Cupcake rankings

The Philadelphia cupcakes before I tried mine. I was not smiling later.

Note: Updated July 5 because I forgot one stop and the more I thought about Crumbs, the lower it ranked.

We visited 6 cupcake joint in 3 cities during our vacation. Here is my take:

1. Magnolia Bakery, New York City. (Pictured at right.) I had the chocolate with meringue frosting. It was fabulous, despite me falling right in front of a NYPD officer (who simply glared at me) and crushing it. The cake was moist and not overly chocolately. The frosting was to die for — airy and sweet — but I'm a huge meringue fan, so I may not be the best judge. Can't remember what Brad had, but he inhaled it within seconds of walking out of the store.

2. Cupcake Lane Bakery, Las Vegas. Brad and I have been to this place several times now and they are always delicious. Our favorite is the Strawberry Fields ... strawberry cake with whipped cream frosting and a fresh strawberry on the top. Eat them fast, because the berry will get moldy after sitting in a hotel room for 3 days.

3. Mad Hatter Cupcakes, Las Vegas. Design your own cupcake. Really confusing to order. Had way too much frosting. The cakes themselves were super moist and that is a good thing.

4. Junior's Most Fabulous Cheesecake and Desserts, New York (Times Square). That's quite a name to live up to. Obviously, their thing is cheesecake and Toonces and my friend D said that it was delicious ... definitely a must. But I'm not a cheesecake liker, so I went with the vanilla cupcake with blue buttercream. (Shocker!) I'd rank it as simply average, but not a waste of money.

5. Crumbs Bake Shop, New York City. Most of their cupcakes are too big for one person. I ended up needing a fork and plate to eat them. Almost everything also had a filling and sometimes that just isn't necessary. But the flavor was very good. They did have smaller cupcakes ... I had a chocolate with vanilla buttercream and Toonces got some to take back to SoDak for the kids ... that were tasty, tasty — no filling and very manageable while walking. (Brad just walked in and disagreed, saying, "I really disliked Crumbs.")

6. Flying Monkey Patisserie, Philadelphia. I had the mint chocolate chip cupcake and it was disgusting. The cake was dry, the frosting was hard, the mint wasn't minty enough for my taste. Brad disagrees with me on this one too, he had a chocolate lavender cupcake and he thought it was delicious. I was also turned off by the counter person saying to the people ahead of us, "Those have been in there for a while. I'll put them in the microwave to soften the frosting." How long is a while?