Cupcakes are IT. Rather than wedding cakes, there are people opting for wedding cupcakes. This year, instead of the myriad of candles to show how old I turned, I had (nearly) as many birthday cupcakes instead. Heck, Hallowe'en is a holiday - time to celebrate!
I won't be out trick or treating this year, so I figure I need me a nice treat and cupcakes would hit the spot. Let's see, I can bake me up some (too lazy), there are local bakers with delicious offerings (read about the Flour Girls), but I happen to walk by The Cupcake Shoppe and the spider cupcakes draw me right in.
The selection is vast and not being able to decide on just one, I'm in for a half dozen ($13, one for $2.50 and $25 for a dozen). I like cute and these cupcakes sure are CUTE.
There's a vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream topped with a smiley ghost (Pretty In Pink) and another vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream with a pumpkin on it (Yonge N' Eligible). Clearly, they are chosen to be part of my six pack, along with a couple of Sticky N' Sweet (vanilla buttermilk cake dipped in caramel), a Curious George (chocolate buttermilk cake with banana buttercream) and a Purple Haze (vanilla buttermilk cake with blueberry buttercream).
The Cupcake Shoppe also takes custom orders with 24 hours notice for regular sized cupcakes ($20 for six), mini cupcakes ($1.50 each minimum of 12), and mini cupcakes with flowers ($2.00 each minimum of 12).
And these cupcakes are tasty. They are full in both flavour and in density. There's also no question as to why the word "butter" shows up in all the descriptions.
Is it possible to treat myself TOO well? Well, maybe... it's something to think about after I down my Purple Haze.
The Cupcake Shoppe
2417 Yonge Street
416-322-6648
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i love cupcakes, and i love thing like this, is this place a shop? i live in weston, so is it anywhere near?
love you to write back
catherine
The service there is really horrible. Cute cupcakes, but bad service.
Their cupcakes are awful. The cake tasted like it came from a mix and was dry. The icing is not sweet and is an odd texture. I'd rather go to dominion and buy their bakeshop cupcakes than eat these again
i have been by the cupcake shoppe thousands of times when it was closed and it looked so very good! but a couple of weeks ago i finally went in and it was so so dissapointing. 2 flavours of cakes, both taste dry and terrible. the icing was disgusting. tasted like edible oil product. ewww. i would avoid this place. it was very dissapointing. i've had better cupcakes from a grocery store
I second that. Disappointing cupcakes :(
Dry and tasteless, except for one of the flavours (chocolate with the blue icing?). DEFINITELY not worth the money. Also, the service is not good.
overated , overpriced , overhyped...yee same olde story !
I was really hoping you weren't going to list "The Cupcake Shoppe" in your rankings! These were the first TO cupcakes I've ever had. They're horrible! Besides what everyone else has said about the taste--dry, horrible icing, etc.--they're also way too expensive! $2.50 per cupcake?! At that price, these better be the best cupcakes ever--and they're not!!
P.S. To Catherine (the first person to comment): No, this store is on Yonge, just north of Eglinton. It's not anywhere near Weston, and I wouldn't make the trip for these. The cupcakes look beautiful, but are expensive and taste awful.
I can't believe all these negative emails. The cupcakes are really good and the service is great.
I brought the mini cupcakes (48) for my daughter's b'day celebration at school and was disappointed they were just in the box moving around. They knew it was for a birthday celebration and they were going directly to the school. Absolutley lacked presentation. Will be looking elsewhere this year. I am for taste but presentation is also very important.
How can a store like this make any money, when they produce such garbage.
what??? why so negative?? these cupcakes are DELICIOUS!!! I had unbelievable cupcakes in London, England at Humingbird cafe...these could seriously compete with Humingbird's! I think they are amazing
What is the straight goods here? Are they good cupcakes or not? Is it hit and miss - ie some days are excellent but most days they are bad? Is the service that horrible? My goodness, would be really nice to know the truth as I need to get some tonight!
I think the best are from EatMyWords.org... Much better presentation, and they're so so yummy.
I don't know whats wrong with some people!!! These cupcakes are AMAZINGGG!!!!!!!
I had ordered 3 dozen for my engagement party and they were such a BIG HIT!!! Oh and the service there is FINE!! What do you expect from A LTTLE SHACK IN THE HEART OF UPTOWN??????..The frosting is a buttercream, and melts in your mouth! Flavours; Strawberries and cream is a MUST, aswell Curious George! And the prices are the same as other places!!!! So ignore all negative reviews people!!!!! The Cup cake shoppe ROCKS!!!!
