Bittersweet Cupcake Saturday

So, it has been an interesting couple of weeks for me.  The culmination of the past few weeks came to me giving my two weeks notice at the toy store on Saturday.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about it.  But, at the end of the day, I deserve to make a wage that suits my abilities, experience and work ethic.  I also want a career, not a job.  So, I am moving on to bigger and better things.  I am excited, VERY excited.  I will miss the toy store.  Luckily, the new job will be right across the street so I will be in my same neighborhood.  It is a great opportunity for me and it is really where I belong at this point in my life.  I need challenges and opportunity and appreciation for my skills and abilities.  I see that happening in my new position.
So, I gave my notice first thing in the morning and could actually relax and look forward to my future!  I was hoping that the flavor of the day at Cupcake Charlie's would match my spirit...and boy, was I happy that it did!  Bittersweet, indeed! :)  The flavor of the day was Snickers!  It is a rich and moist chocolate cupcake filled with caramel and nuts!  On top is a layer of chocolate frosting, topped with a dollop of peanut butter frosting (which is the BEST frosting at Cupcake Charlie's!).  That is topped with nuts and a slice of Snickers candy bar.  This cupcake was so rich and sweet.  I really savored it.   It was the perfect ending to an up and down and then up again week. 
I start my new job mid-Oct.  I hope to continue my cupcake journey.  :)  Since I will definitely be given a bonafide lunch break every day (unlike my current situation of standing at the counter and eating my lunch between customers...ugh.), I see no reason for my sweet adventures to end!  :)  Until next week!

Fall has arrived!

This Saturday was the first official day of Autumn!  I love the fall!  I am already chomping at the bit to put up my Halloween decorations at the store....and at home!  The air is crisp, the leaves are pretty....I do have to admit that it is bittersweet though.  I had a really fantastic summer this year.  My husband and I moved right near the beach last spring and we got to take full advantage of being able to walk to the ocean all summer which was awesome.  The store was busy all summer, too...which was really nice b/c it makes work barely seem like work at all.  My summer crew is a big part of that....they make the toy store a fun place to be!  I really do miss them!  :(  Back to now....the fall.....enjoying it until the winter chill starts to arrive!
In honor of the departure of summer, my cupcake this week was a repeat offender:  orange dreamcicle.  I really love this cupcake.  Apparently, Cupcake Charlie's only serves this one in the summer and Saturday was the last day it would be available.  Who knew?  I enjoyed it thoroughly!  Orange flavored cupcake with creme in the middle...topped with orange icing with a fruit slice for garnish.  So good!  This one just puts a smile on my face looking at it....and the sugar rush makes me zippy for a good hour after I eat it!  Love, love, love. 
I am hoping that Cupcake Charlie's continues its fall themed flavors this weekend.  We have a free one coming-we completed our punch card! YAY!  Will see you next week!

Is it Autumn already? Cupcake Saturday says "yes!"

Summer is by far my favorite season.  Fall is a very close second.  Halloween.  (Anyone who knows me knows of my love of costumes and dressing up)Thanksgiving.  Leaves changing colors.  Not too cool, not too hot.  Sweaters and boots.  Pumpkins and apples.  It was a busy Saturday at the toy store but I was determined to get a celebrate Cupcake Saturday this week no matter what when I found out what the flavor of the day was!  This week Cupcake Charlie's was celebrating the fall season with this flavor of the day: Caramel Apple Pie.  Caramel is my favorite candy of all time.  I love those "bullseye" caramel creme candies and their offspring, the CowTale.  When I was little, and grocery stores did this, I would buy a small bag of caramels at the Brach display.  Later on, you could actually put a quarter in a box for just one piece of candy from the display, and I would do that as a treat when I was older.  My fave ice cream sundae is a caramel sundae.  And now, I can add, Caramel Apple Pie to my list of Caramel loves.  This cupcake was fan-fricken-tastic!! It was a slightly cinnamon-y cupcake filled with apple pie filling.  The apple pie filling actually reminded me of the Hostess apple pies that are covered in a thin layer of glaze...sugary and good!  The frosting was a cinnamon/maple frosting which was drizzled with caramel and topped with a piece of candy corn.  I can't really tell you how good this cupcake was.  The apple filling was the best part.  Anytime I can have my Cupcake Saturday and eat fruit at the same time is a good situation for me!  I really loved this cupcake and am looking forward to what the fall and winter seasons have in store. 

Summer (unofficially) comes to an end....bring on the fall!

