Lovely A Bake Shop

There's something about Lovely A Bake Shop that makes it so alluring. Located in the unsuspecting West Town neighborhood of Chicago, its vintage and quaint charm with mismatched furniture add to its character. And, oh yes, the bar stools at the counter-- just gotta love them. The retro design of the bar stools momentarily transports you back to an old school diner or an old fashioned ice-cream parlor. Most of the people there who had their laptops with them had MacBooks. T and I got seats on those very cool bar stools and parked ourselves at the counter. I had brought my MacBook along to do some research on our upcoming trip to New Orleans, and there you go I secretly felt proud to be a part of that Mac niche. There, I just said it. Sounds a tad bit geekish, I know. At a nearby table, there was a group of about 10-12 women who plopped themselves at the big communal table and had rolls and rolls of knitting threads set out on the center of the table. Each of the women had their knitting sticks working away with their own project. What an interesting and charming atmosphere this place has. An elder couple who had a dSLR camera draped around the husband's neck went over to that table, presumably intrigued, asking the ladies about their activity.

Giving this place a quick glance over, it felt like we were at the Anthropologie store. At one corner of the wall there were displays of aprons and hand and dish towels secured by wooden pegs to a string hanging from one side of the wall to another. On a vintage cabinet were bakeware, mugs, etc. Adding to its vintage charm, another table at the wall displayed a black old-fashioned typewriter.

Courtesy of Lovely A Bake Shop

Lovely A Bake Shop serves Intelligentsia which is T's favorite local brew because of its strong and intense flavor. I ordered a caffe late and T had a single shot espresso. The coffee beans were freshly ground for our drinks after we placed our order.

They also have quite an array of baked goods that include cupcakes, fruit pies and tarts, muffins, cookies, scones, etc. As tempting as the others looked, we've only tried the red velvet and carrot cupcakes. The cupcakes were a tad bit dry which was a little disappointing. I usually only eat half the amount of frosting on cupcakes in general because of its sweetness but I found myself eating each bite of the cupcake with the frosting (and effectively almost finishing all the frosting) to compensate for the dryness of the cupcake. I think we had expected more especially when we found out that the owners were graduates of the French Pastry School in Chicago. That said, we would really still love to try their other baked goods. I realize that Lovely A Bake Shop is not a cupcake boutique but instead a coffee and bake shop that may has its strengths in other baking aspects. For this, we would definitely return although not for their cupcakes but for the atmosphere, character, coffee, and of course to try their other baked goods.

 

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Lovely A Bake Shop

1130 North Milwaukee Avenue

Chicago, IL 60622

Crumbs Bake Shop

Crumbs? I don't think there were much crumbs left to clean on my plate after devouring these cupcakes. Actually, devouring may be too strong of a word here. Savor may be a more appropriate choice of word here since I usually never eat cupcakes in a hurried manner but instead, tasting it completely. I'm on a continuous quest to find my favorite (since calling it best is a very subjective matter here) cupcake shop in Chicago. Unless I find another possibly better cupcake shop in the city, it's safe to say that indeed Crumbs is now #1 on my personal cupcake list.

Tucked in a small store on the first floor of a corporate building in the financial district, this Manhattan import is easy to miss. We almost missed it on the day we were there because of some temporary construction scaffolding structure right outside the store. We kept looking at our GPS and swore that we had arrived at the right place and then ah hah, we realized that it was there right in front of us.

The choices of cupcake flavors were enormous and it took awhile to make some decisions. Staring at all the cupcakes on the display case, I felt like a kid in a candy store on Christmas. There were dulce de leche, butterscotch, green tea, tiramisu, apple cobbler, and Irish cream flavors. But we also wanted the classic red velvet and carrot cupcakes. This was hard! During the time of indecisiveness, I overheard an employee telling another customer that Crumbs has about 120 flavors total but this location in Chicago only carries 45 flavors.

After what seemed like forever, we finally decided on three flavors. Yup, just three. After all, it was our first time trying Crumbs and we didn't want to get way too many cupcakes first since we weren't sure how they'd turn out. The signature size cupcakes that we got were enormous; 4.25" to be exact. They do carry taste size cupcakes although the flavors seemed limited. Besides, getting taste size cupcakes just takes the fun out of the whole cupcake journey. We shared the three signature size cupcakes over three days. What?! It was huge. Even a dessert person like me could only stomach half a huge cupcake at a time.

The dulce de leche cupcake came with a little surprise frosting inside. I sliced it in half to share between the both of us and saw that there was a dollop of caramel cream cheese frosting in the middle of the cupcake. The cupcake itself was chocolate based and had the right amount of chocolate goodness to it without being overly dense nor light; it was perfect middle ground. Carrot cupcakes, in general, are T's favorite and predictable choice at a bake shop each time. The carrot cupcake got his approval. I also liked the little bits of raisins in the carrot cupcake and the crushed walnuts on the edge of the cream cheese frosting. And finally, the classic red velvet cupcake. The color was so rich even just by looking at the red velvet crumbs on the cream cheese frosting that was edged with white sprinkles. The texture of all three cupcakes were moist and soft. That's probably one of the most important criteria to me. There wasn't a hint of dryness even on the 3rd day of eating the last cupcake.

So to date, Crumbs is our top cupcake place. We do hear that Magnolia Bakery (also another NY import) will be opening up in Chicago in June and I'm very excited to try it and taste how it compares to Crumbs. But until then, Crumbs it is for us.

Update: T came home from work and surprised me with a box of cupcakes, from Crumbs of course. He said "I'm not much of a sweets or dessert person but I think Crumbs are great!"

Devil's Food

Front: Vanilla Coconut, Back: Peanut Butter Cup

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Crumbs Bake Shop
303 West Madison Street
Chicago, IL 60606