As I mentioned in my last post, these photos are not as stellar as usual because I had to take these cupcakes on the bus, then wander around a hot, unfamiliar city to find some good light at 6 PM . Sorry! I learned a lot about what not to do next time I have to shoot in the street on vacation, at least.

So, here we go. My last cupcakes from Happy Cakes were a Cherry Coke cupcake and a Cosmo cupcake. The Cherry Coke cupcake is a cherry flavored icing on top of a chocolate and soda-flavored cupcake. This icing was pretty thick, close to a fondant, and pretty cherry-flavored. As always, I wasn’t getting a lot out of the soda cupcake. Cola just isn’t a strong-enough flavor to stand up to cake. Now, cherry frosting? Perfect. We need more of this. I’ll even venture to say we need it more than strawberry frosting.

The Cherry Coke is the pink cupcake in the foreground with the white sprinkles. I don’t have a better photo because it got flattened at the bottom of my cupcake bag. Boo.

Cherry coke cupcake

Now we move on to the Cosmo cupcake. The cupcake part of it was vodka-soaked and flavored with cranberry. I rarely taste the liquor in soaked cupcakes, and this was no exception, but the addition of cranberry packed a punch. It was very assertive, and I found that delightful because cupcakes tend to have good frosting but boring cakes. This was well-balanced.

Cosmo cupcake

If there’s one thing I can say about Happy Cakes, their frosting is flavorful. This cupcake had lime buttercream frosting that pretty much planted a flag on your tongue and said, “I’m here, and I’m staying.” Combined with the bold cranberry-flavored cake, it was pretty tart, but I liked that. It reminded me I was eating something, and this is important because, all too often, flavors get lost in the  mouthfeel of frosting. Raise your hands – how many of you have had frosting that tastes just like lard or just like butter? I thought so. (Heck, even my frosting tastes like butter, to my continued dismay.) Actually, this Cosmo was on the Martha Stewart show as one of her Favorites because she supposedly likes bold, tart flavors.

Cosmo cupcake frosting closeup

I like how the sugar encrusts the frosting, like tiny Pavé jewels. I think I’m seeing a trend where cupcakes that skew towards adults have sugar crystals instead of sprinkles. Sugar crystals are more elegant with their sparkle, whereas sprinkles, with their rounded shape and dull surfaces, are for kids. (Disclaimer: I get rainbow sprinkles on all my softserve icecream.)

Frosting peak

After my tour, I went back to Happy Cakes because I just knew that I had to have more of their cupcakes and take pictures for you all. Now, this posed an interesting problem. I had gotten to the Highlands by.. bus. So, picture me wandering around a somewhat run-down (but lovely), historic part of Denver, with two bags of cupcakes, altitude sickness (ie a splitting headache), 90+ degree weather, a large camera bag, and unfamiliar transportation. I briefly considered taking pictures on the sidewalk with some weeds in the background because it’d keep with the character of the area, but I thought I’d look even weirder than I already did.

This sets the stage for why 1) my cupcakes were smooshed and 2) why my light was unusual. You see, I got back to downtown Denver in the late afternoon. There was plenty of light.. in the sky. Unfortunately, it was blocked by all the high-rises. After wandering around, I found a spot of sunlight on the street caused by the sun reflecting off a skyscraper’s windows. It happened to be between some pillars on some bank. The end result? Me nestled into a dubious alcove photographing cupcakes on the street. I’m sure passerbys are still trying to figure out what they saw that day.

Back to the cake. When I saw Happy Cakes had hat was essentially cake on a stick, I had to try it. They put it in this cute little bag all by its lonesome, where I was certain it’d get crushed.

Happy Cakes bag

It’s cute, right? I love rainbow sprinkles.

Cake on a stick

The white coating is white chocolate. For those unfamiliar, cake pops are basically cake crumbles mixed with icing, chilled, then dipped into some hard coating that is usually chocolate. The stick is optional. Pioneer Woman has a nice post about them here, and Bakerella is a good source as well, with more cake pops than you could shake a stick at.

Cake pop from Happy Cakes

As always, I love the rogue pink sugar crystal in the middle. It’s like a stowaway. This is the kind of detail you never notice without photos.

