Cupcakes a La Carte

I stumbled upon this cute little kiosk while spending my late afternoon at Scarborough Town Centre. Nice customer service, cute presentation, lots of cupcake, macaroon, and cake pop flavours to ogle at.
I decided to snag a Red Velvet cake pop and a Salted Caramel cupcake to snack upon.
The Red Velvet cake pop was decent. Comparable to any other decent cake pop I’ve had, but nothing that really made it special.
The Salted Caramel cupcake: I did read some reviews about the cake being dry, but I did not find that was the case with mine. The cake was fairly moist (though I wouldn’t have left it more than one day without eating it, as I felt it wasn’t quite moist enough to keep very long), and was quite yummy and flavorful. The buttercream, however, was a different story. I did not enjoy this at all. It reminded me of the buttercream you’d eat on a cupcake you bought from the grocery store. Lacking flavor, with that «fake» taste that I can’t quite describe. I scraped most of it off (and unfortunately, with it came the salt), but honestly, that was the deal breaker for me — I will not be back for one of these cupcakes. There was some caramel under the buttercream, which was a nice surprise, but really couldn’t save the cupcake from the downfall of this awful buttercream. I threw out at least half of this cupcake.
Honestly, for a little kiosk in Scarborough, I felt that the prices were a bit high. Mind you, if the cupcake blew me away, I would have no problem, but I won’t be dishing out $ 3.50 per cupcake (or $ 3 per if you buy 6) anytime soon for these cupcakes.

During one of my rare and unusual visits to Scarborough, my sister and I decided to wander around STC to see how much the mall had changed over the last few years. One thing we did notice were 2 cupcake kiosks («Cupcakes a La Carte») located on the 1^st and 2^nd floor of the mall. As a lover of cupcakes and macarons, I was very excited to see this fresh and sweet addition to their already expanding food court.
The service was very good. The lady that was behind the counter was very friendly and informative about the menu and daily selection. Cupcake sizes were standard and they looked very appealing. The macarons looked a little smaller than average. The overall design, display, and presentation of their products were very neat, organized, and aesthetically pleasing.
Prices of cupcakes and macarons are competitive with other gourmet cupcakery shops out there in Toronto. I ordered a 6 pack of cupcakes and a 6 pack of macarons. The packaging for both macarons and cupcakes were very sturdy and by the time I brought them home downtown everything was still intact and pretty.
The cupcakes were not that great. I ordered banana, chocolate, oreo, caramel, red velvet, and mocha. I found the cake was very dry and hard and unimpressive and the icing, albeit light, was not very flavourful. There wasn’t anything remarkable about the taste overall (at least it did not leave a lasting impression). It reminded me very much like a cupcake that I purchased at a grocery store: decent, edible, however it was much more expensive than I thought it was worth. The macarons had the same story although instead of them being dry and hard they were REALLY chewy. almost like candy chewy, which is not my ideal macaron. Typically I find the initial bite of a macaron shell should be a light crunch, some chewiness, and a burst of flavour from whatever delicious filling the pastry chef concocted! Instead, I found there to be a consistent chewiness throughout the macaron and the filling was barely noticeable. The macaron flavours offered were also not very diverse or creative, sticking mainly to what appear to be safe choices. I do understand this decision to have a limited selection of flavours though, since their business is only a kiosk and not a full functioning bakery.
Overall, the cupcake kiosk idea is certainly a very interesting concept but unfortunately based on my experience it was poorly executed. Some possible reasons could have been that we picked up the cupcakes near closing time on a Sunday. I am not really sure where and when the cupcakes are baked and how long they sell them for so that could be a factor to my unsatisfactory experience. I tried to look up more information on their website to see how «fresh» the cupcakes are because the kiosk does not have a fully equipped kitchen where they do all their baking. Unfortunately, their website is still under construction and has been since Christmas stating they will return in the spring. I am assuming they are working out some kinks as they appear to be a newish store.
I think there is still a lot of potential with this place. I would give them some time to iron out a few things and see how they are in a few months.

I’ve tried a couple of cupcake places downtown which were lovely. I LOVED their cupcakes. So when I learned a cute little kiosk opened a bit closer to home, I got excited. When I tried the cupcakes, they were nothing special. Some of my homemade cupcakes have actually tasted better. Stale cupcakes, stale frosting.

I LOVE cupcakes. Seriously… LOVE affair! So I’m always on the lookout for new cupcake places. I was in Scarborough Town Centre and came upon this kiosk. It’s not a storefront, but a rather ingenious booth, with colourful signs and a glass showcase full of cupcakes.
There is a long list of flavours and I suspect (as with many places) they make different cupcakes for different days.
I ordered 6, which was $ 18…I know, it’s steep, that’s pretty standard. Cupcake places seem to range from around the $ 2.25 mark to around $ 4/​cupcake. So these guys fall somewhere inbetween. But not cheap, so I expect excellence, needless to say.
Now, here’s the strange thing. On their website each cupcake is listed as $ 2.90…was this the case at the store? I sure hope not. Why would you have to pay MORE for buying more? Maybe it’s an ordering online thing? Anyway, my GUESS is that you’re paying $ 3/​cupcake at the store, or $ 18 for 6. No real incentive to buy 6. But I did, so moving on…
Of course I chose a range of flavours: oreo cookie. chocolate with vanilla icing, salted caramel, lemon and a double chocolate.
Over two days we managed to work our way through them (myself and my husband) and I nibbled the different flavours. Lemon was my favorite, by far, with the salted caramel being a huge disappointment. It was entirely too salty. More salt than caramel. It wasn’t very good at all.
But that said, none of the cupcakes really blew me away. AND in fact, they were VERY stale the next day, despite being stored in an airtight container, in the fridge. Luckily, the cold buttercream frosting was easy to scoop off and once they had been in the oven for a few minutes, they softened up a bit.
The bottoms of the cupcakes stuck to the wrappers and the flavours were dull tasting and uninspired.
I was also surprised at the lack of creativity in terms of Christmas flavours or designed. Right before Christmas you would expect some special flavours… maybe a candy cane, or gingerbread cupcake. It would be so easy to switch out one flavour and try to get people to consider your product for a Christmas party dessert.
Having a little kiosk in a mall is a smart idea. Sadly, this business is not one I think I will bother with again!