Our adventure started out by getting lost trying to get through downtown Austin to try and find this cupcake shop. When we finally did get there we got our cupcakes to go so that I could bring them home and take pictures of them for the blog (I feel like my entire life revolves around the blog- when I am going to eat, what, where, do I have my camera to document). However, on the ride home our cupcakes got a little smashed and so I didn’t feel like they would be worthy enough to take pictures of (luckily you can go to the bakery’s website and see a few pics). And the last part of our adventure was the tasting (details to come a little bit later).
I decided I wanted to try this particular cupcake shop (Austin has a few) when I saw an article in the newspaper talking about Sugar Mama’s Bake Shop, owned by Olivia and Steve O’Neal, off South First Street in Austin, Texas. The article stated that for a few days an Australian baker named Jess Pryles, owner of Sugadeaux Cupcakes, was going to be a guest baker at Sugar Mama’s. The newspaper article stated that Pryles was going to be making some signature Australian treats including Malteser and Mojiteaux cupcakes and cookies made with wattleseed, Australia’s national flower.
I thought this sounded interesting so we decided to take the trip ‘down under’. When we arrived we found this cute little shop and staff very friendly. Pryles was nice and talked to us for a while about living in Australia and visiting the states.
Her ‘signature’ cupcake for the day we went was a Mojiteaux cupcake. So of course we had to get that one and we also got the Black and Tan which was one of Sugar Mama’s ‘signature’ cupcakes for the day.
The Black and Tan is a “rich, chocolaty Guinness Stout cupcake topped with scrumptious Irish cream cheese frosting”. The Mojiteaux was just that- a mint flavored cupcake inspired by the popular Cuban cocktail (this kind of puzzled me since we were supposed to be eating Australian themed treats). We thought the Black and Tan tasted great, although very rich. You could defiantly taste the Guinness but the chocolate and cream cheese evened it out. The Mojiteaux cupcake, however, was not that impressive. It had too strong of a mint flavor and not enough sweetness to balance it out. But that is probably because here in the states we are used to sweets being just that- sweet. Where as (in my personal experience) “sweets” from other countries tend to have a less sweet flavor.
Sugar Mama’s does pride it’s self on using “nothing but the highest quality ingredients in all of their made from-scratch recipes. Including ingredients like Nielsen-Massey extracts, Valrhona chocolate, and locally sourced cage-free eggs.” They also strive to be green by having a shop that is wind powered and packaging that is made from renewable, compostable materials. I thought the prices were a little steep at $2.50 a cupcake (and not jumbo cupcakes just plan normal size); but I guess being ‘gourmet’ and using ‘green’ products has to be factored in the price.
Sugar Mama’s is also vegan friendly (if you are into that sort of thing); and has a rather large selection of vegan cupcakes.
I love supporting local Austin business and overall I thought it was an interesting experience.