Cupcake Battle Week 3: Smallcakes in Overland Park, KS

This week's cupcake tasting took us all the way to Overland Park, Kansas. I'd heard from my sister that Smallcakes put crack in their cupcakes, and I thought my team out to check it out. So, we flew across the country to do just that. Oh, and we also visited my family for the week.



The selection was fabulous, which means they had one that was pink and a bunch of other random flavors. The pink one came with either chocolate or vanilla cake, eliciting several "hoorays" from my youngest taster. And, because my oldest taster never wants to feel left out of anything that my youngest taster is loving, he chose pink frosting over a vanilla cupcake. It doesn't seem like Connor is keeping true to his goal of trying lots of flavors, but maybe he's going to breakout with something crazy at the next shop.



My sister and neices accompanied me on the trip. You can see my younger neice here, checking out the goods. She's been here before, and wasn't about to be tricked into something so boring as a vanilla, vanilla cupcake. She wanted something deluxe!



I chose "drumstick", my older neice chose "cookies and cream", I think that's what my younger neice chose, but I can't remember because I was so busy snapping photos of my sister who chose the world's messiest cupcake. It had some sort of gooey chocolate filling in it. All my life I have loved chocolate. I never thought of my sister as a chocolate lover--except for milk chocolate covered caramels. Then a few years ago she busted out with an incredibly decadent chocolate dessert at dinner and I was totally shocked and she informed me she did love chocolate. Only she likes the milk chocolate kind and I like the dark chocolate kind. That's how we roll on a lot of things. Similar, but not quite the same. My sister, by the way, can eat whatever she wants because about a week before this photo was taken, she biked across half the state of Kansas - about 200 miles.



My cupcake was sublime. There weren't very many nuts on top and I'm pretty sure the frosting has some lard in it. Which might be other people's thing, but it is not my thing. However, although I have never tested crack on my own, I do read stories about such people, and I didn't find myself running across the parking lot like a wild banshee, nor did my heart start racing, and I had no strange urge to commit any crimes. So, I'm going with my gut that there isn't actually crack in the cupcakes.

Although I was not terribly impressed by the shop, all five other people involved in the contest devoured their cupcakes, and the ratings were a nearly across the board two thumbs up. Helen is turning out to be a pretty harsh critic with another two thumbs down. That's the same rating she gave Clarendon's Bakeshop. A bit of a contrarian do we think? I'll give them 3.5 stars.



It occurred to me during this visit that this cupcake battle might have two side effects, one intended and one not inttended. The intended side effect is that Connor and Helen are having a ball, even though Helen claims by her rating to not enjoy these cupcakes at all. The unintended side effect is that I might need to buy a new wardrobe at the end of this summer. I'll count this photo below as my "before" photo, even though I'm three weeks into this already.



Wrap up (in rank order - and week order at this point, but that will surely change):

Week One: Georgetown Cupcake (Washington, DC)
Week Two: Bakeshop in Clarendon (Arlington, VA)
Week Three: Smallcakes in Overland Park, KS

Elaine