My finace and I went looking for cupcakes for our wedding and we figured the Cupcake Shoppe would be the perfect place to go. The service was HORRIBLE and the cupcakes were WORSE. We bought 6 different kinds and the all tasted like stale cardboard. Honestly the worst cupcakes I have ever had.
I've only had good cupcakes there, but I suppose if you got them later in the day they might be stale, best to go in the morning when they're fresh.
the staff wasn't nice and the cake was too dense.
I know this is a little late Kelly, but here's my experience with The Cupcake Shoppe...
Cake
The actual cake is dense. Some people prefer a lighter cupcake, and this is not it. However, it is a satisfying dessert and will not fall apart totally when you eat it. The chocolate flavoured cake is a deep chocolate flavour (not unlike Barefoot Contessa's Beatty's Chocolate Cake). It is not very sweet. The vanilla is sweeter, and pretty typical in flavour.
Icing
The buttercream there is legit. It takes like butter. It will harden slightly, but will relent when you bite into it. It is sweet and tasty. If you don't like buttercream, try sticky and sweet, or their sugar frosted "frost me," my personal favourite.
Dryness Issues
I have been going here for three years. Overall, I would not say that these cupcakes are dry, but I wouldn't say they're crazy crazy moist either. Keep them in their little plastic cupcake holder, and they should be fine. I freeze them and defrost them on rainy days and they come out very well.
Flavour Issues
If you go later in the day, the flavour selection may be very limited. As with many bakeries, it is best to go early to ensure selection, and of course freshness. Still, they do have a healthy variety of flavours.
Service
I've had a few mediocre staff experiences. Sometimes, however, the staff is pretty nice. I prefer to get my cupcakes and leave.
I must say, overall this place is consistent and produces neat, pretty cupcakes. If you're not partial to them, as their style of baking is not for everyone, best of luck with looking elsewhere.
The cupcakes are adorable for sure. The cake itself is ok. Nothing that blew me away, but it wasn't horrifying either. The buttercream is legit too... but it honestly did not add any dimension to the cupcake. It was kind of bland in all honesty. Especially getting the creamsicle flavoured one... I was expecting this awesome creamsicle bite... but in reality, I just tasted the butter and the cake. Nothing else.
But I mean some people LOVE just the buttercream taste so this place could be their thing. It just wasn't mine.
I tried two varieties of chocolate cupcakes here (raspberry and creamsicle), and was happy with the cake but disappointed with the icing. If I hadn't known the pretty n' pink was supposed to be 'raspberry' icing there is no way I would have tasted it. The cake was moist and chocolatey, icing extremely fluffy and tasteless. Service was fine - not effusive but not a turn-off.
I agree, eatmywords.com is the BEST. Have tried on many occasions to get a good cupcake from The Cupcake Shoppe, but won't bother anymore. Not worth it.
Adorable cupcakes; they taste quite good but the service is really, really bad. I would be a repeat customer for the cuteness of it all if not for the "indifference" with which, cheerful, paying customers are treated. It's too bad since customer service is what buys loyalty in the long run.
For the sake of research, I bought six cupcakes on the weekend. My two friends and I sat down and had each tried a third of each of the cupcakes. I did like the texture of the buttercream icing. I like how it was much more delicate and lighter than typical buttercream you find on cakes. The vanilla cake was plain old vanilla and nothing spectacular. As for the chocolate, the cake was rich looking but I would have preferred a slightly more rich chocolate flavour and a little more density from the cake. Overall, they were okay. I didn't understand the long line of people each buying a dozen. One could easily replicate these at home.
I tried the cuppies, just average, from baking mixes, crisco icing, the shoppe smells like disinfectant and bake mix chemistry ...
My daughter and I love cupcakes. We just moved back to Toronto and stumbled on this shop. The woman serving us was not friendly until we we were leaving and said "good bye", she finally let out a weak smile. The cupcakes looks nice and homemade, however the first bite was a big let down. We purchased two classic cupcakes, nothing fancy, the white cake with buttercream frosting and a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Both tasted like cake mix with crisco icing. Not even buttery. Would never go back. We are now on a hunt to find a great cupcake in Toronto.
In my experience, this is one of the worst cupcake bakeries in the city.
The cakes are extremely dry and the frosting leaves a disgusting oil slick coating in your mouth. I wouldn't eat these cupcakes again for free, nevermind spend $2.50 on one.
After spending 48 Dollar's almost every week on cupcakes..I'm fed up with getting small portions of buttercream on my cupcake's,Even when you make a special order of a dozen or more & ask them to make sure the buttercream is standard size,you end up with some cupcakes with really small portion size,And when you complain to them about it,they say it's the bakers fault &
even give you a hard time about it.All i want is regular sized cupcakes!!
