Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes: Another Chicago Edition
January 19, 2010
On our latest trip to Chicagoland, Taste Tester and I tried a few new chocolate peanut butter cupcakes in addition to our standby faves from Molly’s.
The Bleeding Heart Bakery started out on Chicago Ave just a few blocks from where Taste Tester and I lived in Chicago a few years ago. Not being vegan or able to spend on expensive baked goods at the time, I wasn’t a frequent customer but liked them and rooted for their success. I’d since read that they had moved on to other locations and looked forward to my next Chicago trip to check out their new digs and see what new goodies they’d come up with.
Here is the batch of cupcakes we got there:
Starting clockwise from top left: Chocolate Peanut Butter (v)*, Veruca Salt (vanilla, salt & caramel), Chocolate Vanilla (v), Chocolate Raspberry (v), Chocolate Marshmallow (v) and Chocolate Beer.
You can read read my full review of Bleeding Heart on Yelp. In short, despite the glorious appearance of these cupcakes, the winner of the goodies we tried was unquestionably the brownie. That’s right, this guy right here:
Rich, moist, dense and full of dark chocolate chunks. It was exactly what I want to taste when I bite into a brownie. It took me three days to get through this indulgent brick of chocolatey goodness and it tasted fresh and yummy the whole time.
The second bakery we visited was A Taste of Heaven (full review also on Yelp), which came highly recommended from our friends, Susan and John. John ordered the pound cake with chocolate chips that was delicious. They warmed it up for him, which was a nice touch. Taste Tester ordered the Peanut Butter Banana cupcake which was a peanut butter cake topped with banana frosting and a peanut butter cup. Sadly it was fairly forgettable. It wasn’t bad per se, just fine. And after tasting the yummy pound cake, I guess I expected a little better.
The big surprise was that the gigantic slice of fruitcake I took home for breakfast the next day was definitely the best thing I tried there. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “FRUITCAKE?!”. Yes, FRUITCAKE! It was made of (I think) the same tasty pound cake batter that was in John’s chocolate chip cake but was chockfull of giant delicious hunks of sweet dried fruit.
I forgot to take a picture until I was a bite or two into it. Whoops - The Nibbler strikes again! Though, you guys should really expect this of me by now.
Well, the new bakeries may not have provided us with drool-worthy CPB treats to look forward to on our future Chicago trips, but they were fun visits anyway. Taste Tester and I saved the best for last and brought some of Molly’s Cupcakes home with us. The drive from Chicago to NY is a long and not super fun one, but a Peanut Butter Nutella cupcake at least made it a little more pleasant!
- (v) = vegan