Okay Texas people, thanks for your patience. I have so many Fort Worth-area places to review, so many wonderful cupcakeries to share with y'all, I am embarrassed that I am falling behind. In my defense I have to say that I was in Texas dealing with some personal issues that kept me from spending as much time cupcaking as I'd like.
So I am going to review the cupcakeries in a random way, no implied favorites in any way. First up is...(drum roll please!) Patty Cakes Bakery! Chef Patty (Wilson) was a delight to meet, as was her husband and partner, Kevin (quality assurance officer and chief dishwasher):
They welcomed (my fellow tasters) Ashley, Allison and I to their art-filled Grapevine cupcakery with a very laid-back vibe. No pressure at all.
Here are my fellow tasters Allison (and Ashley, with her back to the camera) outside the shop on Main Street.
Patty brought over a selection of her beautiful cupcakes:
Which we were happy to eat, of course.
Just look at these beauties!
Flavors, from left, clockwise: Tuxedo (chocolate cake, vanilla frosting), carrot cake, Patty's favorite, the Inside-out Tuxedo (vanilla cake, chocolate frosting), Kevin's favorite, the PB+C (peanut butter and chocolate), red velvet, and raspberry white chocolate (which I think was a special flavor of the week).
Not included on the plate, but spied on the rack in the kitchen was this stunner:
The Patty Cake Swirl. I nabbed it and brought it to the table. I had to have it! The Patty Cake Swirl is devil's food cake with vanilla/chocolate frosting swirl. Patty confessed, when we asked, that it was made with a bit of coffee, to give it an added depth. After learning more about Chef Patty I am pretty sure she uses the finest quality coffee she can find. At Patty's bakery she sources her ingredients very carefully and that shows in her goods.
See those sprinkles on top? Not the waxy jimmies we all dreaded. No, these (Patty called them vermicelli) are by Barry Callebaut. Unbearably good. We copped to wanting to eat them by the truckload. I seriously wish more cupcakeries would invest in higher-quality findings like these. Delicious!
The cupcake itself was subtly flavored, and we didn't taste the coffee but the cupcake was definitely a winner. Patty uses piping bags with no tips to mix and frost these beauties. She does the same pattern for school colors, special events, etc., photos of which she posts to Facebook and Flickr (links below).
Here's the shop's best-seller, the red velvet:
Gorgeous, and instantly recognizable as a Patty Cakes cupcake. Again, she uses piping bags without tips to create this signature look.
Here's Allison's hand modeling debut (see the oil slick?) with the bisected red velvet:
I get it, everyone in the south seems to love red velvet but I hate food coloring so I wasn't expecting to enjoy this. Which is to say that I wish I didn't have to keep taste-testing red velvet cupcakes.
The cake itself is very good, and moist, leaving a bit of an oil slick on your hands as you hold it. Patty uses half-and-half in her recipes instead of plain ol' milk, so the extra richness is noticeable. I believe this is an oil and vinegar recipe, or maybe oil and buttermilk.
The frosting was very sweet, too sweet for my tastes, but this is the cupcake every kid will demand once spied. There was a good crumb to the cake but Allison mentioned that she could taste the oil pervasively and it seemed to have an aftertaste of tortilla oil. (I know that sounds weird, but after she mentioned it, I could understand what she was saying -- it was an oil aftertaste, reminiscent of fried foods. I mean, I think that is what she was tasting. I didn't taste any tortillas in the mix.)
Here's that Inside-out Tuxedo cupcake:
The vanilla cake wasn't too vanilla-y, it was a light cake but the chocolate frosting was fantastic. When eaten together, it was a wonderful experience. The cake and frosting had a perfect marriage of flavors. This cupcake is a people-pleaser, great for picky eaters. It tasted like a cupcake your grandmother might have baked. Yum!
(As an aside, every baker I interviewed in Texas mentioned using their grandmother's recipes, Patty included.)
See those pearls on top? Those are rice crispie-based Callebaut pearls. So damn good. We all loved them. Ashley confided that she could sit in front of the TV eating those by the handful and never get tired of 'em. Again, Patty's dedication to best ingredients lead to a cupcake that would be hard to beat in any contest.
The carrot cake was up next:
Once again, you can tell right away that this cupcake was made with "the good stuff." It was so rich! Patty uses Plugra butter, a European high butterfat-content butter that bakers (and eaters, including me) adore.
We tossed the sugar carrot topper, so I can't tell you how that tasted (no one seems to like them).
