Baked by Melissa

Whenever I visit my New York office, I encounter a lot of leftover cake, cupcakes, and other treats from the seemingly endless team celebrations.  I'm always elated when the cake happens to come from my absolute favorite, Empire Cake, but I'm always happy to try treats from anywhere really.  Which lead me to finally try cupcakes from Baked by Melissa.

I'm familiar with Baked by Melissa, but their concept (tiny little cupcakes) hasn't ever really called out to me.  I almost grabbed a few once when delayed at JFK and I saw a stand there, but they just look too tiny to be satisfying to me (even though I love to try ALL the things, so you'd think I'd relish in the idea of getting to pick a bunch just to make up a proper size dessert).  They just seem far too small (literally, bite size).  Event hosts like to get them because they are great for groups where everyone can have "just a taste" if they so choose.  They show up very frequently in our office mini kitchens.

Guide.

The cupcakes come in a zillion flavors.  Luckily the hosts of this particular event left guides alongside the cupcakes, much like a box of chocolate.  They are relatively easy to identify with a few minutes work, as they have different base colors, frosting colors, and tiny toppings.

So many extra cupcakes.

I was able to try quite a few flavors, as they show up every few days really.  I didn't particularly enjoy, well, any.

Assorted Cupcakes.

Vanilla & Sprinkles. 

Vanilla cake + white vanilla icing + rainbow sprinkles topping.

I started with the most simple in order to evaluate the base product.  It was a highly underwhelming bite.  The cake had no real interesting flavor.  The frosting was just sweet.  The cake was moist enough, but yeah, just nothing remotely interesting about this.  2.5/5.

Tie-Dye / Electric Tie-Dye (Seasonal)

"The bite-size cupcake began here. It's our signature flavor, and it's everything."

Original Tie-dye: tie-dye vanilla cake + vanilla icing + rainbow sugar crystal topping.

Electric Tie Dye: Tie-dye vanilla cake + white vanilla icing + nonpareil brittle topping.

Next I tried their signature flavor, which sounded like basically the same thing as the vanilla, just, colorful, and with rainbow sugar crystals instead of sprinkles (or, in the case of the seasonal "electric" version, a little rainbow nonpareil brittle piece).  And yeah, again, just boring cake, no interesting flavor.  The one I had was the electric version, so it had the brittle, and that itself was sweet and tasty, but overall, this cupcake was no better really than the basic vanilla, just more interesting to look at. 2.5/5.

Cookie Dough

"You know when you go to bake some cookies, but you never get to the actual baking part? Yeah. This cupcake is for you."

Yellow cake + cookie dough stuffing + chocolate icing + cookie dough topping.

Same kinda meh cake (they called this 'yellow' rather than 'vanilla' but it seemed the same?), but the cookie dough stuffing and topping were at least decent, they tasted like, well, pretty standard raw cookie dough.  3/5 cookie dough, 2.5/5 cake + frosting though.  This is the only one I really enjoyed at all.

Note that this is different from the Cookie Sandwich flavor they also offer, which is yellow chocolate chip cake + chocolate chip cookie dough stuffing + vanilla icing + chocolate chip cookie dough piece + mini chocolate chips topping, so a bit more loaded up.

Update review: I had this again a few weeks later, and again at least really liked the cookie dough gob on top.  Everything else though?  Meh.

Chocolate Chip Pancake

"They said you couldn’t eat cupcakes for breakfast? Well, we said you can."

Yellow cake + mini chocolate chips topping + maple syrup icing (also, mini chips in the cake).

This tasted very plain to me.  The mini chips on top were nice of course, but, the cake again meh, and the frosting was just a touch sweeter than the others, not particularly maple-y, and nothing that reminded me of pancakes. 2/5.

Mint Cookie

"Thin mints meet chocolate cookie butter? It was mint to be."

Mint cake + fudge stuffing + mint cookie butter topping + mint cookies & cream icing.

This one was definitely the most interesting, as it had more flavors and elements going on.  In theory anyway.  The cake was green and ... perhaps lightly minty.  The "fudge stuffing" was a tiny, tiny, tiny not of fudge, entirely lost.  The icing didn't seem mint nor cookies & cream, it seemed just as plain as the others.  The "mint cookie butter topping" seemed more like a hunk of brownie or something?  Anyway, overall, pretty meh, just some very vague minty and chocolately notes.  2.5/5.