Friday, August 14, 2009

Northern California Cupcakes...and the winner is - Kara's Cupcakes!




We just got back from a trip to Wine Country up in Napa County, California, with our friends Sally and Doc. My mission on this trip was to try out some new bakeries...my husband's mission was to try out all of the wineries he could visit! We both succeeded beautifully...I was able to taste Kara's Cupcakes and Sift in Napa with another visit to Kara's in San Francisco along with Loves Cupcakes in San Jose. Kara's cupcakes were moist and flavorable with frosting that was smooth and just the right consistency. Her Fleur de Sel was a chocolate cake with caramel filling, ganache frosting and fleur de sel sprinkled on top...to say it was orgasmic would be an understatement!!! Sally's favorite was the Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Ganache. We ended up buying two dozen little cupcakes (one dozen each on two separate visits) and a half-dozen of the regular sized cupcakes for our week long stay. Kara's cupcakes were just as good three days after buying them, having them travel in the car, and sitting out in a hotel room. We also visited Sift because I wanted to try out the Irish Car Bomb (Guiness cake and Baileys frosting). It was good but didn't leave me quite as happy as Kara's cupcakes. I do want to attempt duplicating this one at home though. Loves cupcakes, which I believe is brand new in San Jose, were also good. I tried the coconut but was in too much of a rush to truly enjoy it. I will have to go back again to visit. It was a cute shop, and they are going to sell cupcakes on a stick (sounded like lollicakes to me!) So - overall, Kara's was my favorite...and her cupcakes also went quite well with Berringer's Leaning Oak Chardonnay...I will tell you that lollicakes could make a killing there by doing wine lollicakes for each vineyard - too bad Napa is so far away from Colorado.....

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