Sweet Lorraine's Bakery

Sweet Lorraine's Bakery opened in Dilworth on East Boulevard last month. This is a very welcome addition to my neighborhood! I attended the Grand Opening and enjoyed tasting lots of the pastry and bread offerings. My favorites include the prosciutto bread, the pecan sticky bun and the cannoli as well as the signature Sweet Lorraine bar - a brownie and blondie stacked together - what could be better? I look forward to returning to try the cupcakes, scones and muffins as well as the cookies. Coffee is available and there are several tables so you can enjoy right there in the store. Chocolates from Courtney Paul Chocolates are also for sale, including a luscious passion fruit ganache in dark chocolate. Welcome to the neighborhood, Sweet Lorraine's!

Cupcakes!







Samples of sweets!



The Sweet Lorraine's team in the kitchen including owner Christine Guerriero (2nd from left)!



Chocolate display.



Palet Or (left): creamy dark chocolate ganache topped with gold leaf and Almond Hazelnut: creamy ganache with puffed cereal.



Passion Fruit Ganache enrobed in dark chocolate - my favorite of Courtney Paul's chocolates.

Juanita's Bakery

Red velvet cupcakes.

With cupcakes all the rage these days (and my history of cupcake criticism!) I decided to try out Juanita's Bakery on South Blvd. Offering much more than just cupcakes, Juanita's serves up traditional Dominican cakes and pastries including guava filled cakes and gorgeous birthday, shower and wedding cakes. I tried the red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing and was very pleased. The cake was very moist and flavorful and the icing had that cream cheese flavor that makes this cupcake so good. The other great thing about Juanita's are the reasonable prices. The cupcake is $2 plus tax. With so many other shops charging $2.50 or even $3.00 for cupcakes (many of them inferior to this one) this is an excellent deal. I look forward to trying more from Juanita's soon!

Juanita's fabulous truck.

Samples of the gorgeous cakes available from Juanita's Bakery.

Freshberry Yogurt and Smallcakes Cupcakery - Charlotte

Yogurt with fresh fruit.

Freshberry Yogurt and Smallcakes Cupcakery recently opened in the space that formerly housed Blockbuster video on East Boulevard. Charlotte, like Atlanta, is starting to become overrun with frozen yogurt establishments, in particular the soft serve variety. Freshberry adds another one to the bunch, offering several flavors in tart and non-tart varieties and dozens of cereal, nut, candy, chocolate, and fruit toppings. They have multi-colored mochi (sweet rice balls) which made me smile and their tart yogurt flavor pleased the palate - I actually had some for a late breakfast one day just when they opened. I thought Freshberry might have a hard time making it since they are so close to Menchie's, but perhaps the cupcakes are the different draw that will keep them in business.

The cupcakes here, like the ones at the Atlanta Smallcakes, taste bland to me with overly sweet frosting and not enough buttery cakey flavor despite their gorgeous outer appearance. I imagine they use the same recipes so this is not surprising. I'm sure kids will enjoy this place - both yogurt AND cupcakes - it will be a difficult decision if parents make them choose!

Smallcakes cupcake collection.

Empire State South - Atlanta

Super Food with hangar steak.

For my farewell lunch in Atlanta my Atlanta office dined at Hugh Acheson's Empire State South in Midtown Atlanta. I am so glad I had the chance to try this place before we left because it was great and it was a really fun place for a group lunch. The highlights for me included the Super Food salad plate - available with the standard hangar steak, chicken or fish. The farro and radishes on the plate particularly shined but everything really worked together well. The pimento cheese with bacon marmalade was truly out of this world also - a must-try starter. Everyone enjoyed their meal and we enjoyed sharing several desserts to top it off. The brownie ice cream sandwich was a bit too sweet for me but I like how they have baked goods available in the center of the restaurant for eating in or take-out. Several in our party also tried the specialty sourced coffee, which proved to be tasty. The atmosphere here is versatile with an airy, inviting dining space suitable for business, friends or family. I hope to have the chance to have dinner here when I am back in town visiting. Breakfast is also served.

Pimento Cheese with bacon marmalade - delicious!



The bar.



Fish po-boy.



Super Food with Tilapia.



Bratwurst with chips.



Phatty cakes, strawberry cupcake and chess pie.



Ice cream sandwich on brownies!

Holly's Cupcake Shop

Clockwise from top left, Hummingbird, Lemon Drop, Buckeye Brownie, Cookie Monster, Pumpkin (seasonal) and Black Bottom.

Just before Thanksgiving I was lucky enough to be provided with delicious cupcakes from Holly's Cupcake Shop. Holly and her husband, Jonathan, own shops in Conyers (founded in 2009) and in Midtown Atlanta where ITP folks like me can pick up their delicious cupcakes without leaving our home turf. The midtown location is at Colony Square (1197 Peachtree St.)

