A Sweet Visit

I pass by it every single time I want to go to Newbury, or Best buy, or the Pru, but I never really went inside. Sweet is a cupcake shop on Massachusetts Ave. (and in Harvard Square) and I finally had a chance for a visit with fourthoughtsforfood. We went and bought 4 cupcakes, brought them back to my dorm, took pictures and and ate them while analyzing the taste.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sweet is a small cupcake shop selling mostly normal cupcakes with seasonal, holiday, and regular specialties. I've never been there nor inside, and one day noticed it while walking down Mass. Ave. What is nice about it is the atmosphere. It seems so quiet and secluded. The choices of cupcakes range from vanilla with vanilla buttercream to chocolate with chocolate buttercream to banana cream to boston cream to macaroon to snickerdoodle type cupcakes. They also have specialty cupcakes for doggies, which I think is adorable if you want to treat your doggy to a yummy "Sweet" treat or for your doggy's birthday.

Anyway. Joanne and I have been really busy recently so we were finally able to make time to at least go visit Sweet even though we also wanted to go try somewhere else as well after sweet.

Also, as a warning, we were a little crazy and took lots of pictures. Some of the final pictures I do not have on my computer, and as I am writing this while in the laundry room, I do not feel like going upstairs back to my room to get my camera and put other pictures on my computer. Plus, the ones still on my camera are not the most important pictures anyway.

So first let's talk about choosing the cupcakes. When Joanne and I got to Sweet, we had no idea what they were selling and what we wanted to get. Eventually we decided that we would each choose 2 cupcakes and split the cost for a box of 4.

To the left you can see the box the cupcakes will come in and the four cupcakes neatly lined up in a row. The box in my opinion is wonderful. It is simple and there isn't too much going on. It also has a pretty ribbon on it (the ribbon was my favorite part, they ask you if you want a ribbon, and well of course I immediately said yes, and they give you a choice of pink, red, and black I believe, so I went with pink). 

Below are the cupcakes out of the box.

Next I want to discuss the individual cupcakes.

The first cupcake we tried was a macaroon cupcake. It is meant to taste like a macaroon. Basically, it just had a lot of coconut in it since macaroons are basically meringue and coconut. Along with the coconut on top, the inside of the cupcake had a lot of coconut. In my opinion it was a little to much. A hint of coconut would do the trick and leave you asking for more, that doesn't mean actually add more. The chocolate ganache on top of the cupcake was delicious. It was slightly dark chocolate and mixed with the coconut on top it had a bit of mystery to it. The cupcake part, by itself, would not be able to stand. Though the ganache complimented it quite well. I gave this cupcake an 8.2/10.

The next cupcake on the list was the Sweet cupcake. I am assuming that this is the regular, most popular cupcake in the store. This was a basic vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream and sprinkles. I feel that the dollop of buttercream on top of the cupcake is too much. If there was less cream then maybe it would not have taken so much away from the cupcake itself. Well, in reality, the cupcake itself was alright. It was not really sweet, so it let the cream do the talking in the sugar department, and it was reasonably moist. Unfortunately, though, the cream was was to buttery and just didn't work with the cupcake nor the sprinkles. I give it a 5/10. I was slightly disappointed by this cupcake.

The next cupcake to be tested was our snickerdoodle cupcake. Snickerdoodle is a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon sugar. This cupcake has a base made of a cinnamon-like batter and the cream on top was just simple vanilla buttercream rolled in cinnamon sugar. As you can see in the picture, the cinnamon sugar gave the cupcake quite a texture. I wasn't too sure how I would feel about the texture on the cupcake. Initially, when first cut, it smelled very yummy (like cinnamon, duh!). Once again, there was too much cream on top. The cupcake part itself was quite good. The cinnamon sugar was overpowering and gave the cupcake way too much texture and was not happiness in my mouth. I was disappointed by this cupcake again. I rated this one a 6.5/10.

Finally, Joanne had chosen to get a chocolate banana cupcake. Once again, as usual with Sweet cupcakes, there was too much of a dollop of frosting which overwhelmed the cupcake. There was a tiny banana chip, it was more like a caramelized slice of banana, on top which I thought was too hard. The buttercream was once again the simple vanilla buttercream, but it seemed to have a slight hint of banana in my opinion, I didn't exactly appreciate that too much because it was only a slight hint, I feel like there sound have been more of a banana taste. The cupcake itself didn't exactly taste like chocolate. It had more of a coffee taste than a chocolatey one. There was also a banana cream filling, which had an odd flavor to it and consistency, I couldn't put my finger on it, but Joanne seemed to have a description for it, and when she posts about the cupcakes you will hear her opinions. I gave this cupcake a 3/10. This one saddened me the most.

I am not very judgmental, I try to be fair and I hardly come across food/desserts that I do not like, but Sweet disappointed me. I'm not sure, but I may try sticking with making my own cupcakes for now, cupcakes are very delicate and the wrong cream or batter can ruin a potentially good cupcake. 

My overall Sweet experience was disappointing.

Also, those of you who like the things that I pointed out that were wrong with the cupcakes, this is my personal opinion and how I see food, and everyone sees it differently. I grew up eating things that are not too sweet or trying to reduce the sweetness in my foods, so when I come across foods that are incredibly sweet, I complain because my taste buds don't like it. Its just personal tastes, and so if you like the things I don't like, I would definitely recommend Sweet to you, but if you are like me and don't want a mouth too full of buttercream and sugar, then I don't think Sweet is the right place for you.

Anyway. Time for me to sign off.

Keep eating sweetly! :)