Cupcakes and more cupcakes

Last week my book club met to talk about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which, if you have read it or watch Oprah, you know is about a boy and his dogs. So my friend Marci made these adorable cupcakes for us. I ate two, which ended up being my dinner for the evening.

Then, because I can, I went out the following evening to try this new cupcake place that I have been wanting to try for weeks. This time, I decided to eat some real food first, then ventured to the East side.

Butter Lane has three kinds of cupcakes -- vanilla, chocolate and banana -- but several kinds of frosting (all the taster cups are pictured here).

You can taste all of the frostings and then choose what you want on your cupcake. We got three to share -- no pretending that we were only going to have one each and then decide if we wanted to go back for a third. My pick was the vanilla/vanilla (of course). They have French Buttercream and American Buttercream. I chose the French because it tasted smoother and you could actually see the vanilla bean flecks in it. On my last bite, I realized what made it different -- it tasted like meringue, which is not surprising since it has egg whites in it. For some reason, once I tasted the egg whites, I wasn't that thrilled, but until then I was in heaven. (I would endorse this cupcake.) Heidi's pick was the "Elvis" which was banana with peanut butter frosting and marshmallows on the top. She nearly fainted when she bit into it (only slightly exaggerating). I liked it too, but she definitely liked it best. The third pick we went back and forth on for a while, but eventually, I got my way, which was the vanilla cupcake with key lime frosting. Then, because I never get to the East side, I got one with chocolate frosting to take home. The women that worked there figure they just made two new best friends! You can always tell how good the cake part is by whether I scrape the wrapper clean. It was clean!

Done and Done!