Cupcakery Review: Classy Girl Cupcakes - Milwaukee

This week my adventures took me to the beautiful, sunny Milwaukee!  Yes - despite being March, it was really beautiful and really sunny.  I got the best weather while I was there - not a drop of rain or even a cloud in the sky which made it easy to find Classy Girl Cupcakes.  Located on Cathedral Square in downtown Milwaukee, CGC is an adorable shop that seems to specialize in cheesecake cupcakes although they do have quite a selection of gourmet cupcake flavors as well. 

So - cheesecake or regular cupcake?  Obviously both!  I mean- who knows when I'll get to Milwaukee again.  My eye was immediately drawn to a plain looking cupcake whose name was "Caramel Stout".  Hmmmm - stout - it must be related to my Irish Stout cupcake!  Since clearly it's a cupcake that's party of the beer family, I had to try it.  Then onto the cheesecake cupcakes -  there were so many.  The lovely gal at the counter pointed out a few of their best sellers but my eye was drawn to the Malted Milkshake Cheesecake.  They wrapped both of my selections together and gave me a little spoon for the cheesecake treat.

First the Caramel Stout:  

The chocolate cupcake is made with Hinterland Luna Stout beer which the CGC website says "has notes of caramel, chocolate and espresso".  The Hinterland website says that the Luna Stout is infused with nitrogen which sounds like another famous stout from Ireland (that rhymes with Minnus).  If you've read my previous post about my stout cupcake, the Trevor Cupcake Cake, then you know I love beer based cupcakes.  The Class Girl version was really really good - the cake part was light but super flavorful which I imagine comes from the beer.  I've never had the Hinterland beer but maybe I'll try it in my recipe if I can find it in my area.  My only minor complaint was with the frosting - the caramel buttercream was just way too sweet for my taste and it was quite thick and a bit gritty - like the sugar hadn't quite dissolved all the way.  I tend to like a fluffier buttercream but overall the combination was good. I wiped off a lot of the frosting though as it overwhelmed the cupcake.

The Malted Milkshake Cheesecake: 

The Classy Girl website describes this treat as a milk chocolate cheesecake blended with malt powder.  On top is a chocolate buttercream with a malted milk ball.  I LOVE me some malt.  When I was a kid, I used to drive 6 miles to the ice cream shop that had powdered malt that they would put on top of your ice cream instead of the lame liquid malt that other shops used.  (Note....liquid malt=lame)  The bottom or crust of the cheesecake was brownie - yum!  So I was super psyched to dig into this concoction in hopes of getting a little piece of buttercream, cheesecake and brownie on my mini spoon.  Unfortunately, the spoon pushed the buttecream off in one lump.  Ok - no harm done except that the buttercream couldn't really be cut with the spoon.  So I just took a bite out of that - it was more fudge-like than buttercream but OK.  So then onto the cheesecake part - it was good - definitely chocolatey.  I didn't love it - it was a ricotta based cheesecake and I'm partial to more of a New York style cheesecake where it's mostly cream cheese- or at least you can't notice the grains of the ricotta like you could in this little cheesecake.  But if you like your cheesecake like that, then Classy Girl is the place for you.  Well done on the flavor of this cheesecake though - I'm sorry I wasn't partial to the textures.  

The shop:  

Very cute!  And they had cupcake merch - always a good sign of a devoted cupcake fan.  The cupcake prices are reasonable and the staff was friendly.  Definitely worth a stop if you're in downtown Milwaukee - let me know what other flavors you try!

Cupcakery Review! Cupcake in Minneapolis!

I was in Minneapolis less than 20 hours.  Plenty of time for a 1 hour meeting and 1 hour of finding my way to Cupcake which is definitely worth the trip and completely worth fighting the current construction in their neighborhood.  The had at least 24 different cupcake flavors - not counting their Baby Cakes minis. 

 As this was only a few days before Paddy's Day, they were featuring an Irish Car Bomb Cupcake - you can see my recipe below - theirs was seemingly quite similar although I didn't try it.  I had taken a look at their extensive menu before I went.  There website is great and shows pictures of each cupcake but lucky for me, their bakers like to experiment!  If it's not obvious from my last post, I think the best way to consume booze is in cupcake form.  When I saw they had a "Bourbon Butterscotch Chocolate" cupcake, my jaw hit the floor and my mouth started watering.  And I'm so thrilled that I did.  If there was a Guiness World Record for the fastest cupcake consumption, I would definitely have won with the way I inhaled this completely amazing cupcake. Usually, I try to take only one or two bites of a cupcake (girl can not stay curvey on cupcakes alone!) but I couldn't even stop myself.   I'm not even sure I can accurately describe how this cupcake was constructed.  The frosting was amazing - I think it was either a whipped cream of some sort or a light swiss merigue - the key was that the frosting was just barely sweet and the bourbon was just enough to scent the cupcake.  If I had a bowl of this frosting, I would put my face in it.   I hope they keep this one on the menu as it would certainly earn its spot in their top sales category.

A friend I was travelling with ordered a Red Velvet and saved it for her flight home.  She later texted me to let me know that it was the best Red Velvet she's ever had.  Why these people aren't on Cupcake Wars, or in the Cupcake Hall of Fame (I just invented that!) or on the Ellen Show or some other fame creating device is beyond me.  

As a side note, the shop was really cute and the staff quite friendly.  They also have a load of cute vintage themed merchandise, much of which was cupcake related.  They serve regular food too - sandwiches, soups, salads, etc and looks like it would be a great place for lunch or a light dinner.  They have a pretty good selection of freshly baked breads too.  A great all-around bakery with a wonderful cupcake slant.  Stop by (or immediately fly to) Minneopolis to stop by Cupcake!