Sweet Sunday

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon for myself, Joel and Lucky. While chatting on Twitter, Joel came up with the brilliant idea of going out for cupcakes. Within an hour, we'd all changed out of our jammies and gotten clean, when Joel picked we girls up to whisk us off to an undisclosed location. The cupcake adventure was on.

It turned out we were being taken to the Distillery District to visit Sweet Escape Patisserie. Owner and chef Michelle Edgar creates a wide variety of pastries, including cupcakes, shortbreads, tarts and cookies; as well as a selection of soups, salads and sandwiches at this 2 year old bakery café. They also offer gluten free, dairy free and vegan options for those that have special dietary restrictions.

Joel got the chocolate raspberry cupcake, while Lucky and I opted for the Earl Grey. Each cupcake was frosted with a rich, luxurious buttercream, sprinkled with candied lemon rind. Interestingly, the frosting had almost no flavour until after the buttercream had melted away. You're then hit with the intensely aromatic vanilla flavour. The cake itself was slightly dense and infused with Earl Grey. The bergamot profile characteristic of the tea of the same name worked really well with the perfumed buttercream.

Lucky also shared her macarons with us, and I got to try the chocolate hazelnut flavour. The other two flavours on offer today were raspberry and blueberry. The meringues themselves were firm enough not to crumble, yet maintained that dense chewiness of a perfect macaron. The hazelnut filling was light and creamy, providing a lovely counterpoint to the texture of the cookie.

I'll definitely have to go back, as there are a bunch of other cupcake flavours that are catching my eye. In particular, I'd love to taste the cherry vanilla, lemon drop, salted caramel, "Honey, Chai This", crème brûlée and chocolate merlot. Flavours vary from day to day, so to stay updated on what's available, follow Sweet Escape on Twitter.