Cupcake showdown (Austin versus Boston)

I've had a request for some fall photos. We haven't gone leaf peeping yet (though fall color is everywhere). So instead, I offer this photo of another fall sight. Sugar! Pre-Halloween goodies.



Delicious cupcakes from Sugar bakery in West Roxbury (http://sugarbakery.net/). Hiding off-camera was the grown-up cupcake: mocha raspberry. Mmmm...

How did they compare to...say...Austin's Hey Cupcake! (http://www.heycupcake.com/splash.html)? Well, Hey Cupcake has that cool retro vibe going for it. I mean, enormous cupcakes dealt from vintage metal Airstream trailers. What's more fun/funky/Austin weird?

But the one day that I brought my kiddos to Hey Cupcake! turned out to be a disappointment. We were celebrating a minor something. My son protested that he preferred Central Market cupcakes, but we were right by Hey Cupcake! I'd heard about how delicious they were so we stopped to buy some. At $2.50 a pop, they fell into the splurge category, but the cupcake was certainly Texas-sized, an enormous cupcake practically dwarfed by its mountainous crown of frosting.

They were too large. Too sweet. Too much. The frosting was overpowering, and its slick, oily feel was eventually nauseating. I ate most of mine and regretted it. My eldest was both disappointed by the cupcake and vindicated by our opinions.

So I was hesitant to try Sugar cupcakes. My experience with specialty cupcakes hadn't been the best. However, my husband was in the store to pick up some Italian bread, and he brought home these beauties. And oh my! What a difference. First of all, the size was appropriate. Massachusetts-sized perhaps. The price was a bit over $2 each ($12.50 for four cupcakes and a giant loaf of delicious Italian bread plus tax). The children eagerly gobbled their cupcakes. When asked who thought these were the best cupcakes, hands shot up in the air and frosting-smeared lips screamed, "Me!!!" The verdict was unanimous.

The grown-up cupcake. Oh my. The delicately mocha-flavored icing with the generous smattering of coconut. The lightness of the cake. The perfectly sweet dollop of raspberry hiding in the middle. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Thumbs up from us all.