Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Boston Happy Hour: Kickass Cupcakes

Posted by Katie

What: Kickass Cupcakes
Where: Near Davis Square in Somerville
When: 5-7pm the last Monday of every month
Honeys Heart: free samples!

I missed Kickass Cupcakes' last two monthly happy hours so I was determined to finally make it this month.

Kickass holds a free sampling of 3 mini cocktail-inspired cupcakes from 5-7pm on the last Monday of every month. The flavors are always different which is pretty impressive considering that they've been creating 3 new flavors every month since they began this tradition last spring.

This month's featured flavors were:

The Strawberry Jello Shot: pink vanilla cake with a strawberry jello shot center and whipped cream topping

Chartwoozy: gin-soaked cupcake with Chartreuse frosting and lemon sugar

Chocolate Hot Toddy: chocolate cake, brandied chocolate ganache center and chocolate frosting dusted with nutmeg.



The Strawberry Jello Shot was my favorite. The jello shot center was a fun touch which brought me back to my days in the dorms (heart you Kenna!) and I liked that the whipped cream cut down on the sweetness factor. I loved the look of the Chartwoozy and the gin-soaked cupcake was delicious. The frosting was good too but super sweet. Definitely don't think I could have finished the regular-sized version of that one. Since I'm not a big chocolate person, the Hot Toddy was a little overwhelming for me, but I did appreciate the brandied chocolate ganache center because it helped balance the extreme chocolateness that was going on with this cupcake.


I felt weird sampling and then bouncing, so I decided to purchase a cupcake to take with me. Kickass offers regular-sized versions of all its happy hour cupcakes but I thought it would be fun to try a fourth flavor. Keeping with the alcohol theme, I went with the Limited Edition Bubbly: vanilla cupcake with a champagne soaked strawberry center and pink champagne icing. Yum.


In addition to their cocktail cupcakes, Kickass Cupcakes also has lots of other inventive flavors. You can check out their menu here.


While these cupcakes are obviously pretty decedent, as Kickass's site points out, a cupcake is generally smaller than the average piece of cake and you can feel good knowing that Kickass only uses all natural ingredients. That means no hydrogenated oils, no trans fats, no artificial flavors or preservatives. Probably that means it's ok to have more than one...right?