Magnolia Bakery: Vanilla on Vanilla

I'm beginning my cupcake rankings with the classic Vanilla Cake on Vanilla Buttercream combination. The above cupcake is from Magnolia Bakery (magnoliabakery.com, $2.50 each), and their vanilla buttercream comes in a variety of colors. Classic white was not available, so I chose pink from amongst the vanilla frosting options, which also included blue and green.
Taste: The icing is very, very sweet and very, very buttery-- a bit cloying. The first taste of the icing was sweet and pleasant, but after a few more tastes I felt like I was eating Confectioner's Sugar straight from the box atop a stick of butter. While the icing was too sweet, the cake was not sweet enough, and even together they did not strike the right balance. The cake had not enough sugar and perhaps a touch too much baking soda. The unpleasantness of the cake was balanced somewhat when eating the cake and icing together, because together the icing was almost all I could taste. However, I experienced a slightly unpleasant aftertaste. After a few bites I had had more than enough and had no desire to finish it. Overall taste rating: 2 out of 5 sprinkles.
Texture: The texture of the icing was pleasant-- soft and dense, but melted on my tongue. But, the cake texture was awful-- dry, crumbly, no moisture at all. Overall texture rating: 2 out of 5 sprinkles.
Aesthetic: The cupcake definitely looked better than it tasted-- tiny, cute, with a "classic homemade" aesthetic, light golden color, even height, and good cake-to-frosting ratio. The frosting was applied in a pretty swirl, and a smattering of rainbow sprinkles across the top added charm. However, the pink color on vanilla icing is in my opinion misleading, as in baked goods color often connotes flavor, and adding color dye to the icing might account for the slight aftertaste I experienced. Overall aesthetic ranking: 3 out of 5 sprinkles.
Satisfaction: Overall, I was unsatisfied with the cupcake, and have no desire to eat a vanilla on vanilla cupcake from Magnolia again. I was very glad I had more cupcakes available since this one was so unsatisfying! Overall satisfaction ranking: 1 out of 5 sprinkles.

Cupcake Ranking: 8 Sprinkles (out of 20 possible)