Cupcakes -- Columbus style

So, I was in Ohio over the weekend. I arrived around 10:00 am Saturday morning tried to be helpful working in Valerie's garden, but I was tired from waking up at 5 am and their dirt defeated me. Around 4:20 pm, we were talking about someplace to go for dinner (we were in Ohio and did not want Applebee's or Olive Garden, so the choices were quite limited) and then I remembered that the one thing I really wanted to do was try their cupcake place! So, Valerie casually goes to the computer, looked it up online and found that... gasp... the place closed at 5 pm and was closed Sunday and Monday and I was leaving on Tuesday morning. All of a sudden, we were in a mad dash to get kiddies in clothes and shoes and me in something that was not covered in Ohio dirt. We got to Pink Moon at around 4:50 -- just in time!

We were the last customers of the day. There were so many to choose from and they had a really beautiful set-up. Because I'm a purist, I chose the Vanilla/Vanilla. Because I'm greedy, I chose one more -- the pumpkin. I panicked when I saw the Vanilla/Vanilla plate was empty, but they reassured me that they had some in back and would frost them special for us. We decided to get a half-dozen (and yes, if you are doing the math, that means that the family got one each and I got TWO!) and paid for our booty. As he was in the back room processing the payment, I took out my camera and started taking pictures. When he came back in, I had to explain myself. Somehow, saying that I am from New York is a reasonable explanation for taking pictures of cupcakes (or empty cake plates, as it were). He said, "Oh, so you have to compare us to Magnolia.... and what's the other place?" I responded, "Buttercup?" He said, "No, that's not it." He asked his wife, and she couldn't think of it either. I started naming off bakeries, but as always, drew a blank under pressure and could only think of Crumb and Cupcake Cafe. (Actually, Valerie might have been the one to come up with Crumb. This is why I could never be on a game show.) Anyway, he told me that he had heard from someone recently that Magnolia was hyped up and that he thought that people only go there to say that they had been there. I gave him my usual spiel, which is that the problem with Magnolia is that they only have chocolate and vanilla and the chocolate is dry. However, if you like the vanilla cake, it is the best. Serioulsy. Last week, Leolani brought some home and I took one bite and said, "Yep, still the best." He said he wished that I would be back to tell him how they compared to Magnolia. I said I'd be back someday, but my sister could report back.

The report: goooood!! Some people say that the frosting of Magnolia is too sweet. I personally do not think so, obviously. The one thing I can say for certain between the Pink Moon cupcake and many others that I have tried is that the frosting is very buttery and not very sweet. That's not a bad thing. I thought it was delicious. Does it beat Magnolia? No, I still prefer the sweet. (pictured here from the bottom left: vanilla/vanilla, Pretty Pretty Princess [with a Hello Kitty ring], Superhero [with a Spiderman ring], Pumpkin, Lemon coconut, another vanilla/vanilla for Greg.)

Since they were closing, they decided to give us all the ones that were left! So in addition to these six, we got 8 or 9 more. If you look at the flavors page, you can see all the variations. We had all except the Buckeye and the Snickerdoodle. The flavors of the day were banana and lemon coconut. They were all so delicious, it was bonkers! I always like vanilla the best (does that say anything about me?), but a close second was the pumpkin and lemon coconut.