Cupcakes Are Still Relevant in 2012

These blogs have been coming few and far between. I will put more effort towards updating this year. I promise. We all know (all meaning the 2 people that are reading this) that I love cupcakes more than most things in life right now. They are cute and tasty depending on where you get them. Also anyone that knows me in Chicago knows that I do most of my shopping and browsing in the suburbs. It's just more convenient than circling around looking for a parking space, and paying outrageous fees to park. The suburbs has everything you can imagine in a 2 mile radius. However, the thing that is always lacking in some suburbs is the ever so trendy cupcake shop. You would think that the home of family, soccer moms, and birthday parties would be full of cupcake shops. Well that hasn't been the case til now.

Oakbrook now has a fancy little cupcake bakery called Fiore Cupcakes. It's a small shop with only a few bar seats looking out to the strip center parking lot where it is located. The walls have big bold pinstripes like that of a Parisian cafe. They have a wide variety of cupcakes from their most popular Cannoli to the regulars (i.e. vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet). I actually had a Tres Leches cupcake (3 milks for those who don't know). It was the perfect texture for tres leches. The frosting was a cream cheese frosting that was not too sweet which balanced of the sweetness of the cake. Although, I would have made a cinnamon (with cinnamon extract or emulsion)cream cheese frosting to add a little bit more authenticity to the Mexican favorite. It was good though, that's just what I would've done since I'm a baker myself. The owner was so nice and inviting that she gave me a vanilla cupcake, because my tres leches was a little cold. Her decision not mine. I would've eaten it cold. So she gave me a vanilla cupcake while I waited for my tres leches to be the perfect temperature. Which was great, because if you've read any of the other blogs you would know that I think a good vanilla cupcake is sometimes hard to come by. This vanilla on my meter of cupcake shops falls right in the middle. It was moist, and it had good flavor, but I'm almost certain that the frosting was an industrial frosting and not homemade. We all know that I love Molly's vanilla the best, because of the uniqueness in flavor and the overly moist texture. The worst would just be a grocery store cupcake or maybe Crumbs downtown. Nevertheless, when in Oakbrook and I have a sugar craving, I will definitely stop in again. By the way, my friend who doesn't like chocolate really loved their chocolate cupcake, and primarily she loved the frosting. So my reco is that you check it out for flavor and the friendly nature of the owner.