Are We Ready To Bake?

Sure looks like we're ready. Yup, today we took a trip to Wal-Mart to get the ingredients for baking cupcakes today. We're planning on baking soon and having a sweet dessert! What's your favorite item on this table?

Kupkake Kommercial!

Yup, you heard right- Double K Kupkakes has a commercial!!! It's just not on your TV... yet. Here's the link:

Kupkake Kommercial

Comment on this post of what you think of it!

Milwaukee Cupcake Company

Hey, cupcake fans! This is the Double K's coming to you once again with yet ANOTHER cupcake shop. We stopped in Milwaukee, WI to sample the cupcakes there. They all had really creative local names! We got lots of mini cupcakes so we could taste more flavors. Our reviews:

KYRA with The Riverwest
This Cookies and Cream cupcake was good, but it didn't quite match up to my expectations. The frosting was too sweet for this palette (which probably means too sweet for anyone, considering you're talking to a 10-year-old). It tasted like I was eating this big blob of Oreo cream. The cake was a yummy chocolate with Oreos baked in (how do they do that without them melting?). Anyone have suggestions for where I can get the perfect Cookies + Cream?

KYRA with The East Sider
This may very well be the best chocolate cupcake I've ever tried. I wanted more than one! The dark chocolate cake was great, and the rich chocolate frosting was heaven! One minor flaw: the sprinkles might be a slight overdose, but that's just me. My recommendation if you're heading to Milwaukee anytime soon.

JOHN with The Rishi Matcha
Okay, I always get the weird ones. This cake was actually made with green tea, so the cake was green, but not like green velvet. The flavor was actually very tasty! In the buttercream frosting there were bits of green tea leaves that helped bring out the green tea flavor of the cake.

JOHN with The Great Lakes Hibiscus Absinthe
If I had to get my mouth washed out for saying bad words, this is the way I'd want to go. Seriously, this cupcake tasted like soap. But in a good way. The cake was lavender rosewater and it had a flowery taste reminiscent of soap. The buttercream frosting included Absinthe Rouge, which gave it a slight anise flavor. I think there were bits of lavender in the frosting. I felt relaxed eating it. This was an unusual cupcake, but @$%#* it was good.

KIM with The Shorewood
The vanilla cake on this one was tasty, with butterscotch chips baked in, but the real star is the frosting. How many of you out there have that salty/sweet thing going, where you eat something sweet and then have to follow it up with pretzels or chips? Well, I do, and this frosting takes the cake on that! The caramel buttercream was yummy in itself, but topping it with sea salt, raw sugar and pecans was pure brilliance. I could eat a few dozen more of these!

KIM with The North Shore
This one did not impress me. The red velvet from Simply Cupcakes had much more flavor, and so did our green velvet, as a matter of fact. The cream cheese frosting was too sweet. Can I please trade in the calories I took in on this one for something better like the Shorewood? Please?

And there you have it. Overall, the MCC was a good shop. If you're heading to Milwaukee, definitely check it out!

Simply Cupcakes (again?!)

That's right, we liked Simply Cupcakes so much that we decided to come back! Actually, we took a trip from Naples to Marco Island to see Simply Cupcakes of Olde Marco. The service was wonderful and the cupcakes were just as good! We went at about 1:30 and they were running out. Can you believe it?! Wow. We were able to get some new flavors, though:

KYRA with Simply Delicious

This cupcake was very basic, but very high quality. Great for kids. The vanilla cake was really moist and dense (but not in a bad way) and the buttercream frosting complemented it nicely. As good as a plain vanilla cupcake can get.


KYRA with Raspberry Waltz

This one tasted delicious. I took a bite of the my mom's and was upset that I didn't get one for myself. The cake was tasty and the layer of raspberry jam under the frosting was to die for. It had a very homemade taste to it and it reminded me of picking raspberries with my grandma. Left me begging for more.


KYRA (again?!) with Cloud Nine

Cloud Nine was not my favorite, but that's pretty much based on my personal tastes. It was a bit like biting into a bunch of coconut flakes. I don't like the texture of them... but again, my personal tastes. I gotta say this: the chocolate ganache is rich, dark, and yummy. Didn't quite leave me on Cloud Nine, though.


KYRA (you gotta kidding me) with Traditional Red Velvet

Well, the name tells all. Very traditional red velvet. But I guess that's what Simply Cupcakes was going for. Anyway, this cupcake was a moist, slightly chocolaty red velvet cake with yum-licious cream cheese frosting. Mmm.


JOHN with Holy Cannoli

Holy Cannoli, Batman! This was good. Orange and chocolate is always a great combo. The cupcake was orange-flavored due to the Grand Marnier. Who could go wrong by putting that in a cupcake? But it was beautifully offset with the bits of chocolate in the cake. It was topped off with a creamy frosting which included orange zest.

Pictures up soon!


K+K+ the older J

The Cast And Crew of Double K HQ (hey, a rhyme)

The title says it all.

Head Bakers
K+K (who else?)

Reviewing Department
Kyra and Jordan

Taste Testers
Kyra, Kim, Jordan, John, and anyone else who happens to be present.


K+K

Gracie's Cupcakes

Kyra in front of Gracie's.

Jordan and Kyra enjoying cupcakes from Gracie's.

Yes. Another cupcake shop. This one we went to today for a tasty treat. Our reviews on the ones we've tried:

1. KYRA with Vanilla Chocolate

This was, like the Black Tie from Simply Cupcakes, a very basic cupcake. It was a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. Like the Black Tie AGAIN, I bet we could make this one. The cake was a bit dry, but still good. The frosting was really rich and I scraped some of it off because it was piled up so high. Suggestions to Gracie's- less frosting and more variety. I have to say this: it's perfect for kids. And I am one. Overall, yum!

