valentine's day Guest review: Happy Cakes Bakeshop, Denver, Colorado

My friend Alissa Bader, who lives in Denver, went over to HappyCakes Bakeshop and wrote up this review for us. Sorry it's taken me a few days to get it posted.



HappyCakes (Denver) Review, 1/14/2011, by Alissa Bader

“We missed the pickle cupcakes!” That was our first reaction when we visited HappyCakes, a tiny bakery / cupcake shop located in Denver's Highlands neighborhood. The “pickle cupcake” was billed as “a pretzel crust beneath a dill pickle cupcake topped with peanut butter frosting rolled in pretzel pieces.” And it was officially known as “Peanut Butter Pretzel.” But whatever. It sounded weirdly delicious.

Sadly, the “Peanut Butter Pretzel”/pickle cupcakes were only available that Thursday. We visited the shop on a Friday. No worries on that, there was still a decent variety of cupcakes to try.



We chose Black & White, Jack & Coke, Perfect Pear, Cosmo, Hot Chocolate, Chocolate Pumpkin, Cherry Coke, and Red Velvet. We purchased the Black & White, the Chocolate Pumpkin, the Cherry Coke, the Red Velvet, and the Hot Chocolate in the regular sizes ($3 each), and the Perfect Pear, Cosmo, and Jack & Coke in the mini sizes ($1.75 each)

The mini sizes sell out fast. We were there a little after noon (the shop opens at 10:00am during most days) and there was only a limited selection of them left.



There are no indoor tables at HappyCakes. There were a few tables and benches outside that were still covered with snow. So we walked to a coffee shop down the street to sample the cupcakes.

Of all of the cupcakes, we thought the Chocolate Pumpkin was the real standout. The cake part was studded with chocolate chips and was deliciously moist. There was just the right amount of icing (vanilla? It was hard to tell), and the chocolate ganache on top brought the whole thing together nicely.

Misun thought that the Perfect Pear had a nice flavor, especially with the cake. I disagreed, I found the flavor a bit too subtle, although I did like the honey glaze on the icing. To be fair, some of the flavors may have been lost in the minis. The Jack & Coke mini was so subtle that you almost felt like you were eating cake and frosting with nothing in particular to distinguish it. The cupcake in the larger form (the Cherry Coke) had a real, albeit still very mild, Coca-Cola flavor. On the Cherry Coke, you could tell you were eating cherry icing, but it was very, very sweet. The Cosmo mini cupcake was completely lost on both of us. This was a flavor that may do better in the regular sizes. We could faintly taste the cranberries in the cake, but that was about it.

Of the rest of the cupcakes, we found that the Red Velvet was solid-enough. I liked the cream-cheese icing, Misun found the cake a bit dry and the icing a little heavy and sweet. The Hot Chocolate will appeal to those deep-dark-chocolate-cake fans out there, but neither one of us noted anything particularly marshmallow-like about the icing (except that it was topped with a mini-marshmallow). I'm a lifelong marble cake fan, so I loved the idea of the Black & White Cupcake. The marble cake was a little bit dry, but it still had some very good flavor. I loved the milk-chocolate icing. The vanilla icing seemed to be missing something – the flavor again may have been a little too subtle for my palate.



Recommendations: the Chocolate Pumpkin, the Black & White, and the Perfect Pear. And spend the extra cash to buy a regular sized cupcake. Maybe it's the Denver altitude, maybe it's the amount of flavors in the final product, but the mini versions do not seem to do this shop any justice. If you're worried about the calories or sugar, you can always split a cupcake with a friend!

HappyCakes, 3434 W. 32nd Avenue, Denver, CO 80211, (303) 477-3556, http://www.happycakesdenver.com/