

Certainly my cup of “cupcake” tea!

What’s better than a cupcake with a steaming cup of yummy hot loose leaf tea?  A tea flavoured cupcake with a hot cup of tea!  Or in David’s Tea’s case, a tea modeled after the cupcake and cake (read: Red Velvet Cake, one of the most fantastical things you will ever drink during your lifetime).  The tea and cupcake love is truly reciprocal!  I’ve long dreamt about baking my own green tea white chocolate cupcakes and steeping tea to flavour frostings and cakes alongside pretty cups, pots, and saucers for my own afternoon tea parties.  And after reading Yummy Stuff’s November 1st blog post, I was over the moon: their November cupcake flavours of the month are Earl Grey and Chai latte!  That’s just love on top of more love.  I started mentally going through the month of November, figuring out which weekend I’d be free to swing by for the two cupcakes (that’s right, BOTH.  Go big or go home) and then I thought, “this would be a great time to do a Cupcake Connection on tea cupcakes!” because believe it or not, a number of cupcake bakeries around the city offer cupcakes infused with bold flavours straight out of a cuppa!

One of my favourite, FAVOURITE cupcakes is the lemon and Earl Grey cupcake from Desmond & Beatrice (pictured below).  Oh my goodness is it ever delicious and fantastic.  Their Earl Grey cupcake ($2.75) is tea flavoured in cake and topped with a honey lemon frosting and dusted with pink crystal sugar sprinkles.  It is beautiful and everything you could want in a scrumptious lemon cupcake (this will be going straight to my eventual Flavour Favourites post for lemon cupcakes) and in a tea cupcake.

It’s dainty, it’s sweet, it’s feminine, floral, bright, fresh, and the epitome of afternoon tea elegance.  The flavour and essence is like a cross between the classic floral notes of Earl Grey (even though I know the flavour is derived from the citrusy bergamot, I get more floral than I do citrus from it!) and the sweet lightness and freshness of a honey lemon poppy seed cake.  The cupcake doesn’t have a poppy seeds in it, but it makes me think of poppy seed cake just because.  So, grab a cuppa and sit back and relax as we list cupcakes around the city inspired by the soothing and delicious loose leaf beverage!

• Life is Sweet, 2328 Queen Street East: Earl Grey with Orange Coconut ($2.50) – exactly as the name says!  This sounds absolutely heavenly and I need to have this in my mouth NOW.  Permanent flavour on the menu.
• So Into Cupcakes, 2060 Ellesmere Road: Chai Vanilla Latte ($2.50 for regular size, $1.50 for mini) – vanilla cake topped with chai buttercream frosting and whipped vanilla and sprinkled with cinnamon.  Seasonal flavour, available during the month of October.
• The Wedding Cake Shoppe, 859 College Street: Green Tea ($2.65) – their signature vanilla bean cake topped with Japanese green tea buttercream frosting.  Cindy compares it to green tea ice cream on cake!  Daily rotation; call ahead to ask (416-916-2253) or keep up with their Facebook page for daily listings of flavours.
• The Wedding Cake Shoppe, 859 College Street: Spicy Chai Latte ($2.65) –  Sprinkled with cinnamon, this chai spiced cupcake is made with fresh brewed chai tea and ground spices for the frosting on either vanilla bean or chocolate cake.  Daily rotation; call ahead to ask (416-916-2253) or keep up with their Facebook page for daily listings of flavours.
•  Yummy Stuff, 1660 Queen Street West in Parkdale: Chai Latte ($2.75) – rich chocolate cupcake adorned with chai spice buttercream frosting full of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and more.  Seasonal flavour, available during the month of November.
• Yummy Stuff, 1660 Queen Street West in Parkdale: Earl Grey ($2.75) – light and spongy bergamot cupcake with Earl Grey and orange zest buttercream frosting.  Seasonal flavour, available during the month of November.

Ate by Ate on Yummy Stuff’s *NEW* Website!

Hot off the press: Yummy Stuff’s new website!

I’m so excited to finally share this happy news with you all: Yummy Stuff‘s brand spankin’ new website went live yesterday and yours truly, Deb of Ate by Ate, has FIVE of her photos featured on it!  I’m so happy and ecstatic!!!  This has been in the works for over a month now and I’ve been on pins and needles wondering which photos Morag and her team chose to use on the site and I got the happy news in my inbox yesterday to go check it out because it was up and live and running!  I feel so incredibly honoured to be on their site representing even just a fraction of all the delicious and yummy cupcakes, cakes, decorated sugar cookies and sweets that they offer in their shop and I am just on cloud nine right now knowing they liked my stuff enough to want to use it.

