This weekend in Portland was a delightful whirlwind of sugar and fat. We ate our way through this fantastic city. Given that we live only five hours away from Portland, I’m not sure why we’re not there more often but I plan to remedy that in the upcoming year. The cupcakes in that city are delicious!

To assuage our guilty calorie laden hips, we actually took a morning jog from our hotel (Hotel Monaco in downtown Portland) to Cupcake Jones. It was only about a mile but we still felt virtuous.

The shop was abuzz with activity when we arrived. The owners were both working and gosh, they were sweet. Talk about happy, friendly and joyful … these two seemed to absolutely love what they do.

Check out the video. Could you imagine a more happening place? Copious amounts of sugar plus good music equals one great atmosphere. And, they give back to the community by donating leftovers to a homeless shelter. How sweet is that?

We got a four-pack of mini cupcakes, including their Peanut Butter & Jelly mini (which my Father proclaimed “Delicious!”) and two large, filling-filled cupcakes. Hubby bought The Pearl, a vanilla on vanilla filled with vanilla cupcake and no surprise, I picked the Velvet Painting.

Yes, this was as good as it looked. The Velvet Painting rivals the Cupcake Royale Red Velvet. The cake was moist and the filling added an exotic touch. The frosting was just the right foil to the delightful little morsel. Cupcake Jones makes some good cupcakes.

My Mom didn’t agree. She tasted the Vanilla Pearl and pronounced the cake “dry.” I disagree as does my dear husband but truth in writing demands the good as well as the bad. If Mom had just met the owners, I’m betting she would have a different opinion.

If you’re in Portland, be sure to stop by Cupcake Jones. You won’t be sorry.

Thank you to everyone that posted such positive, supportive comments yesterday for my Mom and Dad. It’s great to have such an awesome community at the blog.

We had a fabulous tour of the Nike facility (I want to work there when I “grow up”). Much thanks goes to customer Kate Dixon from Portland for arranging it and shepherding us around the sprawling campus. I am inspired after seeing their amenities for staff. Serving lunch and providing a workout facility for our Bramble Berry staff would be a dream!

Here we are on the Nike Campus; check out the beautiful grounds!

Then, we went in search of the best cupcake in Portland. We visited the Alphabet District’s Saint Cupcake. Sadly, they were out of Red Velvet cupcakes when we made it in so we had to make do with three minis and one Vanilla on Vanilla large dose.
Here is an employee making cupcakes for tomorrow’s hoard of rabid cupcake fans. She was using an ice cream scoop (? or something that looked like one) to get the cupcake batter into the wrappers.

After eating all three mini cupcakes tonight (the diet starts Monday), my experienced cupcake-tasting-buds declare that while Saint Cupcake isn’t as good as the Red Velvet cupcake at Cupcake Royale, these are better than the Trophy Cupcake from last week.

Tomorrow is Cupcake Jones. With the filling in every cupcake, it’s going to be an experience not to be missed.

PS – If you’re a soaper in the Portland area Saturday, stop by Besaw’s at noon to hang out, talk soap and have some good eats; more information here.

Yowzers! I am finally back in the office after six days of travel. This is about 25% of the mail I have to open and review. The pile of boxes on the bottom left really is a stack of mail and boxes piled four-feet high. And in the top left is an in-box piled over two-feet high. Ugh.

It was a productive but hectic travel time with lots of forward progress made on the Otion II. We’ve narrowed down the top three choices. Erik (Otion Store Manager) will be headed to Seattle next week to finalize the new location choice. After that comes the hard part – budgeting, store layout design and signing for bank loans.

In other Otion news, isn’t this gift basket cute? Otion tries hard to be an active part of our local Bellingham community, donating to an average of 5 to 10 events every month. This particular gift basket with a soapmaking bar party gift certificate is for Benefit X. This event raises money for four very worthy local non profits, including the Sean Humphrey House and the Bridgid Collins House.