Holly brought me a sampling of cupcakes in her decked out truck (pictured below), which is used to transport the finished cakes from the Conyers shop/bakery to the Midtown shop. My personal favorites include the seasonal Pumpkin - so moist and delicious - and the Back Bottom - love the cream cheese filling and vanilla cream cheese frosting. My cousin's son (age 4) loved the Cookie Monster (white cake with Oreo folded in and topped with cookies and cream frosting). All of the cupcakes were tasty and moist on the first day and they lasted pretty well for a few days (Holly recommends wrapping the bakery box in plastic wrap or transferring to an airtight container to retain moisture).

Unlike some cupcake shops, Holly bakes many types of cake for her cupcakes rather than only using chocolate and vanilla cake with a variety of frosting. For example, the Hummingbird cake contains banana, pineapple and pecans and the Banana Pudding cupcake has banana cake and banana pudding filling. Many of the cupcakes are filled, which gives them a unique taste and even more moisture - a real plus.

Holly's sells six flavors every day (Conyers is open Tuesday - Saturday and Colony Square is open Monday - Friday) and offers 5-6 daily flavor options. Check the website for details. Mini-cupcakes are also available (if ordered in advance).

Clockwise from top left, Red Velvet, Vanilla Chocolate, Chocolate Chocolate, Chocolate Vanilla, Vanilla Vanilla and Gingerbread (seasonal).



Holly's fabulous cupcake truck - used to transport sweet treats from the flagship store in Conyers to the midtown store at Colony Square.



I look forward to trying more varieties of Holly's Cupcakes soon!

Smallcakes

Cupcakes galore at Smallcakes.

I was provided with the above sample of cupcakes from Smallcakes: A Cupcakery, which has a new outpost in Buckhead. The first Smallcakes is located in Overland Park, Kansas and now freestanding franchises as well as franchise co-brands with Freshberry Yogurt are located in Kansas, Oklahoma, California, Florida and North Carolina in addition to Georgia. Smallcakes bakes around 20 flavors of cupcakes, some of which are available every day, others just on some days. I like that they have a rotating menu and some creative flavors like pumpkin and cherry limeade. At $3 each, however, they are not cheap.

Smallcakes' claim to fame is that it's co-founder, Jeff Martin, was on Food Network's "Cupcake Wars" and as a result, the cupcakes became a hit with the ladies on "The View". The cupcakes were also served at the 2011 MTV Music Awards. With these anecdotes in mind I was really excited to get home and try the beautiful looking cupcakes. I even invited my cousins over to share the wealth. Unfortunately the taste really disappointed all of us. The cake was tasteless and the icing - piled on with a vengeance - was way too sweet and also not that tasty. As you can tell, I was really disappointed by these cupcakes - and surprised that they could make it to franchise status. I'm not sure why they are so popular - from my perspective it can only be because they have managed to get hype from various stars. Unfortunately hype does not always equal taste. The yelp page for the Overland Park store shows that several others agree with my opinion.

Readers - have you tried Smallcakes? What do you think? What is your favorite cupcake place in Atlanta?

The available selection changes daily, with some of the more popular cupcakes available every day.

Last NYC Post: Billy's Bakery

Treat case - I'll take one of each!

Near our friends' apartment in Chelsea is a Billy's Bakery, specializing in - you guessed it - cupcakes! We tried the yellow cake with chocolate buttercream, the red velvet with cream cheese frosting and the chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. I'm drooling at the memory! If you are anywhere near one of their three NYC locations, this is a definite snack stop. We tried to go twice just after closing - we were up much later than our usual 9 PM bedtime while in NY - so finally enjoying their delicious cakes was truly satisfying.

Out side Billy's.

Putting the icing on the cake!

Canton Cooks + Camicakes

Salt and pepper scallops and pork fried rice.

Recently I've become acquainted with Canton Cooks, an excellent Chinese restaurant in Sandy Springs (in the Whole Foods shopping center). There is often a wait on weekends and I've seen quite a few Chinese clientele - usually a good sign. The salt and pepper dishes here - both squid and scallops are quite good. We also enjoyed a duck dish and some wonderful Chinese broccoli. The lobster, available in several preparations, caught my eye last time - we'll definitely have to give it a try soon.

Salt and pepper squid and lo mein.

One of my favorite cupcake bakeries is Camicakes in Buckhead. With more than fifteen daily flavors of cupcakes and these cute pink boxes, who could resist trying these little cakes. They taste great, too. My favorite so far - the sweet potato with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

Cupcakes packed to go.



We all enjoyed these cupcakes - then we went again following dinner at Canton Cooks.