Amazing Foods and Restourant

After dinner at Jaleo, we ran through the rain across the street to Red Velvet Cupcakery.  It's a tiny storefront with no seating, but it is connected to the yogurt emporium next door and you can eat your cupcakes there.  Lucky thing---a soggy cupcake is a sad thought indeed.

I must admit that I am a little skeptical of cupcake stores in general.  They do fit into the small, affordable treat category, but every time I see one I can hear my mother saying "If I had a nickel for every cupcake I made, I'd be a millionaire."  (And trust me, her cupcakes are great.)  But I really liked Red Velvet because their cupcakes aren't overly sweet.  Regular readers know that Americans-make-desserts-with-too-much-sugar is a regular rant of mine.  And Red Velvet goes a little beyond the obvious to make something that is sensuous without being overpowering.

Despite the strong hint given by the name of the establishment, I didn't get the red velvet cupcake.  Instead, I had a devil's food.  Their cupcakes don't use the traditional presentation of icing the entire top. Rather, they put a large dollop of icing on top with a little border of un-iced cupcake.  The effect is like a jaunty beret. The devil's food is topped with a bit of gold foil, which is a nice balance to the deep, dark color of the rest of the cupcake.  The icing was definitely rich---no shortage of butter here---but they used a strong dark chocolate.  The contrast between the dark chocolate and the richness of the rest of the ingredients was what made the cupcake for me.