I tried them once, they were quite average. Just like everyone else said, pretty dry. There's a bakery just down the street from them, they have the same price but MUCH better quality. Apperently a lot of people prefer them when it comes to cupcakes. Chocolatees I think they're called?
nope, not worth it... the cake and the store EXTREMELY CUTE and so with the 'trend' however the actual cake is overated. The cake is not moist and very dry in my opinion and the icing is too sweet and just like Stephanies review the icing has a terrible oily feel...very blah. nothing to scream about. I have tried other cupcakes around town and I have had MUCH MUCH better. I tried Swirls cupcakes and oh they are oh soooo good.. it's a bit far from town but whenever I can get outhere I grab some and it's OH so worth it. THe icing is light, fluffy and tasty and the cake itself it crumbly and light and OH so moist you can actually finish it and be super satisfied. :)) try it.
I have baked all my life, my aim was to produce a sponge cake so delicious that you couldn't resist. I've achieved this as friends, neighbours, school fetesand requests will testify.
What I need to get round my head is how several companies have been able to palm off stodgy, tastless, boring, cheap tasting cakes that look great but are an awful experience at £2.50 a pop
Has every one gone mad?
People....it's cupcakes, not rocket science. As a professional baker, if you can make them at home then please do so. As for the taste, since they are nut free I assume that's why their cake flavours are limited. I really enjoy the buttercream, which is an authentic Italian meringue buttercream (I asked). I you find it too buttery then I suggest either the chocolate or vanilla frosting, which are thicker and more sugary. And the way they can draw on a cupcake, fantastic!!
Don't waste your $$$$.
Cupcakes are average at best. Icing is definitely NOT buttercream. Icing tastes like whip cream out of a can.
Cucakes are heavy and dense.
I agree, totally overrated.
Nothing special. It's a kitschy shop run by a few cute girls putting out a passable product.
NOT SURE IF YOU ARE ALL TALKING ABOUT THE CUPCAKE SHOPPE AT YONGE AND EGLINGTON. I THINK THAT THEY ARE BY FAR THE GREATEST TASTING CUPCAKES EVER!!! THEIR CAKE IS MOIST AND DELICIOUS AND THEY HAVE 5 CAKE FLAVOURS TO CHOOSE FROM NOT TWO AS MENTIONED ABOVE. THEY HAVE VANILLA CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHIP, RED VELVET AND MARBLE. THESE ABOVE COMMENTS SEEM TO BE SO INACCURATE. THE SERVICE THERE IS GENERALLY VERY GOOD HOWEVER I NOTICE ON THE WEEKENDS THEY ARE MUCH BUSIER AND HAVE TO WORK FAST TO GET THROUGH THE LINE UP WHICH IS ALWAYS CONSISTENTLY BUSY. GIVE THESE GIRLS A BREAK!! IF YOU ARE ORDERING FOR A WEDDING OR SHOWER YOU DONT EVEN HAVE TO GO INTO THE SHOPPE YOU WILL GET ONE ON ONE SIT DOWN SERVICE WITH THE OWNER "SUZANNE" AND SHE IS HANDS DOWN IN PROVIDING CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CARE... I HATE WHEN GOOD PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS GET A BAD RAP.. TRY IT AGAIN AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE AT THE RIGHT CUPCAKE SHOPPE BEFORE YOU BLOG A COMMENT!
i do not know what is going on here with the comments of this store? I really love the cupcakes of this store, the cupcakes are good and In fact I have very nice sweet tooth.
Negatives of the store: the space is small and they should offer more varities in cupcake flavors
I wonder if The Cupcake Shoppe has consistency issues. I have been obsessed with cupcakes for a while now, so when I found myself near Yonge and Eglinton on Thursday morning, I had to get some cupcakes from here. Service was friendly and courteous. The cake was somewhat moist, light but not very sweet. There was some decent lemon, chocolate, vanilla flavour in their respective cakes, just lacking sugar. The icing was light and airy but not buttery or sweet. The various icing flavours tasted very similar to each other, having only hints of mint or orange, for example. Compared to Sweet Bliss these cupcakes were a small step above a supermarket bakery.
Maybe I caught them on a bad day. I always give second chances so I will go again; but this first experience was a huge disappointment.
I dont know what people are talking about, the cupcakes are amazing. People just dont know what they want. GO for a frosting if you think they taste bland or go for a butter creme if they are too sweet. The marble with vanilla frosting is amazing. And from my experience the service is great, and the cupcakes are great. you just have to be careful when you carry them!