We all liked this cupcake but felt it could use, well, something. I thought maybe nuts, or pineapple, Anthony (Allison's husband, who helped taste the few cupcakes we brought home) thought maybe a heavier hand with the spices. It was a more mild carrot cake taste but no doubt about it tasty. This cupcake is a great afternoon snack cupcake. Even if you are not a spice-cake fan, you will probably like this cupcake.
When I read over my notes for this cupcake, I noticed that Patty mentioned using Oklahoma pecans, but I am not sure I tasted them. Maybe if the nuts were larger, less chopped-up? She also mixes her cream cheese frosting with buttercream frosting, which we felt helped lighten and brighten the frosting. Light but rich!
Here's the PB+C:
Again, it was mild-tasting but high-quality. The peanut butter frosting was not like eating peanut butter plus sugar out of a jar (as so often happens with peanut butter chocolate cupcakes), it was a fantastic, fudge-y and rich frosting. But light, not dense. So delicious! The cake was a dark chocolate, again with excellent cocoa powder (not sure where she sources that). And yum, more of those terrific vermicelli.
I doubt I will be able to enjoy regular waxy sprinkles again.
Next up, the Tuxedo:
This cupcake's texture was perfect, you can tell it was baked to the exact nanosecond. It was a moist chocolate cake that was sweeter than the other chocolates we tasted. I was also taken with the extra-tall baking cups Patty uses. Simple and elegant, but easy to peel.
And those chocolate pearls again, so scrumptious. And they added a needed crunch/texture to the cupcake, helping to raise the vanilla buttercream to an exciting experience in the mouth.
The flavor of the week, which Kevin says Patty makes on a whim, was the raspberry white chocolate:
Patty says the flavor of the week appears once a year so if you missed this flavor you'd have to wait until 2012 to see it again.
We were over-stuffed (Patty's cupcakes are filling!), so we had to bring this flavor home to try it too. It suffered a bit on the trip home (I am sure that was due to the 110+ degree heat) but was no less tasty for the voyage.
Everyone liked this cupcake but we all agreed that it would taste better (gasp) without the white chocolate crunchies on top. They distracted from the excellent flavor of the cupcake. The raspberries were wonderful and refreshing, the cake light and tasty. We scraped off the findings and devoured it. I think there might have been a minifight for the last bite.
Some of the other things that make Patty Cakes Bakery special are the free wifi (made my techie heart happy!), they stay open late (for Texas, weekends until 9 pm), and all the wonderful local art available for viewing and sale.
And the cupcake display!
Like each cupcake is a precious jewel. Nice. Loved the old-fashioned display cases.
The bakery also sells cakeballs and cookies:
Here's where I have to admit something. I'd never had a cakeball before this trip to Texas. I know, I know, it's shocking, I am a cupcake blogger, but on this trip I tasted lots of them and could not figure out what the appeal is. It wasn't until Ashley and Allison explained how cakeballs are made that I got it. I wasn't aware that the cake and frosting are mixed together before being dipped or frosted. I am not a fan. I like the cupcake the way it is. Not sure why you'd want to mush it up with frosting and force it into a ball, but I see that they are very, very popular. And cute, and small, and affordable minitreats.
We were gifted with some to take home to Anthony, the red velvet (made with milk chocolate coating), and two pink strawberry lemonade (with white chocolate coating).
I didn't eat the cakeballs, as I discovered I'm not a fan, but Allison, Anthony and Ashley did and they thought the coating on the pink strawberry lemonade was spectacular (probably another top-notch chocolate, if I know Patty). The inside was only "okay."
Re: the red velvet cakeball, again, everyone loved the chocolate coating but didn't like the center. I thought they looked lovely, like truffles! Another hint is to have them at room temperature, they suffer from being refrigerated. (Of course the blazing heat of central Texas in August isn't the best time to try to carrying around perishables.)
Once back in NYC I found myself wishing there was a Patty Cakes Bakery close by, a breezy/laid-back place to drop in, have some coffee and cupcake, get some work done, see locals and tourists alike enjoy the space. If you are in historic Grapevine, or even close, drop by Patty Cakes Bakery and try Chef Patty's cupcakes. And tell her that Stacie Joy says hi.
Patty Cakes Bakery
417 South Main
Grapevine, Texas 76051
682.223.1471
Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/Blog/Email
Cupcakes are $33 for a baker's dozen, or $2.77 per.
Cakeballs approximately $1.50 each. (Although I could swear they were a dollar when I was there!)
Patty Cakes Bakery also makes gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free and three size cupcakes: regular, mini and petite (upon request/special order). Classes available, see the website for details.
