I love bacon, but I really love cupcakes. Me and cupcakes go way back. One of the requirements at my superhippy preschool was that each child's parents had to bring in food for all the kids (once a year? I dunno). My parents, not being versed in the ways of American hippies, bought a crapload of Hostess chocolate cupcakes. So first off, vegans are not down with chocolate cupcakes. Second off, nobody in charge of a preschool is into the idea of feeding a herd of 3 year olds a bunch of sugary chocolate goodness right before naptime. So the offering was denied, and I had to eat them all by myself. Years later, when I was in elementary school, it was expected of parents to bring in the treat for their child's birthday. So my mom and I made chocolate cupcakes. By some strange calculation, we made about 80 of them. So I spent the next week eating pretty much nothing else. Oh, what bliss it was. Long story short, I love cupcakes, and I've eaten an awful lot of 'em in my day.
It's not a preference, it's a passion.
Uh... anyways.
Chicago has been participating happily in the cupcake craze sweeping the nation - there are not at least 3 places that do nothing but cupcakes - but honestly, I haven't really looked into it. Partly because I'm lazy, partly because I'm poor, and partly because buying cupcakes is so much less pleasing to me than eating homemade ones at parties and such. So I had not actually been to More Cupcakes (1 E Delaware Place, between State and Wabash, Chicago, IL 60611). Their website is basically a long obnoxious ad (have you ever wanted... more?) and gives you absolutely no information, so I don't see the point in linking to it. But apparently they have a lot of bacon options - I hear tell of a BLT cupcake. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but hey, I'm open to the possibility that it could be tasty.
Anyhow, Tone got me a bacon maple cupcake.
So, first off, while I am a great lover of cupcakes, I have to say, this whole 1/2 inch thick pile of frosting on top is just not comme il faut. It's a common thing to see, particularly in the fancy pants yuppy cupcakes so popular these days, because the frosting is where you get to show off a bit, and cupcakes don't have a lot of surface area, so you've gotta go with volume. But the problem with that is, when you stack it so high, it's no longer possible to take a bite of the cupcake from top to bottom, so you basically end up eating the frosting and then the cake. Now, some people like to lick off all the frosting first, and that's fine, but here, the task is a bit arduous. That's a lot of frosting, son. And it's super rich. It's hard work - and this is coming from a person who enjoys eating bowls of whipped cream. Anyhow, point being, boo on the frosting to cake ratio (though I should note, mounds of frosting doesn't necessarily disqualify a cupcake from greatness in my mind. CakeLove packs a pretty massive amount of frosting onto their cupcakes, and they're still amazing. But then, everything at CakeLove is amazing.).
That said, the frosting was delicious. Buttery maple goodness - very nice, even if it was a bit overwhelming.
The cake part, on the other hand, was a bit of a let-down. Props for the fact that it's riddled with bacon. It's like chips ahoy! betcha get a chip in every bite, except with pork. But first off, the bacon is not so amazing. It's super salty and kinda chewy and tastes strangely artificial. Secondly, the cake itself is just not suited to it. It's sweet and salty and tastes vaguely of cornmeal, but not really in a good way. It tastes indecisive rather than complex - as though the creator couldn't really decide what kind of flavor s/he was going for a just kinda mishmashed a bunch of em. Sweet? Salty? Savoury? Meh, why not a little of everything.
Ultimately, kind of a disappointment. Maybe I'll give one of More Cupcakes' more traditional offerings a try someday, perhaps they're better with the basics.
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