This Saturday was the first Saturday after Labor Day.  Labor Day on Cape Cod is the end of summer, no matter what the calendar "officially" says.  The traffic gets lighter, the beaches get empty (and lose their lifeguards and ice cream trucks), the locals come out into the sunlight again after hiding from the tourists for the past three months.  It is all pretty nice.  I actually like the hustle and bustle of summer on the Cape.  I don't mind the traffic b/c I have found several different ways to get wherever I need to go.  I like the business at the store-all of the kids excited about being on vacation, all of the new faces from all over the United States-and sometimes far away places.  My days at work go by quickly.  I enjoy my beach days with all of the crowds.  With all of this being said, I have to admit, this first week after Labor Day was kind of nice and relaxing.  I could sleep in 15 minutes longer b/c there was no traffic AND no line at Dunkin' Donuts for my Vanilla Chai.  I spent the week at the store cleaning and re-arranging things.  We got a huge shipment but had plenty of room to work on it and didn't need to rush to move it out of the way. I popped open the doors and turned off the AC b/c I am fine without it and there weren't as many customers to complain about it.  :)   Nice.  I give myself one more week of solitude enjoyment before the 10-6 shift solo with no customers wears on me....but right now....I am going to enjoy the break. 
This is the first week without my summer crew and my new helper is working out well.  She is a nice girl and she really seems to like the job.  She is really great with customers, which is amazing to me b/c she barely has had time to learn where everything is, but she jumps in with a suggestion every time she is asked and has no problem chatting with people, which is important in a toy store.  Another bonus about my new helper is that she has a sweet tooth and is more than happy to embrace my Cupcake Saturday endeavor!  Yay!  I knew I was going to like her! 
A bonus of the fall/quiet season is that Cupcake Charlie's tends to offer more inventive flavors when the business is slower.  I think it is easier for them to make complicated flavors in smaller amounts.  The flavor of the day this week, which I chose, was Stuffed French Toast.  I love french toast.  It is my favorite breakfast food.  I honestly can't tell you the last time that I actually had some, but I have always loved it.  This cupcake tasted EXACTLY like french toast!  It was delicious!  I can't really tell you what flavor the cupcake itself was b/c it was overwhelmed with all of the other flavors going on, but I don't think it was a straight vanilla.  It was filled with what tasted like the cream cheese frosting that is usually on the carrot cake cupcake.  Soooo good.  On top was some drizzled maple syrup topped with a heaping dollop of maple/cinnamon flavored frosting which was sprinkled with cinnamon.  This was really surprising in how much flavor it had!  I was really thrilled with it.  It was also a comfort food kind of flavor which works well with my "heading into fall" mode....
My helper got the Carly's chocolate chip cookie, which seems to be the standby for half of the crew that works for me.  She loved it and looks forward to branching out next week.  :) 
All-in-all, a good way to end a pretty good, non-eventful week.  Let's see what this week brings, shall we?  :)

Goodbyes are easier with cupcakes!

After all of the drama of last week, I was hoping for a easy breezy kind of week at work.  Still not feeling my best, but I am sucking it up and getting through it.  :)  I had two days off to rest and then returned to work on Tues.  This was the last week that I would be working with my summer crew-my Saturday sidekick and one of my other girls were leaving for college this week.  In honor of that, we decided cupcakes were in order every day!  :)  Well, almost every day.  Not quite. 
Starting with Tuesday....which turned out to have one of our favorite flavors as flavor of the day:  Fudge Factory!  This cupcake is soooo rich and chocolately.  It is a chocoloate cupcake, which has chocolate chips throughout.  It is filled with chocolate frosting and topped with chocolate frosting, which is topped with chocolate chips and a nice piece of fudge from Ghelfi's.  I love this cupcake.  LOVE.  Me and my sidekick both got the same one and the silence while we ate them was all anyone needed to know how damn good it was.  :)
Wednesday I only worked a short night shift (because I am working 2 weeks straight without a day off.   Yep.)  No time for cupcakes.

Thursday, on the other hand, was a long shift with my sidekick.  We were not excited about the flavor of the day, which was Smores.  I don't love vanilla cupcakes and she doesn't love marshmallow.  Instead we both opted for one of our hands down fave chocolate variety:  Chocolate Peanut Butter Overload.  This one is basically the chocolate overload cupcake, chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting center, with a big dollop of the most delicious peanut butter frosting on the planet on top, and a piece of Reese's peanut butter cup!  It was so rich and yummy.  Perfect for a Thursday.  :)  I love daily cupcakes! 
Sadness was starting to creep in on Thursday though.  Only one more day with my sidekick.  Friday.   What better way to send her off to college? 