You can see more of the shots from my trip to Texas here. All images by Stacie Joy for CTTC.
;)
So I am going to review the cupcakeries in a random way, no implied favorites in any way. First up is...(drum roll please!) Patty Cakes Bakery! Chef Patty (Wilson) was a delight to meet, as was her husband and partner, Kevin (quality assurance officer and chief dishwasher):
They welcomed (my fellow tasters) Ashley, Allison and I to their art-filled Grapevine cupcakery with a very laid-back vibe. No pressure at all.
Here are my fellow tasters Allison (and Ashley, with her back to the camera) outside the shop on Main Street.
Patty brought over a selection of her beautiful cupcakes:
Which we were happy to eat, of course.
Just look at these beauties!
Flavors, from left, clockwise: Tuxedo (chocolate cake, vanilla frosting), carrot cake, Patty's favorite, the Inside-out Tuxedo (vanilla cake, chocolate frosting), Kevin's favorite, the PB+C (peanut butter and chocolate), red velvet, and raspberry white chocolate (which I think was a special flavor of the week).
Not included on the plate, but spied on the rack in the kitchen was this stunner:
The Patty Cake Swirl. I nabbed it and brought it to the table. I had to have it! The Patty Cake Swirl is devil's food cake with vanilla/chocolate frosting swirl. Patty confessed, when we asked, that it was made with a bit of coffee, to give it an added depth. After learning more about Chef Patty I am pretty sure she uses the finest quality coffee she can find. At Patty's bakery she sources her ingredients very carefully and that shows in her goods.
See those sprinkles on top? Not the waxy jimmies we all dreaded. No, these (Patty called them vermicelli) are by Barry Callebaut. Unbearably good. We copped to wanting to eat them by the truckload. I seriously wish more cupcakeries would invest in higher-quality findings like these. Delicious!
The cupcake itself was subtly flavored, and we didn't taste the coffee but the cupcake was definitely a winner. Patty uses piping bags with no tips to mix and frost these beauties. She does the same pattern for school colors, special events, etc., photos of which she posts to Facebook and Flickr (links below).
Here's the shop's best-seller, the red velvet:
Gorgeous, and instantly recognizable as a Patty Cakes cupcake. Again, she uses piping bags without tips to create this signature look.
Here's Allison's hand modeling debut (see the oil slick?) with the bisected red velvet:
I get it, everyone in the south seems to love red velvet but I hate food coloring so I wasn't expecting to enjoy this. Which is to say that I wish I didn't have to keep taste-testing red velvet cupcakes.
The cake itself is very good, and moist, leaving a bit of an oil slick on your hands as you hold it. Patty uses half-and-half in her recipes instead of plain ol' milk, so the extra richness is noticeable. I believe this is an oil and vinegar recipe, or maybe oil and buttermilk.
The frosting was very sweet, too sweet for my tastes, but this is the cupcake every kid will demand once spied. There was a good crumb to the cake but Allison mentioned that she could taste the oil pervasively and it seemed to have an aftertaste of tortilla oil. (I know that sounds weird, but after she mentioned it, I could understand what she was saying -- it was an oil aftertaste, reminiscent of fried foods. I mean, I think that is what she was tasting. I didn't taste any tortillas in the mix.)
Here's that Inside-out Tuxedo cupcake:
The vanilla cake wasn't too vanilla-y, it was a light cake but the chocolate frosting was fantastic. When eaten together, it was a wonderful experience. The cake and frosting had a perfect marriage of flavors. This cupcake is a people-pleaser, great for picky eaters. It tasted like a cupcake your grandmother might have baked. Yum!
(As an aside, every baker I interviewed in Texas mentioned using their grandmother's recipes, Patty included.)
See those pearls on top? Those are rice crispie-based Callebaut pearls. So damn good. We all loved them. Ashley confided that she could sit in front of the TV eating those by the handful and never get tired of 'em. Again, Patty's dedication to best ingredients lead to a cupcake that would be hard to beat in any contest.
The carrot cake was up next:
Once again, you can tell right away that this cupcake was made with "the good stuff." It was so rich! Patty uses Plugra butter, a European high butterfat-content butter that bakers (and eaters, including me) adore.
We tossed the sugar carrot topper, so I can't tell you how that tasted (no one seems to like them).
We all liked this cupcake but felt it could use, well, something. I thought maybe nuts, or pineapple, Anthony (Allison's husband, who helped taste the few cupcakes we brought home) thought maybe a heavier hand with the spices. It was a more mild carrot cake taste but no doubt about it tasty. This cupcake is a great afternoon snack cupcake. Even if you are not a spice-cake fan, you will probably like this cupcake.
