Food Truck Review: Fairy Cakes

Fairy Cakes - tried on September 15, 2014

A couple of weeks ago at work, during my second conference in two weeks, the pre-conference mixer included having four food trucks onsite to provide appetizers and dinner for the conference attendees. One truck had a South American theme, another an Asian theme and a third was American cuisine. The fourth, however, is what earned my slavish devotion: dessert in the form of cupcakes from Fairy Cakes.

Not being a regular patron of food trucks (I know they’re all the rage but I’m a creature of habit and food trucks don’t usually cross my path), I was unfamiliar with Fairy Cakes but it was dessert, it was a cupcake and it was literally right in front of me. Serendipity or what? When it comes to dinner, it’s very important to strategize when dessert is on the line. That means, I ate a small dinner that could fit in the palm of my hand (rice and Korean short ribs if you want to know or maybe a few kernels of rice and half a short rib because I really did keep the portion small). Therefore freeing my stomach and my daily allotment of calories so I could have a cupcake for dessert.

Most of the conference attendees were congregated around the bar area doing their mingling. I don’t drink and didn’t want to take up valuable near-the-bar space so I just happened to drift towards the cupcake truck (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). There was hardly anyone there yet so I could engage the girl in the truck in very important conversation. With questions like “what’s your best flavor? Which cupcake do you recommend?” They had a list of flavors available, including chocolate and vanilla versions of a salted caramel cupcake. Salted caramel. Tempting. But the cupcake lady recommended the cookie butter cupcake because “it was different”.

Cookie Butter Cupcake

I happen to be a fan of cookie butter so it didn’t take much to persuade me. It took me longer to talk myself out of getting a second cupcake. I did want to try one of the salted caramel cupcakes and it wasn’t like the cupcakes were that big. But I was experiencing a rare moment of virtue colliding with willpower so I went with one cookie butter cupcake and forced myself to walk away before I could weaken. I was chatting with a few other folks (back to the mingling) while I ate my cupcake. I think I had to step away for a minute after I took the first bite. I was having a moment, just me and the cupcake. It was too sacred to be shared, schmoozing be damned.

Okay, people, this was probably one of the best cupcakes I’ve ever had. I’m sorry, Candace Nelson of Sprinkles fame, I just cheated on you and enjoyed it. And I’d do it again. The Fairy Cakes cookie butter cupcake was amazing. And proof of that is I ate the whole thing, including the frosting (me! Non-frosting person!). The frosting was actually the best part. It tasted as good as it looked. The cupcake itself was a very delicious buttery vanilla cupcake and not cookie-butter-flavored but it was moist and had the perfect cake texture. It also served as a very handy backdrop and vehicle with which to deliver the frosting. There was a center dollop of straight cookie butter on top of the cupcake and then cookie butter frosting piped around it. Delicious. Amazing. OMG, I can’t believe I only got one. I almost went back for a second one but I made myself walk away and head back to my desk, regretting it every step of the way. Sometimes virtue and willpower really suck.

Fortunately, one of the event coordinators, who happened to hear me raving about the cookie butter cupcake, meaning I was telling anyone at the conference who would listen, “try the cookie butter cupcake, it’s amazing, you won’t regret it, you’ve GOT to try this cupcake”, told me the next day that dessert for lunch that day would be the cupcakes from Fairy Cakes. Wow, did she make my day. So you know what I had for dessert that day. I wanted another cookie butter cupcake but I still wanted to try the salted caramel cupcake so I ended up splitting a cookie butter cupcake with another person and took a whole chocolate salted caramel for tasting. As the lady I split the cupcake with said, “1 ½ cupcakes, that’s totally reasonable.” Absolutely.

Chocolate Salty Caramel Cupcake

The chocolate salted caramel cupcake was good but it didn’t match the cookie butter. The chocolate flavor could’ve been a tad bit more chocolatey and the salted caramel drizzled over the frosting was a bit too salty for me. Their frosting was really good though and, just like with Sift cupcakes, I loved the frosting. I don’t say that very often. But it’s the cookie butter cupcake that will make me seek out Fairy Cakes again. According to their website, they go out in their food truck in different locations a few times a week. Believe me, I’ll be showing up at one of those places sometime soon.

Half of a Cookie Butter Cupcake