This one was all her choice....and I agreed with it wholeheartedly:  Chocolate Raspberry Surprise.  The surprise, which I always forget about, is the raspberry filling on the inside of the delicious chocolate cupcake.  The frosting is a not-too-sweet raspberry as well, with two chocolate straws making it look pretty.  Soooooo good.  I always kind of forget about this one with all of the other dazzlers at Cupcake Charlie's, but the mix of sweet and rich is a great combination!  I was so sad to see my sidekick leave me, but it was a great note to end on.  She is such a sweetheart-she gave me a gift certificate for Cupcake Charlie's as a goodbye gift and made me promise to keep the tradition ongoing.  I will do my best!  :) 
You probably think that 3 cupcakes in a week is more than enough, right?  Well, normally that would be true.  But I still have one more chica on my staff who is leaving me for higher education and I couldn't send her off without a proper cupcake goodbye so....

Lemon Drop Cupcake Sunday it is!  My girl was given her choice and she chose this sweet treat and I was so glad that she did!  I had alot of chocolate this week...it was definitely time to change it up!  I love the Lemon Drop cupcake.  It is a light lemony cupcake filled with lemon meringue pie filling.  So good.  It is topped with a light lemon frosting and drizzled with some white chocolate.  So summery, so pretty, so sweet and sour.  Really, really good.  Again, sad to see my dragon fighting chica leave me for school, but I thanked her for all of her hard work for the past year or so.  I will definitely miss my girls.  :( 
Luckily, my new staffer seems ready to step into Cupcake Saturday with a ready love for sweets!  :)  Good thing we are both working this Saturday!  Wonder what the flavor of the day will be.......

Painful week ends with a much needed Cupcake!

I am a lover of all things sweet and fun.  This past week was neither.  Boo hiss.  I had a little bit of a medical emergency earlier in the week which put me out of commission for three days at the toy store.  I hate being sick and missing work which is why I basically never do it.  Could not be helped this week.  A nice side to the whole situation was seeing how great my staff is, which I, of course, already knew.  :)  I really cannot say enough nice things about the girls that work for me in the store.  They put up with standing on their feet all day, dealing with mean customers and crying kids, lots of deliveries and sometimes lots of downtime, but they always come through for me and do their best.  I actually called for coverage from the ER, while laying on a gurney with an IV in my arm, and my Saturday Sidekick cancelled her appointments for the day and worked the afternoon, even though it would mean working 6 out of 7 days this week.  They all rearranged their schedules to cover my absence.  Love them more than I can say.  I hope they all know it!
After three days at home I had enough and headed into work on Saturday.  I wasn't sure how I was going to feel but I really needed to get back to the store.  Saturday was my LAST Cupcake Saturday with my Saturday Sidekick.  :(  She is leaving me to go to grad school at the end of this coming week.  I knew that we both deserved cupcakes after the hellish week we both had!  Unfortunately, the dreaded Boston Creme Pie was the flavor of the day, so we decided to go Old School and get ones we both knew we enjoyed.  Mine is always Funfetti....which was soooo good and sugary.  It has a vanilla cupcake with rainbow jimmies throughout and is topped with pink strawberry frosting that is also jammed packed with jimmies.  I think I have mentioned before that I wish this one had creme in the middle, but honestly with my weakened state it might have been just too much sugar for my system!  :) Just what I needed in my worn out state.  My Sidekick got Rockin' Red Velvet, which I will assume was good since she was pretty quiet once she dug in.  :)  She also declared it delicious, which is a good sign. 
Ah, the last official Cupcake Saturday.  I am planning on continuing the tradition, but I might be working solo on Saturdays due to the slowing down of the business in the fall.  I am not sure how the hours of Cupcake Charlie's will coincide with my hours either so I might not be able to continue the tradition faithfully.  I will try my best.  My sidekick and I have promised each other to at least have some sort of Sweet Saturday across the miles (she is only in Boston, but it seems sooooo far) and we are going to email each other pics of our weekly treats.  I will keep this updated, even if it ends up being something sweet but not Cupcake Charlie's.  I think I like the idea of Sweet Saturday!  It broadens my horizons. Time to break out and try other sweet treats besides cupcakes, right?  Anyway, let's hope this week is much sweeter than the last!

Cupcake Saturday catching up to do!

