Searching for chicago best vegan cupcake

I am a student at ECC in Elgin Il, currently taking a business course. One of my topics has to do with current market trends and cupcakes are one of them. Curiosity has lead me down the vegan path, as a vegan myself, I wondered, is there a decent vegan cupcake out there? Or, am I looking for the jackalope of the baking world. Thoughts? Comments? Leads? My pocketbook is open, taste buds primed, and belly empty ready to try them all.

I know Bleeding Heart Bakery and Molly's Cupcakes always have a few types of vegan cupcakes.

While I can't vouch for any of them, I believe the following places do have vegan cupcakes:

Alliance Bakery
Bleeding Heart Bakery
Bulldog Bakery
Fritz Pastry
Luscious Layers Bakery
Molly’s Cupcakes
Sprinkles
Sweet Cakes
Swim Cafe
Swirlz Cupcakes

Let us know which you like!

Love,
John

Blind Faith Cafe in Evanston has a delicious vegan cupcake - chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. I'm not vegan and I still love them.

Skip Alliance.
Molly's and Bleeding Heart both do a great job.
Cannot vouch to the others.

You can also give Native Foods a shot. While I'm by no means vegan they do a great job with most of their offerings.

on a related note, I'm looking for a place that has gluten-free cupcakes. Bonus points if they actually taste good (assuming such a thing is possible).

Tambreet wrote:on a related note, I'm looking for a place that has gluten-free cupcakes. Bonus points if they actually taste good (assuming such a thing is possible).

Heavenly Cupcakes in Elmhurst (162 N. York St., Elmhurst, IL 60126 ) has gluten free cupcakes on Saturdays only.

They do not have a dedicated facility, but they do make them on Saturday mornings before they start any non-gluten free baking. Depending on your level of sensitivity, this may or may not work for you.

Swirlz also has GF cupcakes available at most Whole Foods which can be hit or miss -- very much depend on the variety and on whether they are GF and vegan or just GF. In my experience, the chocolate tends to be better than vanilla.

There's also a dedicated GF bakery in Hinsdale that's great:

Sweet Ali's Gluten Free Bakery
13 W. 1st Street, Hinsdale, IL 60521
http://www.sweetalis.com/

Cupcakes are actually not so difficult to make GF since they don't require gluten development for the batter.

First venture into the search for the best vegan cupcake.
Native Foods
* Good Luck Cupcake/Cardamom rose- I love the idea of cardamom in a dessert. I've personally used a bit of orange water or rosewater in my own baking to add a depth of dimension and flavor. To begin, the texture of the cake was good. I'm not sure if it was the fact it was in a refrigerated case that made them a bit dry or not. Unfortunately, the flavor reminded me of drinking perfume as a child. The exotic flavor of the cardamom was completely lost in the overpowering floral notes of the rosewater. On a scale of one to ten, 6.5 for cake texture [vegan cakes can so often be dense and heavy]. I could tell that if it had not be exposed to refrigeration it would have been spot on. The flavor...well 5, I simply can't get past the perfume like taste. The icing 7.5, it was light, and fluffy. Not too terribly dense and had a creamy quality that can sometimes be lost when using butter substitutes for vegan icing. Overall, a good cupcake, but not as great as it could be for the money.

Next up...sprinkles and swirls. Heres to the NEXT sugar high.

Took a trip to try Swirls Vegan/Gluten Free Cupcakes. I always think chocolate is the true test of a cupcake. Do they use high end or simple commercial brand coco powder. Well, I bought two. Bittersweet chocolate and red velvet. I love dark chocolate. I was excited to try them both. That said, I was disappointed with their bittersweet. The texture was moist and the icing was luscious, but, it had little chocolate flavor and was miles away from bittersweet. The cupcake was topped with cocoa nibs, so you did get a nice bite of bitter from time to time, but just not enough. Moving on to the red velvet, well...this cake had a more pronounced chocolate flavor, but I was missing that signature red color red velvet is known for. The icing again was smooth, light and airy, but cloyingly sweet. The icing did not taste of cream cheese, as most red velvet cakes are iced this way, but it could be due to the fact it was gluten free. Swirls is known far and wide and attributed to being the TRUE godfather of the cupcake trend [Sprinkles was the first dedicated cupcake shop]. I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't blown away. For a company who has a shop in Dubai, I expected a bit more. On a scale of one to ten, 8 for cake texture, I was impressed. The flavor, a 5 possibly a 6. It needed a bit more of an intense chocolate flavor, if you are going to sell bittersweet, it better be bittersweet. The icing 7. I love the light and airy texture, unfortunately, the chocolate needed more chocolate, and the vanilla icing on the red velvet, was just a tad bit too sweet for my palate.