You’ll find the majority of the photos in Yummy Stuff’s “About Us” page as well as on their “Bakery” page – hurray to the max for the gorgeous red scalloped dish that I love so much!  I took some screen caps of the pages featuring some of the photos they decided to use and a screen cap of their “In the News” page where Ate by Ate proudly sits in their 4th square!  This is a really happy, smiley moment for me and I want to thank all of you for always supporting me and being my inspiration for Ate by Ate – it wouldn’t be fun or worth it otherwise.

*****

Yummy Stuff is located at 1660 Queen Street West in the west end Parkdale neighbourhood, east of Roncesvalles Ave.  They are open Tuesday-Sunday, from 10am-7pm from Tuesday-Friday, 9am-6pm on Saturdays, and 12pm noon-5pm on Sundays.  They are closed on Mondays.  Visit their official website here.

The Cupcake Connection, Vol. 005 – Apple Cupcakes Edition! The Beginnings of Fall & Apple Orchard Season

You might be wondering why there was no mention of my delicious apple caramel cupcake from City Cider in my post yesterday.  After all, I certainly wiggled the bait a bit with my sneak peek photo Sunday night!  I didn’t forget and I swear I wasn’t trying to be a meanie by witholding scrumptious information (who posts a photo of a drool-worthy cupcake and then doesn’t say another word about it for 2 days?!  Er, me).  There’s a good reason for the wait: this delightful tender morsel of sweet cake and apple fruit, along with the apple cinnamon caramel cupcake from Yummy Stuff, was the inspiration behind this latest edition of The Cupcake Connection: Fall Apple Edition!  I am beyond giddy about this one!  A whole post dedicated to cupcakes and apples.  And apples in cupcakes.  And apples in cupcake frosting.  I LOVE APPLE CUPCAKES! 

It’s one of the ways I get to kick my apple allergy in the pants while still maintaining a healthy dose of cupcake in my life.  It wasn’t until I ate my apple caramel cupcake at City Cider that it dawned on me: there are so many different cupcake bakeries in and around the city that go full out on fall flavour using juicy, sweet apples come September.  Just think, there’s apple cinnamon, apple caramel, apple-pear, apple spice, apple and nuts, the list goes on.  And it’s beautifully represented in both cupcake and frosting form!

Fall is the season, to me, that never lasts long enough.  Winter always drags on and on.  Spring can get a little too muddy and wet.  And summer?  Well, let’s just say this past season made me reconsider how much I truly adore those hazy days.  But fall?  I love dearly.  And the prominence of apples in sweets, baked goods, and in food in general at this time, makes me love it that much more.  Thanks to Savera’s Pretty Sweet: A Mobile Cupcakery food truck at City Cider, I was totally inspired to compile all the different apple cupcakes available in shops and on cupcake menus throughout the city! 

Let it be known though that I had no idea this adorable, super pretty cupcake truck existed until I went to City Cider on Sunday.  I was totally smitten!  Donning shades of pink, red, brown, white, and turquoise, it looked exactly like a fairy tale cupcake truck, ready to make the magic of cupcakes that much sweeter and yummier.  Because it’s a mobile, moving entity, the only way to really follow Pretty Sweet is via their Facebook page and Twitter where locations for the day or week are posted, flavours are listed, and events the truck will be at announced.  The Pretty Sweet Toronto website is still under construction, but you can still access contact info and some really beautiful photos through the original custom cake business website at Pretty Sweet Cakes HERE.

And we can’t have an apple cupcake discussion without gushing about the apple bourbon caramel cinnamon (say that 5 times fast!) cupcake from Yummy Stuff!  Both the apple caramel from Pretty Sweet and the apple bourbon caramel cinnamon are SO delicious and unique in their own ways.  The apple caramel from Pretty Sweet had much more of a sweet and sticky toffee pudding taste and feel to it with soft apple spice cake, creamy cream cheese frosting, and generous portion of caramel sauce on top.  This is the type of cupcake that doubles as a dessert in the sense that it doesn’t scream, “I’m a little cake with frosting on it!”, but rather, you can envision this as a non-cupcake dessert dish.  It’s fabulous!  