Hello Cupcake Saturday fans!  I have had a busy, busy, busy past few weeks and am just now catching up on my Cupcake Saturday adventures!  Work has been busy with the tourist season kicking into high gear and my home life has been busy with lots of visitors to the beach house!  Neither of these has completely gotten in the way of Cupcake Saturday celebrations, but it has changed it a bit and has definitely gotten in the way of me writing about it!  Hopefully I can catch up with this entry and be back on track by next Saturday! :)
So, going back about three weeks, I had a surprise visitor at work!  My friend, E, had returned back to the Cape after living in another state for a few months!  I worked with him at my previous job and always love seeing him so I was glad to hear and see that he was back.  He also has been following my cupcake adventures on my Facebook page and took it upon himself to bring me a Orange Dreamcicle cupcake for my Cupcake Saturday celebration!  Yay!  The Dreamcicle is one of my faves and coming from E as a special delivery really made me smile.  It threw off the Cupcake Saturday tradition of going and picking them out, etc...but my Saturday Sidekick is pretty easy going and had no problem picking up one on her own.  When she did-added bonus-we officially completed our punch card which means that our next cupcake would be FREE!  Fantastic!  We were already planning for the next week!  :)

So, onto the next week and we were CRAZY busy at the store!  The last day that was crazy busy was July 4th weekend, which I had taken off to spend time with my visiting Mom.  This particular Saturday was a little overcast and not a beach day so we were busy, busy, busy alllllll day long.  I was craving my cupcake from the time my feet hit the floor of my bedroom that morning so I was hoping that all of the store traffic wouldn't interfere with the celebration!  I checked the Facebook page for Cupcake Charlie's all morning hoping that the Flavor of the Day would be something spectactular....and it didn't disappoint!  The Flavor of the Day, which both of us got, was Chocolate Covered Cherry.  It was sooooo delicious.  The cupcake was a deep chocolate filled with cherry filling and topped with chocolate frosting and a cherry sitting in a pool of more cherry filling.  It was decadent and very rich.  I seriously could feel the sugar coursing through my veins afterwards.  I am officially naming this my fave of the chocolate filled variety...so good.  Best part?  We used our punch card and only had to pay for ONE!  Two for one deliciousness!  Can't beat that!  :)

Okay...and onto this week!  It has been a hectic week for me at the store.  All of my girls are leaving me and returning to college by Labor Day.  I lose two girls this week and the other two next week.  The hours at the Commons change to short hours after Labor Day so I have been looking for someone to cover my days off after the summer season-basically someone to replace my Saturday Sidekick.  Sadness.  It hasn't been an easy road.  Not many applicants and those applying are not suitable for so many reasons....not enough room on a page to go into.  Finally, this week I had an application from a young woman who looked like a hopeful.  I interviewed her and liked her very much.  She got rave reviews from her references.  She started Saturday.  :)  I am optimistic that I will be all set for the fall season.  Fingers crossed.  Bonus is that she (I will call her B) mentioned her love of ice cream and sweets during our interview....Cupcake Saturday participant??  :)
Two more weeks of Cupcake Saturday with my current sidekick and I cannot tell you how much I am going to miss her, and not just because of our Cupcake Saturdays.  She is a smart and funny girl and I am going to miss chatting with her on a weekly/daily basis.   I will be sad to have my last cupcake with her next week.  :(  We both mentioned it this week and it is the main reason we decided to go for flavors that are regular flavors at Cupcake Charlie's that we haven't tried before.  She got the Carly's chocolate chip cookie, which she loved and I got Granny's Carrot Cake which was really, really good.  The frosting was a cream cheese frosting and the carrot cake was moist and delicious.  I really enjoyed it and it was really satisfying.  Glad I finally got the chance to try it.  One more Cupcake Saturday with my sidekick next week....boo hiss.  Until then...

Two times the cupcakes!

Happy Cupcake Saturday, all!  This week was actually a little bit of a change up for me b/c my usual Saturday sidekick requested the day off.  In her place was an equally enthusiastic cupcake lover, thank goodness!  I think I tend to hire on ability to love cupcakes b/c all of my staff LOVES Cupcake Saturday!  :)  All good people, they are....
My usual Saturday sidekick actually chipped in and bought cupcakes on Friday b/c she wouldn't be able to indulge on Saturday.  Unfortunately, Friday was a CRAZY day at the store and by the time we got the cupcakes in hand we had literally a minute to enjoy them and get back to work. Alas, no picture.  My Friday cupcake was mint chocolate.  Chocolate cupcake with mint frosting....it was really delicious, and like I said, well earned after a crazy 9 hour shift of standing and waiting on tourists and their kids.  :)  Keep smiling.
Saturday I decided to try a staple of Cupcake Charlie's-Carly's chocolate chip.  I don't know who Carly is or why she has a cupcake named after her but it was delicious and lucky girl! This was a vanilla cupcake with chocolate chips through it.  It had a yummy vanilla frosting on top, topped with chips and a chocolate chip cookie.  It was light and moist and the frosting was sugary and sweet.  Perfect for what turned out to be a dramatic Saturday afternoon with one particular awful customer.  I tend to let awful people really get to me, which I wish I could just let go of.  The cupcake definitely helped to soothe the complaint.  Yay for sugar!  Onto next Saturday.....