Close up on the sprinkles

You may notice the innards of the cake pop look like cake. There’s no indication of icing. I will also say that I didn’t taste icing per se. It was moist but I guess the flavors meld together when you chill the cake. As a result, this was a nice little treat that wasn’t overly rich. It wasn’t streaked with pockets or veins of icing, though that’d be kind of fun. I enjoyed eating it but can’t remember anything remarkable about it. I really love cake, especially frosting, but I think I prefer them a little more separate so I can experience their flavors individually.

Innards of a cake pop

Unfortunately, my dude was a little top heavy and fell off the stick, so here he is, half-eaten with a crack in him. These are the downsides of taking photos in the street.  I’m fond of the lighting in this picture, though; that yellow hue on my hand is the setting sun of Colorado summer. It lends a nice warmth to the picture.

Cake pop after a little nibble

As I mentioned in a previous post, I went on a Culinary Connectors tour while in Denver and found myself at Happy Cakes, a well-known cupcake shop in the city. We spoke to the owner for awhile then took a look at their kitchen.

They have quite a few varieties for sale with rotating daily flavors. I like that they change up their frosting shapes – note the ribbon-like frosting in the back and on the left, compared to the thicker swirls of the Vanilla on Vanilla. Their different cupcake displays are also a nice touch.

Happy Cakes cupcake display

I get what they’re trying to do with the Black and White, but it looks a little strange.

Red velvet cupcake display

Now we went to the back. The Happy Cakes kitchen is tiny. It has a standing oven – think one of the tall, narrow cases where they keep the bread at Subway. That’s their only oven, for this whole establishment. They also have a sink, a lot of mix, a lot of frosting bags, and a shelf of liquor for flavors.

One of the owners talked to us a bit about owning a cupcake shop. She has kids and found the business to be very demanding on her time; she’s constantly on her blackberry and is not even doing the fun part, baking, much anymore. This was in contrast to the head chef at Trattoria Stella nearby, who worked 12 hour days with only a single half-day off each week. He didn’t seem to mind his situation – he said he loved food, and instead of having a girlfriend, he had the restaurant. The general message seemed to be owning your own business is time-consuming and hard, but moreso if you have a family.

These were the cupcakes they were working on to put on the displays in the front. In the front, the cupcakes are beautifully displayed and grouped together correctly, but those same cupcakes, jumbled together messily on a giant tray, look less magical, don’t they? It’s like lifting the veil of illusion about where food actually comes from.

Fresh-baked cupcakes

This was their delightful pen holder. Yes, those are sprinkles.

Sprinkle pen holder

I am back from Colorado! What an amazing place. Within a few hours of deplaning, I found myself on a Culinary Connectors tour, wandering around the Highlands district of Denver. I toured 2 restaurants, a wine store, and a cupcake shop. This cupcake shop has led me to deem this Cupcake Week because I have so many wonderful pictures from my tour and subsequent purchases from them.

The shop in question is Happy Cakes, consistently rated one of the best cupcake shops in Denver. The two owners first started baking in their homes, then moved into a shared kitchen with a cooking school. After a third owner, they moved into their own shop. It’s quite small. I would say the front and back could fit in about two parking spaces.

This cupcake is a liquor-infused creation. Given how many I’ve featured on this blog alone, I am pretty sure that booze is the #1 trendy thing in the cupcake world. Vegan might be #2. This bad girl is a Pomegranate Margarita. The cupcake is flavored like a margarita – very nice, a little limey – and the icing is so tart and flavorful because it is made with pomegranate liqueur. It was a delight to eat it – very bold. (The icing is cracked because I had to carry these all over Denver to find a place where the buildings didn’t block the setting sun. )

Pomegranate Margarita cupcake

I really like their practice of only doing the sugar in a v-like formation on one side of the cupcake. It’s a very distinctive, lovely look that also doesn’t add too much sugar to the icing.

Pink frosting on a Pomegranate Margarita cupcake

I love my close-up sprinkle/sugar shots as you know. The square, faceted shape of these pink and purple sugar crystals makes them look like emerald-cut jewels. Speaking of emeralds, I adore the rogue green sugar crystal in the middle.

Aerial view

Extreme pink sugar closeup

Good cake to icing ratio. I like to not have to ‘save’ my icing. I don’t want to be afraid that I’ll run out before I finish the cupcake part! (Remember when we were young and used to lick off the icing first?) As you can see, the cake had a good crumb, and the icing was on the denser side.

I call this the bitten side view

Again, that magnificent sugar coating adds so much to the picture; the texture on the right is wonderful.

Pomegranate Margarita frosting