The apple cupcake from Yummy Stuff on the other hand was more like apple pie with mouthwatering frosting on top!  It was stuffed with apple chunks and a bourbon caramel sauce filling and topped with the most amazing sweet and creamy cinnamon frosting!  Oh man, THIS is cupcake frosting at its finest!  As a note though, it’s ideal if you eat theirs with a fork just because the apple chunks may fall out and get messy if you eat it straight out of the wrapper with your hands.  This cupcake at Yummy Stuff is the special September flavour, so definitely try your best to get your sweet teeth on one before the month is over!  I really do hope it stays around for the whole season though because it’s just so good.  We’ll see; they kept their S’mores cupcake for longer than a month so there’s hope!  

Look out for other apple cupcakes at these cupcake and sweet shops around the city!

• Bobbette & Belle, 1121 Queen Street East: Apple Spice ($2.95) – apple spice cake with Canadian maple buttercream frosting.  Seasonal flavour, daily rotation; cal ahead to find out (416-466-8800).
• Crumbs & Co./Pink Lemon Bakeshop, 10220 Yonge Street in Richmond Hill (as well as 2 other locations including their newest in North York at 399 Old Orchard Grove off of Avenue Road): Apple Pie ($3.00) – apple cupcake with honey and spice frosting.  Daily rotation; call ahead to find out (905-237-6406).
• For the Love of Cake, 171 East Liberty Street: Caramel Apple ($3.00) – apple spice cupcake with caramel filling, caramel frosting, and topped with a caramel chew.  Daily rotation; call ahead to find out (416-306-6446) or check out their selectiom via Twitter @4theloveofcake 
• Old Firehall Confectionery, 170 Main Street in Unionville, Markham: Apple Cinnamon ($2.89) – vanilla cupcake with apple cinnamon frosting and apple crisp and nut crumbles on top.  Seasonal, currently available.
• Short & Sweet Cupcakes,1945 Avenue Road: Apple Cinnamon ($2.90) – apple cinnamon cupcake with caramel filling, vanilla frosting, and caramel drizzle.  Available during the month of September.
• So Into Cupcakes, 2060 Ellesmere Road: Apple Cinnamon ($2.50) – cupcake stuffed with brown sugar apple filling and topped with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and cinnamon sweet apples.  Available during the month of September.
• The Social Cupcake, 129B Lakeshore Rd. East in Mississauga: Apple Cinnamon ($3.00) – apple cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.  Daily rotation, call ahead (905-271-7612) or follow them on Facebook and Twitter @social_cupcake

Feel free to leave a message here if you know of any other cupcake shops that are dishing out the luscious apples!

The Cupcake Connection, Vol. 002 – Wedding Cupcake Decorating Classes, Summer Flavours, & Ice Cream Cupcakes!

Ice cream flavours and cupcakes – how sweet it is

Welcome to the second installment of The Cupcake Connection, your humble resource to some of the sweet and tasty frosted happenings in Toronto’s cupcake world!  First up, new bake shop alert!  Some of you may already know this if you’re very tuned in to social media and its cupcake whispers, but for those of you who don’t and aren’t, I have some fantastic news for all vegans with a sweet tooth: Tori’s Bakeshop on Queen Street East! 

Tori’s Bakeshop, located at 2188 Queen Street East, is a vegan, organic, all-natural bakery that just recently opened and boy does it ever boast a boatload of treats!  Cinnamon buns, pies, tarts, scones, muffins, cookies, biscotti, and of course, cupcakes!  Much like Bunner’s Bake Shop, Tori’s Bakeshop offers a huuuuge selection of egg-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, and gluten-free products.  Since I’m still planning my first visit to this great new shop in the east end, I decided to give them a call to ask them about their cupcakes and while it completely slipped mind to ask about prices (whoops!), I did get all the informatin on their flavours and selection.  On any given day (they’re open from Wednesday to Sunday during the week), they have 6 cupcake flavours to choose from: cherry, coconut, lemon, strawbery, peanut butter, cookes and cream, mint, and the classic chocolate and vanilla.  I absolutely can’t wait to come here and try their lemon, coconut, and cherry cupcakes especially.

Lime – perfect for summer!