The Return of Cupcake Saturday!

Yay! Cupcake Saturday has returned!   I would love to say that I missed my weekly cupcake last week but I was completely happy to have traded it for a much needed and desperately enjoyed Saturday off!  I had family visiting me from out of state and my bosses were kind enough to let me have a Saturday off in the crazy busy summer season.  Thank you to them for that!!  I had a lovely weekend with family spent floating in the ocean and laying in the sand.  I didn't even miss my Saturday cupcake! 
Alas, the Saturday off is over and I am back at the toy store, doing what I do best, and eating cupcakes with my Saturday sidekick!  This week the flavor of the day on Saturday was Rolo!  I have tried this one before, but I was really craving chocolate so I decided to give it a whirl again...it did not disappoint.  I am a huge fan of caramel.  I think it is my favorite candy overall.  This cupcake imitates the Rolo candy very, very well.  It is a deep chocolate cupcake, which was very moist, filled with caramel.  Yum......! It is covered by a layer of chocolate ganache which is decorated by a caramel swirl.  This was soooo good.  I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Only four more punches on our card until we get a free cupcake and today I was thinking about how that will probably be one of the last Cupcake Saturdays I will be celebrating with my sidekick as she is leaving me to go back to school at the end of the summer.  :(  So sad.  I will miss her.  I am sure I can find someone else to pass on the tradition with, but it probably won't be the same.  Something to think about when I am looking for her replacement....will this employee love Cupcake Saturday?  :)

Kit Kat not so Krunchy....bummer.

Happy Cupcake Saturday!  Above is the Kit Kat Krunch cupcake....it looks really yummy, doesn't it? I usually go and check the Flavor of the Day at Cupcake Charlie's when I run my morning errands at the store.  This was the flavor of the day and it looked so good that I had to give it a try!
I think that I pretty much always love the cupcakes at Cupcake Charlie's.  Some people think they are a little pricey for just a cupcake, but I always have felt that you get what you pay for and they are just as worthwhile as candy or ice cream which you can pay just as much for sometimes.  This time I was disappointed and I honestly feel like it might be the first time that I really didn't enjoy my cupcake on Saturday.  :(  Sadness.
The actual cupcake on this one was a vanilla cupcake but it had a weird after taste to it, kind of like anise?  I asked my sidekick if she tasted it, too, and she did.  No idea if it was on purpose or not.  The frosting was absolutely delicious.  The really truly bad part about this cupcake was that the Kit Kats were stale.  Not just a little stale...REALLY stale.  And they were through the cupcake and the frosting.  Not good.  I don't know what Halloween they were left over from...but they tasted old.  It really ruined the whole thing. 
Again, I am usually thrilled with any of the cupcakes I have gotten at Cupcake Charlie's...but this one...  Not good. Sorry.  Will not get again.
Bummer.....but onto a sweet fourth of July week!  Happy Independence Day!  :)

Feeling a little Bananas.....and Strawberry.

I am just catching up on my cupcake tales from last week...sorry!  I don't know what happened last Monday that I didn't sit down and share my Saturday, but here it is.....

Strawberry and Banana....sure sounds like summer to me!  My favorite fruit flavor is banana and I have been waiting for Cupcake Charlie's to do a banana flavor on Cupcake Saturday and last week was the week!  Finally! 

I am not really a fan of fruit (or vegetables....) and I don't particularly like strawberries.  It is something about the texture of them, and the seeds....I tend to only like "pop tart" fruit flavors:  basically any fruit flavor that has been "sugared" to death!  :)  I know, I know...not good for me.  BUT...this cupcake has an actual strawberry slice on it!  So I did actually have some REAL fruit...and it didn't kill me!

The best part about this cupcake is the banana cupcake itself!  Cupcake Charlie's doesn't seem to make a lot of flavored cupcakes-usually chocolate or vanilla and the flavor is in the frosting.  I loved, loved, loved this banana cupcake!  It was moist and full of flavor.  The strawberry frosting was sugary and sweet.  Perfect combination!  It looked really pretty, too!  Loved it.

Fluffernutter kicks off busy Summer Saturday!

