Spice Cupcake at Buttercup

This is one of those places you walk into and everything is so breathtakingly beautiful that you just have to look for a while, even before you can start contemplating the flavors. (It also makes you mad at yourself for not having a camera along; this picture is from their web site, www.buttercupbakeshop.com.)

We confined ourselves to the cupcakes (just $1.50 each): lemon, Devil Dog (with marshmallow-looking frosting), German chocolate, red velvet, spice, Lady Baltimore (white with a cherry nestled in the frosting on top) and then the regular yellow and chocolate. We both settled on spice, which had a sour cream frosting. The cupcake part was good, with a spicy (nutmeg?) bite and the texture of a quick bread, with golden raisins and walnuts. The frosting was piled high and fluffier than Cupcake Cafe's, sweeter too (almost too sweet, without a detectable sour cream tang). Not the dense, rich Cafe cupcake, but a chewier, sweeter one. It seems more like an everyday cupcake to me. Not that it's mediocre. It's just a sit-down-after-school-with-a-big-glass-of-milk-and-a-treat cupcake. The one thing that keeps it from firmly planting itself in that camp is the huge quantity of frosting. (Which I can't decide whether I'm for or against; it's nice to have frosting for every bite, but it makes it less portable and more decadent.)