Now, onto summer flavours!  We know how much fun it is using seasonal fruits and treats as inspiraton for our cooking, baking, and artistic endeavours and cupcakes are right in the thick of it all!  There are so many juicy, delicious summery flavours on hand right now at many of the city’s cupcake bakeries.  Short & Sweet Cupcakes is currently busting out their June flavour of the month, Tropic Thunder, a fruity mix of pineapple, banana, and coconut frosting and cake, The Cupcake Shoppe goes citrus this season with their summer seasonal Lime n’ licious cupcake, and Liberty Village’s For the Love of Cake has JUST doled out their special summer cupcake flavour, key lime pie!  I’ve been meaning to go back to For the Love the Cake for ages and this just gives me an even more delicious incentive – I see both the key lime pie cupcake and my beloved lemon meringue cupcake in my future this season! 

And of course, what’s a summer without ice cream?  Yummy Stuff is enticing our summer cravings with their June flavour of the month: the vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry Neapolitan cupcake!   This was exactly what I was referring to in Friday’s Yummy Stuff post when I was gushing about art imitating food imitating more food.  Not only did I take advantage of their Neapolitan decorated sugar cookie, I also snatched up their ice cream flavour inspired cupcake. 

With moist, fluffy, soft-as-a-pillow strawberry cake and thick creamy vanila and chocolate swirled frosting, the cupcake tasted EXACTLY like Neapolitan ice cream – without the freezer burn!  The cupcake was literally oozing with baked strawberries (no joke, I had to catch some of the strawberries as I bit into it to keep them from falling on my pants!) and their vanilla and chocolate frosting were bang on.  Yummy Stuff seriously makes some of the best chocolate frosting in the city and it was such a fun, summery cupcake to have for the month of June.

Since we’re on the topic of ice cream and cupcakes, why not have real ice cream together with cupcakes?  That’s right, folks, Cold Stone Creamery isn’t the only spot in town that makes these decadent treats!  The Cupcakery on St. Clair West has 6 different ice cream cupcake flavours to choose from including, each for $2.50 for 6 for $13:

1. Ice Queen – vanilla cake topped with vanilla ice cream and pink vanilla buttercream
2. Chocolate Sundae – chocolate cake layered with caramel sauce and Skor toffee bits, topped with chocolate ice cream and chocolate buttercream
3. Cookies and Cream – vanilla cake layered with crushed Oreo cookies topped with vanilla ice cream and vanilla buttercream
4. Chocolate Mint – chocolate cake topped with chocolate ice cream and mint buttercream
5. Creamsicle – vanilla cake topped with vanilla ice cream and orange buttercream
6. Banana Rama – chocolate cake topped with chocolate ice cream and banana buttercream

Learn how to make your cupcakes look as beautiful as this wedding cake at one of Le Dolci’s decorating classes!

Okay, so we’ve covered the new bake shop alert, slammin’ summer cupcake flavours, and ice cream cupcakes that are perfect for summer.  What’s that I hear?  Dum-da-dum-dum-dum-dum.  Ooo, wedding bells!  We can’t talk about summer without mentioning the bustling, topsy-turvy wedding season and Le Dolci has every sweet tooth covered with two very special Introduction to Wedding Cupcakes decorating classes this summer!  The first one will be held on Friday, July 6th from 2pm-4pm and the second one will be held in August on Sunday, August 5th from 2pm-4pm.  Each class is priced at $80 +HST/person and at the end of the class you get to take home a dozen awesomely yummy vanilla cupcakes beautifully decorated by you!  The wedding cupcakes decorating classes will focus on intricate fondant design – think bridal magazine! 

Aside from being creative and getting to indulge in sweet cupcake fun, I think these classes are perfect if you have a friend who’s getting married and you want to give them something truly personal and unique to congratulate them.  And you’ll get to enjoy the class at their brand new studio on Dundas Street West just across the street from Trinity Bellwoods Park – win-win.  That’s all for now, so grab a ice cold drink and enjoy the fruity, summery treats and cupcakes while you can!

Art Imitating Food Imitating…More Food! Sweets & The Neapolitan Ice Cream Cone Sugar Cookie at Yummy Stuff

Ice cream cupcakes, cake and pie cupcake flavours, cupcakes made to look like ice cream cones, candy sushi, and cakes made to look like sandwiches and candy bars (read Food Network magazine, you’ll totally get what I mean with those two last ones!); it’s art imitating food imitating…more food!  It is so darn cute and clever when dessert and food themes criss-cross all over the place to create culinary masterpieces and awe-inspiring works of sweet, edible art.  Now, before I unleash the 2nd installment of the Cupcake Connection featuring a very summer appropriate cupcake from Yummy Stuff among other specials, news, and updates from Toronto’s cupcake scene, let’s talk sugar cookies!  And more specifically, cute as a button decorated sugar cookies that look like food!