Last week I fell off the cupcake wagon....but this week, I got right back on!  It was our first super busy Saturday of the summer season and I definitely was craving something sweet!  The store was full of people and I wasn't even sure we would be able to make time for Cupcake Saturday, but somehow we managed to make it happen! 
This week's flavor of the day was Fluffernutter!  I have seen this one featured during the week and was really looking forward to trying it.  When I was a little kid, maybe first grade, I had some issues with eating lunch at school.  I basically refused to eat the hot lunch the school provided.  I would eat the dessert and drink the milk and throw the rest away.  This went on for a while until one of the teachers finally got tired of watching me not eat my lunch.  One day she kept me in from recess (which immediately followed lunch) and tried to force me to eat my lunch, which I still remember was hot dogs and beans.  I looked at that tray for the entire hour.  Didn't touch it.  I went home with a note for my parents explaining what happened.  From that day forward, I took my lunch to school.  And almost every day (literally until I graduated from high school) my lunch consisted of a Fluffernutter sandwich, a Little Debbie/Hostess/Drake treat, and a piece of fruit.  Every day.  I LOVE Fluffernutters!
On to the cupcake....which was almost as delicious as the Fluffernutters of my youth!  I think my fave frosting at Cupcake Charlie's is the peanut butter.  It is so delicious and really tastes like peanuts.  This was a vanilla cupcake with marshmallow filling.  The cupcake was really moist and the filling was a whipped kind of marshmallow, nice and soft.  The frosting, perfect as always...and it had a dollop of marshmallow whip in the center as well.  The entire thing is topped off by a Nutter Butter cookie.  Nutter Butters are the kind of cookie that no one ever seems to have in the house, but when you have ONE you feel the need to run out and buy a package of them!  So good. 
So thrilled that the flavor of the day was something new.  I hope the trend continues through the summer!   Until next week....

Cupcake Tuesday is as good as Saturday!

No Cupcake Saturday this week...instead it was a Cupcake Tuesday.  Let me explain...
I have Sundays off every week, which I love.   This Sunday I happened to be awake abnormally early.  I was checking my email on my phone when I got a phone call from my Sunday staffer (who also happens to be my Saturday sidekick!).  She had done something wrong the night before that needed me to be corrected.  Boo hiss.  So, I throw on some clothes and head to the store to fix the mistake.  It doesn't take me more than a half an hour out of my whole day and I know that my staffer feels REALLY badly about it.  To be honest, the mistake could've happened to anyone, and I am a little surprised it hasn't happened before.  Not a big deal.  I was over it quickly.  Back home before I could even be completely wide awake! 
I have been fighting a cold/allergies (I am not sure what the culprit actually is...) for a week and going into work on Tues. I was tired and feeling lousy.  My Saturday sidekick staffer shows up bearing a gift!  She felt so bad about making me come in on Sunday and wanted to make it up to me...which was really unnecessary, but completely great.  The gift was the above pictured cupcake-Fudge Factory.  What is interesting about the choice of this cupcake is that I was at the candy store earlier in the morning, planning an event with the manager, and a baker from Cupcake Charlie's came in to buy fudge.  I had no idea that the fudge on the cupcakes came from the candy shop!  I talked to the candy shop manager about it for a while and she told me that I should try this Fudge Factory cupcake sometime...it was delicious!  How did my Saturday sidekick know?  The stars were clearly aligned for me to try this cupcake!
Let me tell you that this is the BEST cupcake I have tried yet!  The fudge, of course, was delicious!  The chocolate cupcake was moist and yummy.  The frosting was a thick chocolate and there were chocolate chips all over the top.  It was really so delicious and rich.  Really made my day.  I loved it.  Cupcake Tuesday was as good as Cupcake Saturday.....maybe even more so b/c it was a surprise! 

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down....with Orange Dreamsicle!

What a miserable, cold, windy and rainy day Saturday was this week!  Luckily, the rain brought in a lot of customers which made the day go by pretty quickly!  I hardly mind working when it is raining out....can't go to the beach anyway!  With the rain, I decided on a little sunshine to celebrate Cupcake Saturday-Orange Dreamscicle!
This is one of my favorite flavors! It is a vanilla/orange cupcake with orange-y frosting and a piece of candy orange slice on top.  It was super moist and had a ton of frosting on it.  I really enjoyed it.  No filling, but it didn't seem to need any.  It was nice and light.  Loved it. 
I do have to admit, though, it was not my first choice.  Cupcake Charlie's posts their Flavor of the Day on their facebook page daily.  On Saturday they posted Boston Creme Pie (which is the Flavor of the Day too often, in my opinion) and Mounds as the flavors.  I love coconut and was excited to try to the Mounds cupcake.  I sent my sidekick off to pick up the cupcakes and she returned to tell me that there were no Mounds cupcakes b/c she was told they "hadn't made them yet".  This was at 3 in the afternoon.  Hmmm.   This is the second time it has happened at Cupcake Charlie's in the past month. I don't care so much b/c I just walk across the aisle to get them, but I can imagine the customer service issue they would have if one of our "not-so-local" customers made the drive and didn't get what they drove down for...ugh.  I just know what I have to deal with sometimes from customers(who clearly have miserable lives outside of the 5 minutes I spend with them) and I hope they don't have to deal with too much of that!  Cupcakes should be about happiness, right?   :) I was just as happy with my Dreamscicle...but I will look forward to the Mounds cupcake in my future! 
Until next week....