Jessica, one of our newest Otion Soapsters, made most of the soap, including the multi-colored sunflower, made with the Milky Way Sunflower mold, Cellini Yellow Lip Safe color and Cappuccino Mica.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the Fed Ex Women’s Luncheon at the top (76th floor!) of the Columbia Towers. The food was incredible and the weather cooperated. Check out this view of the Puget Sound. The speaker was Mary LoVerde. She spoke about Work Life Balance, or rather, the myth of work life balance! I took notes to share with you. The main take-aways from her talk were:

1. Life isn’t about getting it all done. It’s impossible to get it all done. Give up on the myth that you can get it all done. You can’t.

Life is about connection and moments. Creating little rituals with your family and friends to make sure that you have connection time is what makes life sweet.

Some ideas she gave for creating connection time were creating a memory jar or interviewing a family member about their memories and experiences.

2. Life is even better when you can connect with your passion. What are you passionate about? Find ways to fit more of that in your life. When Mary was talking about finding your passion, I felt really lucky. I get to work with soap all day – and soap is my favorite hobby!

In addition to what felt like a zillion meetings over the last six days, I also managed to stop at a Trophy Cupcake store in the Wallingford District. Based on the reviews on Yelp, I was exceedingly excited to go to the store. Their displays did not disappoint. The store was bright, friendly and had an open-air cafe design.

I had high hopes. The Red Velvet cupcake called to me. Given my super positive experience with Red Velvet at Cupcake Royale, it seemed a no-brainer to get this life enhancing treat.

The cheerful staff packed my cupcake in a painfully cute to-go box. It had a great little window for presentation and a sturdy insert to ensure cupcake transportation safety.

Alone in my hotel room at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night, I hunkered down for my prized dessert. One bite later, my hopes of a tantalizing treat were dashed. The Trophy Cupcake disappointed. It was bland. It was oily. It was in a word, “gross.” It certainly wasn’t worth the 300 plus calories in the cupcake, so with another small nibble to confirm the first impression, I put the cupcake back in the clever carrying case and went to bed with a heavy heart.

The next morning, I saw the cupcake sealed up, lonely, in its case. It looked like it would taste good. So, like a fool, I opened up the box and took a tentative bite of the cupcake. What a horrifying reality; age did not improve this oily brick o’ butter. It was still gross.

Sigh… what’s a girl to do but go get a cupcake that won’t disappoint? I headed to Cupcake Royale for a Deathcake Royale. Today is the last day to get them but if you like chocolate and espresso, these dense morsels of confentionary genius won’t disappoint.

Warning: don’t eat a whole one in a single sitting. They’re meant to be shared. If you overindulge, you’ll go into a caffeinated, sugar induced haze that will leave you crashing (hard!) once the buzz is gone.

As for me, at this moment, I desperately need some more caffeination to help get through the mail and box collision that my desk has been reduced to.

It seems a week cannot go by without a cupcake or cupcake related product catching my eye. When you see the detail work on the soap cupcakes below, you’ll understand why these caught my attention.

Heather from Twin Birch Bath and Body created these amazing cupcakes.

Head over to her Etsy shop to buy a pack of 3 for $18 or just a single (but, it’ll be lonely!). It’s not too late to be thinking of fun Valentine’s presents.

Heather, I can hardly wait to see one of these pieces of art in person. Thank you for sharing your technique with the Soap Queen Community.

Thank you Carrie Gigi from Mud Puddle Girls & Under The Willow Gifts for sending me her cupcake soap. Isn’t it delicious looking? Trust me, it’s delicious smelling as well. The cupcake came in its own perfect little cupcake box with a perfect label and color scheme

I always hear people say, “Oh it looks so pretty! I don’t want to use it.” As a soapmaker, I’m always bummed when I hear that. My stuff looks great but it performs even better. So, note to people that get gifts of my soap, use it!

Carrie Gigi, I’m going to honor your artistry and actually use this perfect little morsel of creativity. I’m sure my life will be richer (but thighs no larger) because of it.

If you want a little sweetness in your shower, check out the line of soapcakes here.

Thank you!

Trophy Cupcake Holiday Cupcake
Originally uploaded by cakespy

This holiday cupcake is from local Seattle cupcake company, Trophy. Thank you to Cakespy.com for finding this frosting-laden Christmas confection.