Turtle | Cupcake Crusaders

Kupcakes & Co., which was recently listed in our Top 5 on Best Friends For Frosting’s blog, has started offering a line of “Boutique Cupcakes.” They are the same wonderful cupcake, taken up several notches with toppings, fillings, special frostings, and then more toppings. While their daily cupcakes are $2.50 each, the Boutique line of cupcakes are $3.50 each and only available on Fridays and Saturdays. For now they have three flavors: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, White Chocolate Cheesecake with a Raspberry Drizzle, and Chocolate Pecan Turtle; and we’ve tried them all!

Chocoloate Chip Cookie Dough

Kupcakes & Co. started teasing us with their new boutique cupcakes, dropping hints here and there on their Facebook page, with photos of some of the ingredients, fillings, and frostings. As soon as I saw the chocolate chips in one of their posts, I knew there would be a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough cupcake, and I had to have it. This really was the cupcake that brought me in on the day the Boutique line was released.

As an avid cookie dough lover, going so far as to make a small batch just to eat the dough, you can probably imagine my excitement when I first bit into this cupcake to realize that everything about it tasted EXACTLY like chocolate chip cookie dough. My exact thought was, “This is unreal! It’s like magic!” The frosting is already perfect and packs tons of chocolate chip cookie dough flavor, and then they take it to the next level with the cookie dough filling (which is actually baked in but maintains a doughy quality…I’m telling you, it is magical). I’ve been dreaming about this cupcake ever since.

White Chocolate Cheesecake with a Raspberry Drizzle

This cupcake is a vanilla cake, with a cheesecake center, topped with cream cheese frosting and a raspberry drizzle. I like cheesecake and the cheesecake filling in this cupcake is very good, but it is a very sweet cupcake (I think because of the frosting).

Chocolate Pecan Turtle

The Chocolate Pecan Turtle cupcake has chocolate cake with pecans baked on top, filled with homemade caramel, then topped with chocolate buttercream, more pecans, and drizzled with more of the wonder homemade caramel. It’s beyond decadent and I loved the texture the chunks of pecans added. I’m a big fan of the chocolate candy that inspired this cupcake, and now I’m a big fan of the cupcake as well.

You can sense the thought and time that Kupcakes & Co. has spent on creating these special cupcakes. The next time you are in their area (on a Friday or Saturday), I recommend stopping in and indulging in one of these Boutique treats. Which do you think you’d choose?

– Posted by Cupcake Crusader, Jenn (Westminster, MD)

I have a confession to make. I tried to cheat on cupcakes with another sweet treat… ice cream. While I adore cupcakes, my sweet tooth does not discriminate. So last Thursday I thought I would try to mix it up a bit, but the cupcake gods would not allow this. I headed to an area in Baltimore called Mt. Washington to visit an ice cream parlor that I’ve been wanting to try for a while. Well, online their hours say they open at 12pm, but their storefront said 3pm. As I sadly left empty handed, I noticed that Charm City Cupcakes has apparently opened a small shop in Mt. Washington. This info is still not on their website or on the info section of their Facebook Page, but I did notice a wall graphic that mentioned it was coming soon. Since I didn’t know this, and I had not been able to satisfy my sweet tooth, I was ecstatic to see their cute little shop. I wish I had gotten photos of it becuase it’s was so quaint with just enough room for a display case and a small counter. The gentleman working there was so friendly too. He asked about my day and described all the cupcakes they had there. It was a tough choice, but I made my final selections:

Mint Chocolate and Chocolate Turtle. After my less-than-fantastic Chocolate Turtle cupcake from IcedGems (read more here), I was really excited about this one. Charm City Cupcakes is probably the longest, still running, cupcake place in Baltimore City. I’ve had their cupcakes several times over the years, so I knew these would not disappoint.

My co-worker and I had just been talking earlier that day about cupcakes becuase she was thinking about stopping to get some after work. I was really hoping that she would share at least one of these with me, and as soon as I said, “Chocolate Turtle with Caramel and Pecans” she did not have to be convinced.

I already knew that when I cut into this there would be a caramel filling, since the nice man at the shop told me about that. The chocolate cake was moist, the caramel was nice and gooey, and the frosting was light and smooth. The pecan/caramel mixture that tops the cupcake was very similar to what you might find on a Cinnabon pecan stick bun. This entire cupcake worked well. It was decadent while not being overly sweet.

I decided to save the Mint Chocolate for the following day. Since I was at work, I didn’t have any Tupperware to keep it in, and was worried about it drying out, but figured I would take the risk instead of taking it home just to bring back the next day. I was glad I saved it, becuase the next day Cupcake Crusader, Jenn, and her little Leah came in to visit and were able to share it with me.

I’m a big fan of chocolate and mint together, so right away I was really excited about this one. The cake did end up getting a little dry, but I know that was because I left it in it’s box, and not becuase of Charm City Cupcakes since the chocolate cake from the Turtle cupcake had been perfectly moist. That didn’t stop this from being a fantastic cupcake though. The mint frosting was light and fluffy and full of minty goodness. It had a chocolate ganache filling, which I wasn’t expecting but was a nice touch.

All in all, this was a very wonderful unexpected cupcake surprise! If you would like to try any of their cupcakes, you can visit one of their 3 locations:

– Mt. Washington, Smith Avenue
– Downtown, Charles Street
– John Hopkins University (Blackstone Building), Charles Street

– Posted by Cupcake Crusader, Stacy (Baltimore, MD)

Cupcake Crusaders

We won't rest, until we've tried them all.

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An Unexpected Surprise!