Your DBA rolled over from last term? A friends’ birthday is coming up? 6 weeks without KAF (King Arthur Flour) was too much to handle? You know you’ve always wanted to order the specialty cupcakes, but the mandatory 6 cupcakes per flavor purchase creates a huge commitment to just a flavor or two. To help in this cupcake-purchasing dilemma, here is Spoon’s ranking of the best KAF specialty cupcake flavors. We’ve got your back.
Photo by Sharon Cho
1. Peanut Butter Fudge
“Chocolate cupcake, chocolate filling, peanut butter frosting”
Peanut butter is an ingredient that tends to be overpowering, but is smoothly integrated into this cupcake’s velvety frosting. The peanut butter texture is strong enough for peanut butter lovers to rejoice, while at the same time mild to appeal to people who aren’t peanut butter’s biggest fans. With a decadent, chocolate center, its no wonder this cupcake was voted the favorite by 8 different students.
Photo by Sharon Cho
2. Salted Caramel
“Golden cupcake, salted caramel filling, caramel buttercream, sprinkled with fleur de sel”
Craving something salty? Or maybe something sweet? The Salted Caramel cupcake plays with your taste buds with its distinct, fun flavor. The smooth caramel buttercream is savory and finger-licking good. This cupcake was voted the favorite by 4 people, and personally I would say it ties with peanut butter fudge.
Photo by Sharon Cho
3. Mudslide
“Chocolate cupcake, chocolate filling, mocha frosting, chocolate cooking crumbs”
Mmm… mocha. For fans of coffee flavor, the mudslide is a hit, perfectly paired with any KAF caffeinated beverage for double the coffee richness. A niche cupcake, it was voted the favorite by 2 students.
Photo by Sharon Cho
4. Coconut Lemon
“Golden cupcake, lemon curd filling, coconut frosting, topped with toasted coconut”
While this cupcake has a harmonious balance of rich coconut frosting and lemon curd filling, it is overall a plain and boring choice. Buying six of these would be equivalent to going to Ice Cream Fore-U and ordering a baby vanilla: safe but ultimately ordinary.
Photo by Sharon Cho
5. Sparkling Raspberry
“Golden cupcake, raspberry filling, vanilla frosting, topped with coarse sugar”
Topped with coarse sugar crystals that crunch in your teeth like sand rather than dissolving softly like flavorful flakes, the sparkling raspberry is not the cupcake to spend precious DBA on. The raspberry filling is a bit too sour for the sweet and plain golden cake. KAF’s frosting, however, as with all the previous cupcakes, is always on point.
Photo by Sharon Cho
6. Black Forest
“Chocolate cupcake, cherry filling, cherry frosting, topped with chocolate shavings”
The cherry filling inside tastes more medicinal than luscious and the entire composition of the cupcake is too saccharine to be universally appealing. Definitively stated as the worst of the six by all but 1 student.
Photo by Sharon Cho