The Cupcake craze has definitely taken Sydney by storm. When you think of how many specialist cupcake bakeries there were a couple of years ago compared to now, the humble cupcake has been uplifted from an add on at a bakery to a baked good wortht of its very own store. Shopping on Oxford Street in Paddington one afternoon I stumbled upon a new addition to the cupcake scene, The Cupcake Bakery. Finding myself without camera I made a note to revisit it soon and scarcely a week later and the lure of a new cupcake is too strong and we find ourselves, camera in hand, ready to partake of these cupcakes.
The front display shows about 8 different types of cupcakes ranging from carrot cake, chocolate, sticky date, vanilla, chili chocolate and lemon & poppyseed. But what we’re really interested in after an afternoon running around under the hot Sydney summer sun is a Cupcake Sundae. We have a choice of two sizes, regular $8 or large $12 and when she shows us the two containers, we choose regular due to the cute ceramic ice cream container (the large being housed in a glass bowl). I choose the Sticky Date Delight: scoops of vanilla and caramel ice cream with warm stick date cupcake topped with fresh cream, caramel sauce, toasted walnuts and finished with a maraschino cherry.
We go out to the back tea garden and relax in the shaded courtyard. Looking upwards there are grapevines woven through the roof trellis and flowers threaded through the side trellises, a nice respite from the buzzing hum of Oxford St.
Sticky Date Delight Sundae regular size $8
Our Sticky Date Delight sundae arrives and its as pretty as a picture. We almost don’t want to destroy it by eating it but it looks terrifically tempting too so we dig in. Underneath a huge mound of whipped cream on one side is a warm sticky date cupcake next to a scoop of vanilla and caramel ice cream. There’s lashings of chocolate topping (not caramel as on the menu), toasted walnuts and the promised maraschino cherry which completes the sweet retro look. The cupcake itself is delicious, a soft warm cupcake with swirls of brown sugary caramel which goes beautifully with the cold creamy ice cream. The whipped cream needs a little sugar in it and caramel topping would have suited it better but the toasted walnuts are a great crunch. Its so delicious its gone within minutes.
Carrot cake cupcake $3.50
We go to the counter to pay and choose some cupcakes to takeaway. We choose the carrot cupcake (primarily for the adorable mini carrot on top) and the chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream icing. The carrot cupcake is soft and good but is light on the carrot and walnuts and doesn’t have any pineapple in it. The cream cheese icing is soft and sweet and perfectly suited although there are tiny flecks of butter still in it.
Chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream $3.50
The chocolate cupcake is dense and perhaps not as fresh and less sweet with a bittersweet dark chocolate taste to it. The buttercream is incredibly sweet and the two don’t seem to go as well together as the carrot cake and the cream cheese icing. Service is a vague and a little unsure, indeed we could’ve walked out without paying. Nevertheless, the sundae was a definite winner and I’ll use any excuse to pop into a tea garden to escape the shopping hoards!
The Cupcake Bakery
438 Oxford St Paddington
NSW 2021
ph: +61 (02) 9332 3700
mob: 0430 216 424
email: info@thecupcakebakery.com.au
Monday-Wednesday 7am-7pm
Thursday & Friday 7am-8pm
Saturday 8am-7pm
Sunday 9am-6pm
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11 Comments | Add your own
not sure why, but I still prefer muffins [ :
The cupcake sundaes sound really yummy!!
ps- I have a terrible confession.. husband loves Hostess cup cakes >.
Hi Tian-the muffin craze definitely passed me by. I really love the decorations so cupcakes are definitely more my kind of thing.
Hi Kathy-Haha tell me what are Hostess cupcakes? I’ve heard of them along with twinkies but never actually had one!
The thing that irritates me about this whole cupcake craze is that it simply reveals how shallow we all are. I mean, it’s just a little cake, less than you’d get if it was being sold by the slice, with icing done in a piping bag rather than just smoothed over a cake.
And we all fall for it hook line and sinker.
For you see, I want one of those sundaes right.now.
Hi kim-Ahh the thing is with cupcakes, they’re only about $3.50 but slices of cake are usually around $5-$7 so it works out in the end no?
That chocolate cupcake with the mound of vanilla buttercream.. boy that looks delicious!!!!!
Thank you so much again for your generous replies and wishes. I like that your posts sometimes have related ‘links’ to click on..which is how I was led here
I hope you have a lovely weekend.
Hi Maria-It was good but in this heat the sundae is definitely on my agenda!
Thanks, my husband did that. Thankfully he is good at adding all the cool technical things on the website
I did have a good weekend-hope yours was great and I hope you are feeling better!
I’m going to be the proverbial ‘wet blanket’. The first time I saw the bakery, I thought I’d struck it rich, but after tasting my first cupcake, I was bitterly disappointed.
Why? Well, for one thing, the cake mixture was thin (just like packet cake mix - not 2nd or 3rd cake method) and the icing was NOT icing at all - just coloured cream. To me, icing is proper American style ‘frosting’. Now that’s icing!
Sorry, Cupcake Bakery, you’ve lost me.
Hi Thea-I think they do need to do a bit of taste testing of the cupcakes. I think a lot of people are just eager to get into cupcakes as there is such a demand for them!
Coloured cream is disappointing, I would imagine that would only really work for a blackforest cupcake or something similar.
Oh dear - a cupcake shop exists in Sydney and I didn’t know about it! Thanks for bringing this one to my attention, it all looks so yummy, but especially the sticky date sundae. Guess where I’m off to this weekend
Hi kaydee-For some reason this hasn’t gotten much press despite sydney being cupcake mad! The sundaes are definitely the choice from there. Have fun!
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