Kickass Trick or Treat cupcake is eeeevillll!

I used to be beeeeg into Hallowe'en (yes, it has a frickin' apostrophe). And then for some reason — I suspect it was I got old but let's not go there — my interest waned. The box of decorations stayed untouched in the basement. We stopped buying candy (kids rarely trick-or-treat on our street). Costumes? Meh. I wear black every other day anyway.

I was about to let Hallowe'en pass in similar fashion this year. And then something happened to change my mind. Maybe it was the appearance of four fat orange pumpkins on our porch, courtesy of the kids who live upstairs. Maybe it was listening to Dracula by Philip Glass and the Kronos Quintet, one of my favorite atmospheric pieces, perfect for a rainy fall day.

Or maybe it was the heads-up email that arrived yesterday to let me know that Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square had a Hallowe'en special: the Trick or Treat cupcake.

"A chocolate cupcake baked around a mini candy bar ..."

So of course I had to check that out.



We picked up the Twix and Milky Way Trick or Treat cupcakes, and also a Sammy, because what's not to love about a cupcake made with Sam Adams stout?



They were almost too pretty to eat.



Almost.

Kickass cupcakes are perfect if you like 'em super-sweet and indulgent. They don't just use butter, they use Plugrá (that's "more fat" for the non-francophones). Which explains why their buttercream frosting looks like this:



Here's the inside of the Twix one - see the cookie at the bottom?



So if you take that level of richness and then you add a candy bar — well, I think you get the picture.

There's a good reason Kickass only offers the Trick or Treat cupcake once a year. Anything more would be a serious (delicious) health hazard.

Deep fried cupcake. Deep. Fried. CUPCAKE!

On Friday afternoon, office buddy Dawn alerted me to the existence of the deep-fried cupcake from Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square (a place I'd visited only once before, despite its relative proximity to home).

On Saturday morning, we were so there.

For future reference, this is what you need to make a deep-fried cupcake:



You got yer regular standard deep-fat fryer; yer necessary cupcake, of course; there's yer squeezy cream; and tucked in the corner would be yer bottle of chocolate sauce. Not shown is the bowl of light batter in which the cupcake is doused before frying.

Commence to drooling and/or dialing 9 and 1 and getting ready to dial 1 again.

While we waited for nature to take its course, we checked out the other cupcake options, which included pretty sparkles:



The Green Monster:



The S'mores:



And the, um, "Cheesy Catnip Kittycake," which I assume was not for human consumption.



And then our deep-fried cupcake was ready! Oops, no it wasn't; our server had switched on the fryer and thrown the cake in without giving the oil a chance to heat. I didn't even want to know what the result looked like.

She was very apologetic ("We don't usually start deep frying until the afternoon," she said), and soon had a second cupcake in and sizzling.

While we waited some more, we watched one of the bakers unwrap several three-pound blocks of butter—and when I say butter, I mean Plugra—top them off with a couple of wholesale-sized bricks of cream cheese, and set the whole thing to churning in a serious industrial mixer. That, my friend, is how you make frosting.

And then our server took a paper cone (genius, and the only possible way to present a deep-fried cupcake), swirled chocolate sauce into its base, placed the cake inside, added more chocolate sauce, and finished it off with a generous dollop of cream.

There's actually a deep-fried cupcake under here.



See?



In truth, it could have done without quite so much smothering; save for one small corner that had missed the chocolate-and-cream deluge, and was therefore still crisp and crunchy, the rest was a big, soggy fistful.

Not that it was bad, mind you. As things that are deep fried and loaded with fat and sugar go, it was a fine example of the form: sweet and warm and completely indulgent, halfway between hot doughnut and deep-fried Twinkie.





We ate it walking down the street, our faces smeared with chocolate syrup and cream. It's not something one can consume delicately or with any pretense of sophistication. It's also something best shared; a whole one may just finish off a healthy person of average size.

And then it was gone, and we were left with a slightly heavy taste of cooking oil on the tongue. I'm not sure whether the solution would be to change to a lighter oil, or to allow the cake to drain a little before serving, or just to crank the heat up higher to make the cooking time as short as possible; that might be something to work on.

Davis Square has few options for state-fair-like indulgence, with the exception of the Belgian sugar waffle at Mr. Crepe or a scoop of maple-walnut from J.P. Licks (and even there you can almost legitimately claim there are healthy choices; hey, strawberry ice cream has fruit!).

So now there's something else to add to the list of heart-stopping goodies, though note that Kickass only does deep-fried cupcakes Friday through Sunday. Maybe it's for the best.

Tatte: rich, buttery, aloof

There's a bakery around the corner from my office that looks so immaculate, it makes me feel I've walked in on a movie set by mistake. Tatte, on Beacon Street in Brookline, is tiny and light-filled, and half the store is taken up with an oversized table holding a minimalist selection of perfect pastries.



