sweeeeet!

* During my wonderful whirlwind 8-day trip to Victoria, I was lucky enough to visit not one but TWO delicious cupcake stores!

Glen's mom pointed us to Ooh La La, in a tiny mall on a corner. Oh my is it difficult to decide among frosted yummy goodness perched daintily under glass on cake stands. Their cupcakes are the size of large muffins! I narrowed my choice to Monkey Business (of course) and Twist and Shout.

Monkey Business is "lucious banana cake with a cream cheese icing and topped with Calibeault white chocolate curls." (mine had a banana chip instead of chocolate curls) DEEElicious! The frosting was thick and sweet, the cake almost like a banana bread. I thought, "ooh, I should have gotten 2 of this one."

Then I tried Twist and Shout, "a moist lemon cake with a surprise raspberry filling all topped off with lemon buttercream icing with a lemon twist on top," and was glad I didn't get both the same! The flavor was perfect, like the tartest lemonade on a hot day in the Panhandle. The raspberry got lost in all that lemon, but what tasty lemon is was!



Special cupcake store #2 is downtown, within walking distance (uh oh). Pink Sugar Cupcakery attracted my eye down the block with its PINK awning, then drew me in with a poster of an awesome retro pin-up girl posed with a stand of cupcakes. I didn't find out until later that their treats are vegan - go them, I wouldn't have thought it possible!

Pink Sugar offers bite-sized mini cupcakes but I had to go for the gusto: one Chocolate Orange and one Peanut Butter. These cupcakes were more traditionally sized, and I just realized now that both of the ones I tasted were chocolate. Chocolate Orange had "hint of orange buttercream" frosting, and Peanut Butter had chocolate frosting with peanut butter on the inside of the cupcake. Mmmm I love chocolate, and these were chocolatey indeed! I carried the Chocolate Orange one through the Victoria Airport and the Seattle Airport to save it for my 4 1/2-hr plane ride and boy was I glad - it sure beat a handful of peanuts!

I'm leaning towards the Peanut Butter one as my favorite from this store.

* I can't wait to go back to Victoria and try the rest of the flavors!