Crave Cupcakes, Houston, TX - a review

The other day, the husband had this amazing idea. Normally, he just goes with the flow and doesn't typically think of things to do. But, by the grace of all that is holy and wonderful and all that jazz, he decided he needed to experience Crave Cupcakes.

He heard about them from a friend a while back and I guess that little nugget stuck in his head because lo and behold - he made it a mission to go there this past Saturday.

We packed up the kiddo and headed out to the fancy area of town. I say fancy because this part of Houston is pretty upscale and a little bit trendy. Our side of town is, well - not. We live next to a ranch and across the street from an oil derrick. Need I say more?

Anyways, back to the cupcakes. There are two locations, one in Uptown Park and a new one nearby on Kirby in the West University area (also trendy). We went to the original location in Uptown Park. The shop was very sleek and simple and clean. Mostly white with accents of their signature teal or robin's egg blue or Tiffany blue or whatever shade of blue-green that is. Pretty sharp. They had these little alcoves in the wall with retro stand mixers (which also grace their logo) inside, which I found neat because I like that kind of stuff.

There was a flurry of activity behind a large pane of glass, where no less than eighty-three thousand employees were busy boxing up orders. Okay, maybe more like seven employees, but who's counting?

Despite the throngs of patrons waiting to devour their selections, we didn't wait long. In fact, the cupcake slingers were waiting on us! We couldn't decide which of the many different - and all delicious sounding - Saturday flavors to choose. I think we were asked by three different employees if we were ready to order yet.

The shop's menu varies by the day of the week. It seems that they have a few staple flavors - your basic chocolates, vanillas, and strawberries. But then they round that out with a bunch of other interesting flavors to delight your fancy. Banana, Italian Cream, Peanut Butter Chocolate and looking at the menu today I see they've added holiday flavors like Gingerbread and Eggnog.

We made our selections - 2 Dark Chocolates, and one of each of Chocolate on Vanilla, Vanilla, http://www.cravecupcakes.com/cupcake/carrot, Red Velvet, White Chocolate Macadamia, and Italian Cream. And then we waited until we got home to try them. It was very hard, but we had to get home to take care of baby business (and also get ready for a date night!).



When we got home, I removed our first cupcake to sample from the box and transferred a Dark Chocolate, the Chocolate on Vanilla and the Carrot into their own box for my mom - we wouldn't be trying those. We tried the Italian Cream first. It was pretty good, but not mind-blowing. It had walnuts and coconut and apparently marscapone cream cheese frosting. I didn't realize it wasn't just plain cream cheese until now (when I looked at the menu again).





We weren't disappointed though, we figured the rest of the flavors had to just be better. Unfortunately, the rest of the cupcakes didn't make their modeling debut and instead just get happily eaten.

The Vanilla was very sweet. You could see little flecks of the vanilla in the cake. It was good, but like the Italian Cream, not a favorite. The Dark Chocolate was very dense and very chocolately. We both really liked it. I'd order it again, but perhaps not until I've tried all the other flavors. The White Chocolate Macadamia was also good, better than the Vanilla and Italian Cream, but probably won't get a repeat order. The frosting was supposed to be white chocolate cream cheese, but it tasted only like cream cheese to me. They all (save the Macadamia flavor had a fondant logo on top in varying colors, which had a very yummy marshmallow flavor. The White Chocolate Macadamia had a macadamia nut on top.

And then there was Red Velvet. Oh heavens. We were so disappointed that we only had one of these. The cake was so moist and had that great red color and hint of cocoa. The frosting was cream cheese, with just the right amount of sweetness and definitely not too cream-cheesy. I already know that I will be ordering a large batch of these in May for the husband's birthday. Red Velvet will definitely be ordered again, depsite wanting to try other flavors as well. I don't know that anything could top it.

So there you have it, our review of Crave Cupcakes. I definitely recommend this shop for your next cupcake-needing occasion. Or just because. Because who doesn't need a cupcake every now and then?