Tatte's dessert selection is limited, but the star seems to be the nut box, shown above in the grande variety. The smaller one is equally pretty.



It's basically a pastry shell filled with nuts. Doesn't that sound lame? Okay, how's this: the pastry is so butter-loaded that it's practically shortbread. The nuts (pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts) are covered in a not-too-sweet caramelly coating. For a handful of nuts and a bit of pastry, it's amazingly rich.

I also picked up a ricotta-spinach brioche, which was likewise decadent, rich and buttery (but it had spinach, so it was healthy. Really).



And I had a fresh pear juice, which has a subtle note of cinnamon and caused co-worker Sarah to say, "Wow, it makes me wish it was fall already!" I don't love the sentiment, but I know where she was coming from.

So Tatte creates lovely treats (albeit expensive: my three purchases cost me $13). And yet I'm hesitant to recommend it. Why?

Because the counter staff at Tatte are decidedly unfriendly.

Now you know me: I'm a pretty laid-back, thick-skinned gal (and, allegedly, a bit of a ham). So it doesn't offend me personally if people are restrained or reserved. What does bug me, though, is when people who work in customer-service positions cop attitudes of superiority.

The salesgirls at Tatte were unsmiling and aloof. When I asked whether it would be okay if I took photos, they looked at me as though I'd asked if I could gut a fish on the counter. And then one said, "Well ... I suppose so," and the other said (though not to me), "The Phoenix sent a photographer round last week."

I don't often feel uncomfortable around other people, but here I did. So I picked up my change from the counter (because she wouldn't put it in my hand) and scuttled out.

And then I started wondering whether I was being paranoid. But cube-neighbor Nikki said, "No, the South End Buttery is exactly the same; they're very obnoxious. Plus their cupcakes are terrible."

I don't want to suggest this is a trend: the staff at Sweet on Mass Ave are lovely, as is the owner of Kickass Cupcakes, so there's no direct correlation between bakeries and bitchiness.

But I'd be interested to know whether there are other examples of posh pastry shops with poor personalities. Or, for that matter, places where the service is as sweet as the confectionary.

Anyone?

They'd kick more ass if they were bigger

A new bakery has opened in Somerville, and you can tell the business is just chock-full of attitude.

How?

1) It's called Kickass Cupcakes (which just proves it's not your grandmama's bakery, mister!)

2) The have craaaazy flavors like the vegan Java Jolt, the Blue Velvet (kinky!) and the Movie Matinee Special (topped with gummy candy! That's just crazy!).

3) They charge $2.75 per cake.

Well, sure, you say. Seems reasonable. After all, Starbucks asks two bucks for a blueberry muffin.

Yes, but one Starbucks pastry is as big as your fist and will keep you going until lunch. The cupcakes that claim kickassishness, on the other hand, are, well, dainty.



Now you can say it: three bucks for that?

In fairness, our chosen Mojito flavor was pretty tasty. The cake was light, buttery, airy. The buttercream frosting, though a little too sweet, had a fresh lime tang, garnished with ribbons of fresh mint.

But sticker-shock meant we just got one to share, and it was about as satisfying as a couple of cookies. Enough cake for a fulfilling snack would have set us back a tenner (and lasted about five minutes); the same amount could buy a decent bottle of Pinot Gris or a half-pound of Manchego and some boquerones. I know which I'd prefer.

Am I being overly touchy about this? Possibly. But if so, it's in part because I know how cheap and easy it is to whip up a batch of cupcakes. I grew up with the Be-Ro cookbook, standard issue in economical northern English households since the 1920s and a great resource for recipes for good ol' British cakes and pastries (Bakewell tart, Cornish pasties, Maids of Honour and, yes, Spotted Dick).

And I know that, given 20 minutes, my mom can create a dozen double-chocolate cakes that are just as fluffy as those claiming kickassocity. (And, given 20 minutes more, my dad can dispose of them.)

Okay, not everyone has my mom's veteran baking skills. But are these purportedly rear-beating cakes really so much better than the mass-produced supermarket versions?

Or is their value not in the taste, but rather in the attitude they convey: an overlap of nostalgia, liberty and irony?

The neo-cupcake concept is aimed at the twentysomething crowd--fresh out of college, with disposable income, a longing for hipness and a vague yearning for the security of childhood. They love the fact that (finally!) mom and dad can't stop them doing whatever they want: staying out late, ignoring their homework, overdosing on overpriced cupcakes. Rock 'n' roll!

I know, I know. You come here for vicarious living and food pr0n, and instead you get half-baked pop psychology.

Okay. We're eating at Rialto tonight (first time since the makeover). Perhaps normal service will resume tomorrow.