Kara's Cupcakes: Not As Good As They Claim

So I went over to the city (SF) with my friend Shannon on Sunday to get cupcakes from That Takes the Cake with the coupons we got from TownHog last week.  Unfortunately, That Takes the Cake is technologically challenged and did not post that they were taking a holiday break on their website or on their answering machine.  So I found myself stranded in the city with Shannon and a cupcake craving.

So I pulled out my standard solution for when I'm craving sweets in San Francisco: get an Espresso Escape Sunday from Ghirardelli Square.  So we drove over and found prime parking just off the corner.  We thought we had it all good, until we got to the restaurant and saw an enormous line: clearly someone wanted to keep us form enjoying our sweets.

We got back in the car, and Shannon suggested we try somewhere else, so we looked up Kara's Cupcakes: the number one cupcake bakery in San Francisco.  I figure if it's number one it must be really good.  Turns out they had a location in Ghirardelli square.  Clearly the stars were aligned.

We got out of the car, walked over and walked into the bakery.  It smelled so good.  I looked at all the options.  Unfortunately they didn't have a Red Velvet cupcake (which I was really craving).  However they had a Java cupcake: a chocolate cupcake with coffee flavored buttercream frosting.  I figured I love coffee flavors, this is the coffee cupcake, must be good.

Boy was a disappointed.  While the cupcake itself was pretty moist and tasty, it really wasn't all that special.  It tasted like the standard Ghirardelli cupcake/cake mix.  Nothing ultra special.  The frosting on the other hand was terrible.  When I get something coffee flavored, I want it to be coffee FLAVORED. This frosting was more like the "essence of coffee" or buttercream with a "hint of coffee flavor."  It was goddamn awful.  Well it didn't taste bad, it just wasn't really good.  I personally think my coffee frosting made with instant coffee, butter, and Kahlua is significantly better.

The chocolate covered coffee bean is a nice touch.  Unfortunately, the ones from Trader Joe's are much better.

Overall, I didn't think the cupcake from Kara's Cupcakes wasn't worth worth the $3.25 I spent on it.  In fact, I would never buy another one of these cupcakes because they're not that good.  I really don't see why anyone would buy a cupcake from Kara's.  I think it's more of of a tourist attraction; there must be much better cupcakes out there.

Hopefully the cupcakes from That Takes the Cake will be significantly better.  They definitely look amazing!