(left) Bittersweet Chocolate (Right) Red Velvet

Cilantrochef wrote:Took a trip to try Swirls Vegan/Gluten Free Cupcakes. I always think chocolate is the true test of a cupcake. Do they use high end or simple commercial brand coco powder. Well, I bought two. Bittersweet chocolate and red velvet. I love dark chocolate. I was excited to try them both. That said, I was disappointed with their bittersweet. The texture was moist and the icing was luscious, but, it had little chocolate flavor and was miles away from bittersweet. The cupcake was topped with cocoa nibs, so you did get a nice bite of bitter from time to time, but just not enough. Moving on to the red velvet, well...this cake had a more pronounced chocolate flavor, but I was missing that signature red color red velvet is known for. The icing again was smooth, light and airy, but cloyingly sweet. The icing did not taste of cream cheese, as most red velvet cakes are iced this way, but it could be due to the fact it was gluten free. Swirls is known far and wide and attributed to being the TRUE godfather of the cupcake trend [Sprinkles was the first dedicated cupcake shop]. I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't blown away. For a company who has a shop in Dubai, I expected a bit more. On a scale of one to ten, 8 for cake texture, I was impressed. The flavor, a 5 possibly a 6. It needed a bit more of an intense chocolate flavor, if you are going to sell bittersweet, it better be bittersweet. The icing 7. I love the light and airy texture, unfortunately, the chocolate needed more chocolate, and the vanilla icing on the red velvet, was just a tad bit too sweet for my palate.

(left) Bittersweet Chocolate (Right) Red Velvet

Was the red velvet cupcake vegan? If so, the frosting wouldn't have been made with cream cheese, which could explain the taste.

I'm always on the lookout for vegan pastry recipes that actually taste good. (Which, personally, I find near-close to impossible when you're not able to use eggs, white sugar or butter.) Still, I have a handful of vegan friends who often ask me to bake for them and while they've been happy with the things I'd done, I'm just not convinced they're ever as good as the "real" thing.

Full Disclosure: My sister is part owner

Canary Confectionary out in the suburbs does nice vegan cupcakes, cookies, etc. I believe their products are available on the Vegan food truck from time to time as well.

I also believe that they are starting to do some gluten-free items as well.

Blindfaith CafeI was overwhelmed by the amount of vegan desserts that BFC had, and I bought 6 in all. The chocolate cupcake with Vanilla icing was good. The frosting was a bit on the grainy and sweet side, but overall not bad. The cake was moist, I've found that most chocolate cupcakes are moist, Im under the suspicion they all use the same formula to achieve these results. After weeks of doing this, one common thread has been found. The intensity of the chocolate is lacking. Its not a pronounced flavor like a good chocolate cake should be. That being said on the cupcake scale. Frosting 6.5 [a bit grainy, sweet but not overly sweet]I did find it soft and billowing. Unusual for a vegan cupcake. The cake it self 8.5 for texture but 6.0 for chocolate intensity. If I was int he neighborhood, I would definitely grab a few, sit down and have a nice vanilla soy latte with friends. I also tried their carrot cake, peanut butter chocolate cake, as well as their chocolate cake and their brownie as well. Of all of the BFC desserts the brownie was the most disappointing. It wasn't actually chocolate, but carob. Carob has a very distinct flavor and can be off putting when expecting chocolate. I often explain it to people who have never tried it using this analogy. If you asked someone to bring you 7 up and they gave you tonic water, it would be a bit of a shock. You're not getting the taste you were expecting. The carrot cake had excellent flavor, but wasnt as moist as carrot cakes usually are. Its truly a dessert I would give second glace to. Their peanut butter chocolate cake reminded me of the desserts you would find in a french pastry shop. It was stunningly beautiful and perfectly executed. Unfortunately the filling tasted as if they had taken natural peanut butter and sweetened it with sugar. It had not heft to it and simply oozed out everywhere. The chocolate ganache was silky and rich, but was less than stellar. I was missing that intense chocolate taste, the rich complexity you often find in those types of desserts.