When I read over my notes for this cupcake, I noticed that Patty mentioned using Oklahoma pecans, but I am not sure I tasted them. Maybe if the nuts were larger, less chopped-up? She also mixes her cream cheese frosting with buttercream frosting, which we felt helped lighten and brighten the frosting. Light but rich!
Here's the PB+C:
Again, it was mild-tasting but high-quality. The peanut butter frosting was not like eating peanut butter plus sugar out of a jar (as so often happens with peanut butter chocolate cupcakes), it was a fantastic, fudge-y and rich frosting. But light, not dense. So delicious! The cake was a dark chocolate, again with excellent cocoa powder (not sure where she sources that). And yum, more of those terrific vermicelli.
I doubt I will be able to enjoy regular waxy sprinkles again.
Next up, the Tuxedo:
This cupcake's texture was perfect, you can tell it was baked to the exact nanosecond. It was a moist chocolate cake that was sweeter than the other chocolates we tasted. I was also taken with the extra-tall baking cups Patty uses. Simple and elegant, but easy to peel.
And those chocolate pearls again, so scrumptious. And they added a needed crunch/texture to the cupcake, helping to raise the vanilla buttercream to an exciting experience in the mouth.
The flavor of the week, which Kevin says Patty makes on a whim, was the raspberry white chocolate:
Patty says the flavor of the week appears once a year so if you missed this flavor you'd have to wait until 2012 to see it again.
We were over-stuffed (Patty's cupcakes are filling!), so we had to bring this flavor home to try it too. It suffered a bit on the trip home (I am sure that was due to the 110+ degree heat) but was no less tasty for the voyage.
Everyone liked this cupcake but we all agreed that it would taste better (gasp) without the white chocolate crunchies on top. They distracted from the excellent flavor of the cupcake. The raspberries were wonderful and refreshing, the cake light and tasty. We scraped off the findings and devoured it. I think there might have been a minifight for the last bite.
Some of the other things that make Patty Cakes Bakery special are the free wifi (made my techie heart happy!), they stay open late (for Texas, weekends until 9 pm), and all the wonderful local art available for viewing and sale.
And the cupcake display!
Like each cupcake is a precious jewel. Nice. Loved the old-fashioned display cases.
The bakery also sells cakeballs and cookies:
Here's where I have to admit something. I'd never had a cakeball before this trip to Texas. I know, I know, it's shocking, I am a cupcake blogger, but on this trip I tasted lots of them and could not figure out what the appeal is. It wasn't until Ashley and Allison explained how cakeballs are made that I got it. I wasn't aware that the cake and frosting are mixed together before being dipped or frosted. I am not a fan. I like the cupcake the way it is. Not sure why you'd want to mush it up with frosting and force it into a ball, but I see that they are very, very popular. And cute, and small, and affordable minitreats.
We were gifted with some to take home to Anthony, the red velvet (made with milk chocolate coating), and two pink strawberry lemonade (with white chocolate coating).
I didn't eat the cakeballs, as I discovered I'm not a fan, but Allison, Anthony and Ashley did and they thought the coating on the pink strawberry lemonade was spectacular (probably another top-notch chocolate, if I know Patty). The inside was only "okay."
Re: the red velvet cakeball, again, everyone loved the chocolate coating but didn't like the center. I thought they looked lovely, like truffles! Another hint is to have them at room temperature, they suffer from being refrigerated. (Of course the blazing heat of central Texas in August isn't the best time to try to carrying around perishables.)
Once back in NYC I found myself wishing there was a Patty Cakes Bakery close by, a breezy/laid-back place to drop in, have some coffee and cupcake, get some work done, see locals and tourists alike enjoy the space. If you are in historic Grapevine, or even close, drop by Patty Cakes Bakery and try Chef Patty's cupcakes. And tell her that Stacie Joy says hi.
Patty Cakes Bakery
417 South Main
Grapevine, Texas 76051
682.223.1471
Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/Blog/Email
Cupcakes are $33 for a baker's dozen, or $2.77 per.
Cakeballs approximately $1.50 each. (Although I could swear they were a dollar when I was there!)
Patty Cakes Bakery also makes gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free and three size cupcakes: regular, mini and petite (upon request/special order). Classes available, see the website for details.
You can see more of the shots from my trip to Texas here. All images by Stacie Joy for CTTC.
;)
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