Cupcake bliss in Stellies

I haven’t been to Stellenbosch for quite some time.  But I headed over there with my friend Nix on Saturday and we were lucky enough to stumble upon Cupcake (56 Dorp St).

Yay!

They sell all kinds of goodies like biscuits, sweeties, jams and gifting things.  And then they also have a little cafe where you can sit and enjoy some breakfast, a sandwich, some sweet treats or of course a cupcake!

Mmmmm… hold me back people…

There’s lots of interesting things in the shop, but I just totally fell in love with these retro fridges:

How awesome is that?  I have to have one…

Oooh, and how impressive is this cake?

I almost took this baby home with me… yes yes, the entire thing… ;)

Then you can sit inside, but because the weather was pretty good, we opted to enjoy a bit of sunshine in their little courtyard at the back:

Just you, your cupcake & the sun…

I also loved all the attention to detail.  Everything to the little note with your order on it was absolutely beautiful.

Come one, how bloody cute is that?

And last, but definitely not least… the “piece de resistance”:

The pink one was mine and the blue one was for Nix. No sharing allowed. haha.

They were butter icing cupcakes (R12 each). They have lots of other options to choose from as well, like: chocolate or vanilla meringue, red velvet, carrot and even cheese cake cupcakes. But I’m a butter icing girl through and through.

I would give their cupcakes a on my Miss K Kiss-o-Meter rating scale.  They made me smile from ear to ear. :)

So if you have a sweet tooth like me, and you’re in the area, do yourself a favour and pop in!

xxx

Macaron wars & cupcake face off

OK, so a while back I did a blog entry about these amazing macarons I bought at Cassis in the Gardens Shopping centre.  In that post, I claimed that they are by far, the best macarons in town…

But then, my friend Dani challenged me on that and said that I needed to also try the macarons at Emporio Leone in the V&A Waterfront.  So on Friday evening I ended up meeting up with Dani and another bestie, Joe,  for some dinner & a catch up.   After dinner, we needed something sweet, so we figured this was the perfect opportunity to go check out those macarons.

Emporio Leone is a relatively new spot and they specialise in all things sweet and evil.   Just look at the goodies on offer at this place:

Hold me back people…

And then there was this baby:

No, no! Get that away from me!

Oh and these:

Seriously!?! You are killing me here…

And finally, we found the little macaron beauties:

There they are!!!

The price is a bit steep at R8.50 each! (Cassis is only R5 a piece)  And they only had 3 flavours on offer:  Lemon, Pistachio & Chocolate orange.  A bit limiting…  Dani actually got me one of each flavour, cause she was so sure that they would blow me away.  Such a sweetheart! Mwah.   But sadly, they were quite hard and dry.  Maybe it was just a bad batch…  The only saving grace was the creamy filling.

I also got a deliciously evil-looking chocolate cupcake before exiting the shop… but more about that later. :)

After the disappointing macaron tasting at Emporio Leone… Joe, suggested that to make this a proper “best of” macaron review, we needed to head over to Myatt.  Myatt is a stunning coffee shop on the upper level at the V&A, on the Woolies side.

Can this place possibly be any prettier?

Their menu consists of sandwiches, wraps, salads and light meals, as well as an array of sweet treats.  One thing to note though is that these people take “attention to detail” to the next level, just look at the sugar cube bowl for example:

Sugar cubes just don’t taste the same unless they’re served in a golden cup!

And isn’t this the most beautiful cappuccino you’ve ever seen!?!

The cappuccino “hearts” me!

But on to the real reason we were there… the macarons!  The prices here weren’t too much better.  You can get 3 macaroons for R25.  But just look at their flavour selection:

BAM!!!

I went for the Vanilla (according to the waitress, that’s their top-selling one), the Pistachio and the Honey & Saffron.  The presentation again was top notch:

Oh so pretty…

However… the filling in these babies were seriously weird.  They had a strange margarine taste to them.  It was quite off-putting to be honest.  A total bummer though as the meringue parts were great…

So after getting to taste some of the supposed best macarons on offer in Cape Town, here are my final Miss K Kiss-o-Meter ratings to put an end to this war:

  • Emporio Leone: 
  • Myatt: 
  • Cassis: 

Cassis still wins by far!!! Woohoo!  Told you guys…

Now, back to that decadent chocolate cupcake I purchased at Emporio Leone.  Joe bought a vanilla cupcake at Myatt as well, so we decided to do a bit of a cupcake “face off” while we were at it.

In the left corner we had the Myatt Vanilla cupcake with chocolate shavings:

Contender nr 1

In the right corner we had the double choc, dressed up in gold dust cupcake from Emporio Leone:

Contender nr 2

While the Myatt cupcake won on looks 100%, the cake part was way too dense.  The Emporio Leone chocolate dream on the other hand was just yum!  But again, I have to give you my official Miss K Kiss-o-Meter ratings:

  • Myatt Vanilla cupcake:
  • Emporio Leone Chocolate cupcake: 

So there you go guys.  Hope you’re all craving sweet things just as much as I am now!  Gotta still try and work off all that sugar in the gym…  aargghh.  Does it count btw if you eat a cupcake while on the treadmill? haha.

xxx