Another Chain

May 26, 2015

Last year there was some speculation that when Crumbs Bake Shop filed for bankruptcy, it also marked the end of the cupcake craze. Surprisingly, Crumbs persevered when they were saved by the owner of Dippin' Dots and reopened 25 locations this year.

My past visits at Crumbs and a couple other cupcake chain bakeries have been mediocre (with the exception of Sprinkles---a real winner in my eyes). When I found out there was another cupcake chain here in Tampa, I went in search of Smallcakes. Smallcakes had its humble beginnings in Kansas City in 2009 and has since expanded to locations across 19 different states.
The plus side for these chain bakeries is that they're open on Sunday & Monday; very few bakeries in smaller cities are opened on these days, which happens to be when I'm free to go exploring.

Another bonus is the variety of flavors. Smallcakes has 15 flavors available daily. I opted for a peanut butter and nutella cake, which was $3.75.
One thing that stood out to me about this treat was that it was much taller than other cupcakes I've sampled. The cake "stump" was quite tall and when topped with frosting, it was almost impossible to get a good bite without having the cupcake topple over. Once I got my hands on a fork, I enjoyed the perfectly moist yellow cake. However, the peanut butter frosting was too sweet but the nutella was a nice addition to the cake. This was a classic example of frosting ruining a potentially amazing cupcake.

Well here's to another chain bakery, one that could have been really great but still happens to be pretty good.

Smallcakes A Cupcakery
14938 Dale Mabry Highway
Carrollwood
Tampa, Florida
(locations also in 19 different states)

1 comment

  1. The Smallcakes in Orlando (didn't know there was one here in Tampa, so thanks!) even has a couple of Gluten Free cupcakes on weekends. Yay! They're super sweet to me but I'll take that over no cupcakes at all.

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