Crumbs Bake Shop Cherry Blossom Cupcake

Crumbs "Cherry Blossom" Cupcake, $3.75, http://www.crumbs.com/

Taste: Mike loved this cupcake-- he thought the icing had a "subtle cherry flavor" that he very much enjoyed. The icing is cream cheese icing, but its cherry cream cheese icing, and its pretty wonderful-- think a cherry-cheesecake sort of sweet yet tangy deliciousness. The cake is delicious sweet vanilla, and there are cherry preserves inside the cupcake which are tart and dotted with plump cherries. The tart preserves complement the sweet cherry cream cheese frosting perfectly, so that eaten together this cupcake has the perfect balance and is sweet but not too sweet, thanks to that perfect slightly tart cherry center. The candied cherries on top are nice-- my cupcake came with two candied cherries, which may have been an accident. Those cherries were sweeter than the preserves, but actually not as ultra-sweet as I had feared, and surprisingly not dried out, either-- the cherry on top was juicy when I bit into it! It was more like the maraschino cherry you find on top of an ice cream sundae than a too-sugared candied dry cherry. Overall Taste Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Sprinkles

Texture: The textures here were quite pleasing-- smooth, creamy frosting coupled with soft, moist, fluffy cake, filled inside with juicy preserves in a compote that burst into cherry juices in my mouth. The candied cherries on top were candied sugar coated on the outside, but juicy inside! Not dry at all like most dried fruit. Overall Texture Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Sprinkles

Aesthetic: This cupcake is large, even , proportionate, and the cake has a pretty golden color while the frosting is a soft pink that connotes cherry, with a perfectly centered cherry on top (and a random smaller cherry imbedded in the icing off to the side-- accident?) Two slight problems with the aesthetic here-- one is that on top the icing appears a bit cracked, it doesn't look perfectly smoothed or swirled. But the bigger issue for me is that the icing isn't applied all the way down to the top of the cupcake wrapper. I like cupcake icing to cover the entirety of the top of the cupcake, not stop short and leave naked cake top showing! Overall Aesthetic Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Sprinkles

Satisfaction: The taste of this cupcake was stellar-- I really enjoyed it. It was creative and different, and yet had a classic taste at the same time, and the tartness and sweetness together were delectable. I don't think the recipe on this could have been any better! I also like the name-- the "Cherry Blossom Cupcake." I was exceptionally satisfied-- with a cherry on top! Overall Satisfaction Rating: 5 out of 5 Sprinkles!!

Overall Cupcake Ranking: 17.5 Sprinkles (out of 20 possible)