Everyone knows I love baking cookies.  However, when it comes to eating them, I am veeeery ambivalent towards certain varieties.  And one of them just happens to be sugar cookies.  I KNOW.  How could I possibly feel that way about one of the world’s most basic, simplest cookies?  They’re blank canvases that beg to be decorated, they don’t complicate things with a whole bunch of wacky, out-of-left-field flavours, and while everyone’s method might be a little different, ingredients are fairly similar across the board.  What’s not to love?  The answer: half the time, they’re just not executed well.

Check out the adorable hamburger!

My beloved Neapolitan ice cream cone cookie!

Pretty ribbon, a takeout box container, and creamy sandwich cookies? I’m sold.

I love the idea of enjoying a sugar cookie but I find sugar cookies to be one of the most difficult things to enjoy because there are so many things that can be wrong with them.  More often that not, they come out chalky, dry, crumbly, tasteless, and uncomfortably hard on your teeth.  And while the aesthetic is often beautiful (the artwork that many cookie decorators do is truly breathtaking), the total sum of the cookie’s yum almost never lives up to its beauty on the surface which is unfortunate because it should taste as good as it looks!

And this is where Yummy Stuff comes in!  I promised you all in my first Yummy Stuff post back in April I would report back on their sugar cookies and I got the chance to go back to their shop on Queen West in Parkdale earlier this month to grab myself one.  They always have an in-store selection ($3 to $4 each), as well as an option of having custom designed ones for special occasions like baby showers, wedding favours, birthdays, and more.  Remember how gaga I was over their cupcake and ice cream shaped and decorated cookies?!

Never a dull cookie or sweet on the Yummy Stuff shelves

This time around, they had some different designs on hand and I was absolutely in conniptions when I saw their new Neapolitan ice cream sugar cookies!  (Hint: this has a little something to do with the upcoming Cupcake Connection!).  They were so, so pretty and really, who can resist anything Neapolitan?  I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve never separated the flavours or favoured one “section” for another (don’t innocently whistle and pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about; we all know what I mean) and I kind of liken it to spumoni ice cream.  Anyway, I eagerly snatched a Neapolitan decorated sugar cookie ($4) and vowed to save it for a moment when I could truly savour it and enjoy it’s prettiness.  Even though I was still a tiny bit wary of it delivering on yumminess (they certainly had the appearance down pat, so that wasn’t a concern), I felt confident that Yummy Stuff wouldn’t let me down with their sugar cookies.

And they didn’t.  I will never eat another sugar cookie from another place ever again.  Okay, so maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but OH.MY.GOD.  This sugar cookie was the BEST sugar cookie I have EVER had.  It was everything a sugar cookie should be and the exact opposite of all the negative traits I listed earlier.  Their sugar cookies weren’t difficult to bite into (I actually broke mine into small pieces to eat, but regardless, my teeth and mouth didn’t hurt from trying to eat them), they melted in your mouth, the icing was delicious, and the cookie!  Oh my lordy, the cookie whipped the hair-tie off my ponytail and sent me to cookie heaven.  Pure vanilla excellence.  Keep in mind, unless there’s a note that indicates the icing is of a particular flavour, the cookie is expected to be vanilla.  Their vanilla is top-notch and the flavour made their sugar cookie taste incredible.  I was actually sad when I finished it because it was so good.

Sneak peek at the upcoming Cupcake Connection, Vol. 002!

It’s a shame cookies can’t keep forever because these are lovely little works of art that would look so fab sitting on a display case in all their foodie glory.  Considering how delicious they are though, it’s not too bad of a trade-off at all.

*****

Yummy Stuff is located at 1660 Queen Street West in the west end Parkdale neighbourhood, east of Roncesvalles Ave.  They are open Tuesday-Sunday, from 10am-7pm from Tuesday-Friday, 9am-6pm on Saturdays, and 12pm noon-5pm on Sundays.  They are closed on Mondays.  Visit their official website here.