2. KIM with Brown Sugar Caramel

I loved the contrast between the sweet brown sugar cake and the dash of sea salt on the caramel drizzle. The frosting was very light and not too sweet. Although not quite as moist as the key lime cupcake from Simply Cupcakes, it was pretty darned yummy! Still searching for the perfect sea salt caramel cupcake, though.

3. JORDAN with Grasshopper

I've sort of specialized in chocolate cupcakes in my reviews so far (all one of them), but this one is a bit of a change from the same old, same old: it's a chocolate base covered with pastel-green mint frosting which is, in turn, sprinkled with chocolate candy pieces of some sort. For the most part, it works: the flavors work together nicely, and the candy pieces add a special touch. My only real issue with the Grasshopper is that when I say it's covered with frosting, I mean it. Like Kyra, one of my pet peeves with cupcakes is overly-thick frosting, and this has at least two inches of the stuff. Still, while the frosting might outweigh the cupcake, the positives outweigh the negatives, and I'd say this is definitely a high-quality cupcake for chocolate-mint fans. Just make sure to bring a knife.

4 part 1. KYRA with Mudslide

I just bit into this cupcake about 15 minutes ago, and it was an avalanche of flavor. Or should I say, a mudslide of flavor. Anyway, I could clearly taste all the different components of this cupcake. Buttercream. Oreo. Chocolate. Am I tempting you? Sorry. This was just such a great cupcake. My favorite out of the three I tasted (the others being Vanilla Chocolate and a bite of Grasshopper) at Gracie's. Yum-yum-yum!

4 part 2. JORDAN with Mudslide

Well, this one is elaborate. In lesser hands, the Mudslide could have easily have been a disaster (though not, as the name implies, one of the natural variety) - the sheer amount of interconnected flavors could have fallen flat if one was too strong or too weak. Fortunately, it works like a charm. It's even better than the Grasshopper in some unexpected ways, too: the cake is moister, and the frosting is applied in just the right amount. If you're heading to Gracie's anytime soon, this would be my strongest recommendation.

Those were our reviews for Gracie's Cupcakes. By the way, if you want to be hungry: http://www.graciescupcakes.com/Flavors.html Cupcake on! K+K+J

Simply Cupcakes

The Double K's in front of Simply Cupcakes

Yup, we've gone to two cupcake shops in three days and are planning to go to another one tomorrow. Anyway.

CUPCAKE SHOP 1: Simply Cupcakes in Naples, FL

We tried three flavors- Black Tie, Chocolate Espresso, and Naples Key Lime. The rundown of our faves with comments:

KYRA

1. Chocolate espresso- A classic but made new with the coffee. Love the cofffee frosting.

2. Black tie- Best for those who like classic flavors like chocolate and vanilla. I do, so it was great! Very basic, though.

3. Key lime- This is 3 because it was too limey for me with the lime curd. Really yummy cake.

KIM

1. Key lime - Wonderfully moist cake with scrumptious tangy lime curd. Heaven!

2. Chocolate espresso - cake and coffee all in one!

3. Black tie - Being a die-hard chocolate fan, I was really excited to try this one, but it fell a bit short for me. Pretty basic - I think we could do this one just as well.

JORDAN

1. Black tie - Loved this one. Like Kim, I'm a chocolate fanatic, but this one did everything right for me. Very classically chocolate-y, and, like all the cupcakes I've tried at Simply Cupcakes, deliciously moist. Wish it had chocolate frosting, but that's a slight nitpick.

2. Chocolate espresso - I think the base for this one was based on the black tie - and, despite the fact that I loved that one quite a bit, it lost a bit of novelty the second time around. Still, the addition of coffee added just enough variety to take things up a notch, and the frosting was particularly wonderful. The addition of a chocolate-covered espresso bean was a masterstroke in presentation.

3. Key lime pie - This cupcake has been getting rave reviews around Double K HQ, but I was honestly sort of disappointed by it. The cupcake itself was delicious and refreshing (well, as refreshing as baked goods can be), but the key lime curd was just a bit too intense for these taste buds. Still, definitely worth trying, and I'd recommend it if you're a fan of strong citrus flavors.


And as you can see, we shall have Jordan as a guest reviewer VERY often. The hours 10-6 (I think) but make sure to go early to have a bigger flavor selection. We went at about 4 and they were getting ready to close because they were running out of cupcakes, but we were able to snag these great flavors.

Happy cupcaking! K+K (+J)

Green Velvet Cupcakes

Hi, everyone! K+K here. We just wanted to tell you about the first cupcakes we ever made from scratch. This was on St. Patty's Day of this year. Yes, we know we have a long way to go. Anyway, you can guess by the post title, but they were GREEN VELVET CUPCAKES! Here's the link for the recipe: http://www.bakerella.com/red-velvet-cake/ That's for red velvet cake, but MAKE SURE you read http://www.bakerella.com/red-velvet-revisited// to see substitutions to make them green velvet. These are really good cupcakes. Just one warning: the food coloring seems like a giant overdose, and it didn't quite agree with the youngest K. Happy baking! K+K

The Start

Hey everyone!
We're the Double K's, two cupcake bakers that dream of opening a cupcake shop someday. It'd be called Double K Kupkakes. Just for the record, Kyra came up with the name!
Anyway, we'll be posting cupcakes we've made, frostings we've made, and once we get good enough our OWN recipes. Keep watching for cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes!

K+K