Magnolia Bakery

I was SOO excited when I found out that the famous Magnolia Bakery of New York had opened up a storefront in downtown Chicago. You can probably tell that I LOVE cupcakes and I rarely find one that I don’t like. That being said, I was sadly disappointed in Magnolia Bakery. The store itself is located right in the middle of downtown Chicago on State Street (right by Macy’s) and it really is adorable inside with kind of an old soda shop feeling. We went on a Saturday afternoon so naturally it was extremely busy. The line moved quickly so that wasn’t a problem at all, but the seating inside is very sparse. They had probably less than 10 tables with only 2 or 3 chairs each. Maybe it was just bad timing with when we went but there were at least double that amount of people inside the bakery at that moment so we ended up not being able to eat there, which wasn’t a huge deal. 

The thing that I was most disappointed about were the cupcakes. I got a red velvet cupcake with cream The cheese frosting and the BF got a pumpkin spice whoopee pie with maple cream cheese frosting. The cupcake first…the cake was dry and almost flavorless in my opinion. Usually red velvet cupcakes are very strong in flavor compared to other cupcakes, and this one was sadly bland. It was also crusty and hard around the top -  maybe just a bad batch but it seemed extremely over-cooked. Unlike normal cream cheese frostings, which I usually find to be smooth and creamy, this was conjealed and lumpy, like it was mixed with the butter at the wrong temperature. Needless to say, it was one of the worst cupcakes I’ve had. The whoopie pie wasn’t much better..the frosting was about the same texture as that of the cupcake, but the pumpkin spice cake had a really good flavor which wasn’t over powering but definitely had a strong hint of pumpkin. 

I was really disappointed by my trip to Magnolia Bakery because I had heard so many good things about it and I just left feeling unsatisfied by what we had gotten. I am willing to give it one more try because suppodly their banana pudding is famous so maybe I’ll have to revise my opinion a little bit based on my experience with that but for now I give Magnolia Bakery (in Chicago) a big thumbs down.