One Year anniversary celebration!

So, this Saturday was the "offical" one year anniversary of the toy store!  It hardly seems like a year ago I was just helping to open the place.  I absolutely love working at the toy store: it is a perfect fit for me and the owners are really great and really know how to run a business and be successful.  It is reassuring to find a place that I feel fits me like a glove.  I hope that my Cupcake Saturdays will continue for years to come here.  :)
Now, on to the cupcake!!  This week in celebration of the celebration I bought all of my returning summer crew cupcakes!  It has been a long quiet winter, with me working solo many days, and I am THRILLED to have my crew back to keep me company! They are all such nice, smart, funny girls.  I really missed having everyone around!  The requests were 3 Funfetti and one Chocolate Chip Cookie.  I chose the Funfetti cupcake in honor of the store birthday party.  I love this cupcake and everytime I get it I am happy that I did.  It has a vanilla cupcake with sprinkles all through it.  The pink frosting is delicious and topped with more sprinkles.  The cupcake was sooooo moist.  Very light and very yummy.  Funfetti is my "go to" when I can't decide or I don't like the flavor of the day.  I only wish it had a filling....but otherwise, I LOVED it.
I learned on my Newport trip that there is a trick to knowing which cupcake flavors at Cupcake Charlie's have a filling....the name card in the case is PINK.  Nice to know.
Summer is on its way....and so is the week....until next Cupcake Saturday!

Summer is almost here...woot!

So, the weather is getting nicer and summer is getting closer and the tourists are slowly coming back to the Cape, which means I had a busier than normal week at the toy store...Yay!  Alot of local Cape Codders complain about the tourists in the summer, but being a someone who works in a small business, I am THRILLED to see the people coming back after a long and quiet winter.  This Saturday's cupcake of the day was one I had tried before-Berry Champagne-so I decided to go with one of the flavors that is always available at Cupcake Charlie's:  Hostess with the Mostess.  It obviously gets its name from the visual similarity to the Hostess chocolate iced cupcake that I grew up with, but the comparison kind of ends there.  First of all, the Hostess cupcakes of my youth, if I can remember back that far, had a solid icing layer on top,which was easily peeled off and eaten whole before diving into the actual cupcake.  The chocolate icing on the Mostess version was a richer chocolate icing which I didn't try to peel off because I could tell it would fight me on that! The best part of this cupcake was the actual filling, which was a fluffy light creme.  I was a little disappointed in the actual cupcake which was "crumby" and fell apart easily because it was kind of dry.  It was actually the first time that I have gotten a cupcake like that from Cupcake Charlie's and I was surprised.  It was even hard to peel off the cupcake liner...not good.  It tasted alright, a little dry.  Luckily the creme helped moisten it up. 
I am glad that I tried it, but I won't be getting it again.  Maybe I just got a bad batch, but it definitely didn't seem as fresh and moist as some of the other flavors I have tried. 
Next week is our one year anniversary party and Memorial Day weekend combined at the toy store.  I am hoping we are so busy I don't have time to have my cupcake at work....but I will definitely treat myself for one AFTER everyone has gone!  Have a sweet week!

Traveling Cupcake Friday!

This week I celebrated Cupcake Friday instead of Cupcake Saturday and tried out a different location of Cupcake Charlie's!  So much adventure in my life!  :)  I have accumulated some vacation time and decided to take a 4 day weekend for myself, which I haven't done in over a year!  It was a nice, relaxing weekend...which kicked off with a spontaneous trip to Newport, RI to meet a friend and her husband (who were visiting New England from PA) for lunch! I haven't seen this friend in over a year and it was nice to see her and spend some time walking around Newport, which is always beautiful.  We ate lunch at The Black Pearl (arrrggghhhh) and then, even though my stomach was way beyond full, we headed to the Newport location of Cupcake Charlie's for dessert.  My friend follows my Cupcake Saturday adventures on Facebook and wanted to try the real thing herself.  She got Peanut Butter Overload, which I recommended highly, and I tried the Raspberry Lemonade, which was the flavor of the day.  The cupcake was so moist and soft!  It practically melted in my mouth!  It had a lemon meringue filling and a lemon frosting on top, with raspberry frosting dotted in the center.  It came with a cute straw, as if it were a lemonade.  It was really good and refreshing.  I was glad I got something light b/c I am not sure my stomach would've managed something rich after a big lunch!  Afterwards we headed to the Cliff Walk by the mansions and it was absolutely beautiful.  I have been there several times before but am always amazed at how lovely it is there and how impressive the mansions are.  To think that they were only the "summer" homes for most of their owners.  To wake up to that glorious view every morning must have been wonderful!  All in all, it was a nice Cupcake Friday, spent with good friends.  Back to work on Tuesday...