Bleeding Heart Bakery In the words of Guy Fieri of Food Network Fame...winner winner chicken dinner. The cake is moist the chocolate is of a good quality and the peanut butter icing is light fluffy and has the perfect amount of sweetness and hit of salt. I had the please of chatting with one of the bakers. She has worked for Michelle Garcia for 6 years, and was able to impart a bit of insight on their way of baking. Michelle prides herself on using not only organic ingredients but the best quality they can afford. Some of their desserts are on the massive size. [their whoopie pies look like manhole covers, and their lemon bars could easily feed a family of r 4] but none the less delicious. In addition to the peanut butter chocolate cupcake, I tried their ginger molasses cookie as well as the chocolat chip. All were delicious. Unfortunately the everything scone, not so much. It was painfully dry and although it had many ingredients,[raisins pumpkin seeds, walnuts] the only prominent one was cinnamon. It reminded me of carrot cake without the sugar. 3 out of 4 of the items were well worth the drive. The cupcake scale icing an 8 and the cake a 9. To date Bleeding heart is the best I have had so far.

While I was in the bleeding heart, the staff told me about Heavenly Cupcakes. [oddly enough their address was the same 162 York. Bleeding Heart being south and Heavenly Cupcakes being North. And much like these opposites, the cupcakes were polar opposites as well. Heavenly Cupcakes was not the friendliest of places as well. When I asked about vegan cupcakes I got a resounding.."yeah, we got em' I was direct to the cake case and shown two lonely cupcakes. If I hadn't asked I don't think she would have told me the flavor, as the one advertised as vegan was not the one in the case. Anyway, I bought the last two, mint chocolate vegan cupcakes, and headed on my way. The folks at Bleeding Heart had warned me the cupcakes were over iced and dry. [I should have seen it coming. There was a stand of icing shots for $.75 on the counter] I took it with a grain of salt, thinking it was just a way to put me off from the competition, boy was I proven wrong. After taking an initial bite, I asked the rest of the family to try. While most children squeal in delight when given a cupcake, my two girls took one bite and my 3 YEAR OLD replied...mommy, this cupcake is dry. Now do I need to say more.

Last on our journey this week was Loving Hut a vegan restaurant located on North Broadway near Hollywood. The restaurant itself is modern brightly colored and well lit. I was intrigued, because I hadn't even known about it. Looking at the menu I found vegan cupcakes. I bought the cupcakes, carrot, cake and finally chocolate cake. Sat down and tried them all. Once again, the bells and whistles of a good cupcake were there. [one thing can be said for my fellow vegan bakers, they know how to decorate]Unfortunately they were dry, lacking of any flavor. If you closed your eyes you would know it was chocolate, but you wouldn't be able to tell if it was a muffin or a cake. Sigh, once again, my dreams of the perfect cupcake shattered.

Still have a few more places to visit. I'm also looking for any other recommendations to try. If you know of a great spot, let me know. Have sweet tooth, will travel!
[url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/37160891@N05/6851167824/][/url]
Bleeding Heart Bakery Cupcake by cilantro7772001, on Flickr[/url] Bleeding Heart
[url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/37160891@N05/6851168180/][/url]
Heavenly Cupcakes Vegan Cupcakes by cilantro7772001, on Flickr[/url]
But try them all for yourself.
Heavenly Cupcakes Elmhursthttp://heavenlycupcakeshop.com/ heavenly cupcakes]
Bleeding Heart Bakery Elmhursthttp://www.thebleedingheartbakery.com/locations/elmhurst.html
Loving Hut Chicago http://lovinghut.us/chicago/
Blind Faith Cafe Evanston http://blindfaithcafe.com/