A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

Located in Brighton Center where the old Battery used to be, Cherry Bomb Bakery opened it’s doors mid may this year. When I checked out their twitter page, in June they said they were having a slow month, and they wrote that they expect August to be a slow month…..

I read this review (http://www.wearenotmartha.com/2010/05/cherry-bomb-bakery-cupcakes/) and I seriously wonder if we went to the same place. Maybe because it was written when the bakery had opened and there was a lot of buzz about the place, and now that it has slowed down, things have changed, cupcakes aren’t moving as quickly….And maybe that’s why they are on Buy with Me until Monday 8/2/10 (six cupcakes for $8).

I don’t generally get to Brighton Center, I find it a pain, there isn’t much there and rarely can you find convenient parking. I drove around the block 3 times before I could find a spot, and even then it was two blocks away. I probably would have driven past the store had I not known where it was. I walked in, and there is no one there at 4pm, not a good sign. I’ve read reviews about how it’s a ‘hipster’ cupcake place-um maybe. The girl behind the counter has various piercings and two tattoo sleeves, but I think that’s about how hipster it gets. They have a few tables and stools in the window along window where you can sit and use their free wi-fi all day. Other than that, the decor is forgettable.

The cupcake display case is upfront and center. All the cupcakes look great! I have to admit that I really don’t have self control when it comes to cupcakes, you can’t just have one. If you are going to a new place, you want to sample them all. So I get 8 cupcakes (mind you, I don’t eat them all, just have a fork-full of each). They also have a selection of other baked goods as well as coffee and tea.

So I get the following: vanilla lame-o, double chocolate with chocolate covered bacon, red velvet sexiness, peanut butter banana, lemon snap, toffee carrot cake, cannoli, and tiramisu.

The cannoli-a chocolate dipped cake with ricotta frosting. This cupcake is SO cute to look at.  The cannoli was by far the best part. The girl behind the counter filled it while I waited for her to box the cupcakes up. The shell was crispy with maybe a slight hint of cinnamon and the filling was smooth and creamy. I think you can tell from the picture, that this cupcake hardly qualifies as being ‘chocolate dipped’…the cake was visibly dry and tasted that way too, and had almost no flavor (no idea where the ricotta was).

The shortcake-no on the online menu…There were strawberries in the cake, which was lighter than the others, but still dry. The frosting had a waxy looking texture to it and the strawberry on top had seen better days.

The toffee carrot-carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Again, SUPER cute to look at. The carrot garnish on top was shriveled and dry…doesn’t really make it appetizing. The icing was actually hard, making me wonder how long it had been sitting in the case, and you could hear a crunch when you bit into it. It was super grainy and sugary and didn’t really taste like cream cheese to me. At first glance the cake appeared to be moister than the other, but I wonder if it was the toffee part. When I removed the cupcake from my plate there was a nice greasy residue…

Red Velvet with vanilla butter cream. Red velvet cakes are usually pretty moist, so I was optimistic. Unfortunately the cake was gummy. Again, the frosting was waxy looking and tasting-heavy and dense. The dark chocolate truffle on top was good and really made the cupcake pop. And usually, red velvet is paired with a cream cheese frosting, so I just thought it was a bit odd that they paired it with a vanilla frosting.

Double chocolate with chocolate covered bacon-chocolate cake, chocolate frosting and chocolate covered bacon. Bacon is SO in right now. Vosges makes a great bacon chocolate. Back on track though, I love the visual appeal of this cupcake. The one weird part was that if you look on the right, it looks like frosting wasn’t mixed completely. The bacon was SUPER salty-I thought it could have been a bit more subtle. This cupcake was by far the freshest and had the moistest cake. The frosting was good-fluffy and light albeit a little sweet.

Peanut butter banana-Banana cupcake, peanut butter frosting. Love the garnish-makes the cupcake really cute. The first thing that hits me is, why is there so little cake, it is well below the top of the cup. Like many of the other cupcakes, the cake is very dry and hard to swallow and the icing is actually crunchy.

Lemon Snap-lemon cake, lemon curd, vanilla butter cream. I think I missed where the lemon curd was on this…lemon curd has such a strong tart flavor, I sort of can’t believe that I missed it-so was it ever really there? I love this look of this cupcake the most-the garnish is top notch. I thought that the vanilla butter cream was just too heavy for this cupcake, when I think lemon cake I think light and airy and this just weighed it down.

Vanilla Lame-o-vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream frosting. I have this rule that if you can’t make a good simple cupcake (ie. vanilla with vanilla or chocolate with chocolate) you have no business making other crazy flavored cupcakes. If you can’t get the fundamentals of basic cupcakes, what would make you think that you (not you personally) should be making more complicated ones? The frosting on this one had all but melted off by the time I got home-more so than the other ones, but they were leaning as well. I had to push the frosting back on for the picture. The cake was underwhelming as was the frosting-this may very well have been lame-o.

In summary: The cakes were all pretty dry with the exception of the chocolate with chocolate bacon. The frosting were dense and heavy, and they just didn’t scream ‘fresh’ to me. So for this girl, Cherry Bomb Bakery just bombed.

Take a look at their menu:

Cookies: Chocolate rum, Peanut butter, Vanilla Earl Grey, White chocolate cranberry, Caramel Oatmeal

www.cherrybombboston.com

Tags: bakery, cupcakes