My one year anniversary gets a great review!

So this week was a busy one but a very happy one as I have officially been at the toy store for a year and got a great review from the owners AND a raise!  YAY!  Sounds like a great excuse to celebrate with a delicious cupcake on Cupcake Saturday! :)  (As if I needed an excuse....)
The flavor of the day was White Chocolate Raspberry and that is the one that I got!  I have always really loved white chocolate, even more than dark or milk chocolate, believe it or not! My mom has always had a hard time remembering which of her kids, me or my brother, likes white chocolate and which does NOT.  I definitely DO.  I love, love, love white chocolate mousse TCBY....White chocolate rules, basically.
This cupcake was a basic vanilla cupcake, not white chocolate.  It had a white chocolate-y frosting that was sprinkled with sugar crystals and a dollop of raspberry jelly on top.  The raspberry jelly was also the filling.  It was pretty good.  The cupcake was really moist, and the frosting was good mixed with the raspberry.  Overall, it reminded me of a powdered sugar jelly donut, which might be a better name for it!  I do kind of wish it tasted more like white chocolate, but I still loved it!  Good.  Yum.

Busy, busy, busy....is it time for cupcakes?

I had a really busy week....busy at work, busy at home...busy.  I was pretty worn out heading into work on Saturday.  I had plans to change the window display because I had received 3 Playmobil display sets.  The windows are always a lot of work because it isn't easy to get into them and it can be really hot in there once the sun hits them in the afternoon.  My trusty sidekick and I got it all done in record time and it looks really great!  :)  As much as I kind of dreaded getting it done, it really turned into something fun once I started b/c I was basically playing with toys, which is fun no matter what!  Either way, fun or not, we definitely deserved a reward for our hard work...CUPCAKE TIME! 
This week's flavor of the day was Snickers, which looked delicious and lived up to its image!  It was a chocolate cupcake with caramel filling.  It had chocolate frosting on top with a dollop of peanut butter frosting in the center and was sprinkled with peanuts and a slice of Snickers bar on top.  Soooo good.  I think this might actually be my favorite of the chocolate variety so far.  The cupcake was nice and moist, too.  I haven't seen this flavor before so it might be a new one. I could definitely feel the sugar pumping through my veins afterward....

School vacation week....yay!

School vacation week combined with the beautiful summer-like weather this week on Cape Cod made for a busy week at the toy store!  I was looking forward to Cupcake Saturday even MORE this week.  I fired up the bubble machine for the kids (always a big hit!) and went in search of my Saturday sugary lunch substitute.  I was feeling like something light, not chocolate.  I have never had the Red Velvet cupcake at Cupcake Charlie's and it comes highly recommended so I gave it a go.  The cream cheese frosting is TO DIE FOR.  I could have eaten a whole jar of that alone.  The cupcake was pretty good, but seemed a little dry.  I think it might have to do with the fact the cupcakes are kept chilled b/c of the frosting?  There was no filling, which is something I always am a fan of.  Still delicious b/c there was such a big dollop of frosting on top that every bite had some.  Yum. 
There have been lots of neat flavors offered during the week, when I can't get away from the store to get one.  Hopefully Cupcake Charlie's will start branching out on Saturdays and offering these fun flavors they offer during the week like Fluffernutter, Pina Colada, Tutti Frutti.  So many to try...how will I find the time?  Until next Saturday....

Spring has Sprung!

This Saturday was the first really beautiful Spring day of the year!  It was so beautiful and warm outside it felt like summer!  I had to fight the urge to replace Cupcake Saturday with Ice Cream cone Saturday...but I stuck to my guns!  :)
Peanut Butter overload.  That is it's name.  It is a chocolate cupcake with rich peanut butter frosting on top-lots of it!  The frosting is the best part, really.  That little bit of Reese's peanut butter cup on top didn't hurt either.  I was a little disappointed that there was no filling in this one because the frosting would have been awesome on the inside as well.  I have had this one before, but I was really craving some peanut butter so it was this week's winning choice.  So gooooood.  Yum.

I am just a girl who sells toys for a living and likes sweet stuff!  I celebrate every Saturday by having a different cupcake from Cupcake Charlie's in Mashpee, MA.  I share my cupcake experiences with my friends and family. Maybe I will end up sharing more than my cupcake celebrations...we will see.  Life sure has alot of sweet stuff to share!