I used this as an excuse to make another fall recipe before August ended.

Ginger pudding, with chopped pieces of crystallized ginger, gets layered with crushed up Donsuemor lemon zest madeleines for a delicious combination. I don’t think enough people know about how awesome it is and not enough people utilize it so I’m making it my mission to inform you. Try it, if you like them separately, you will love them together.
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The warmth of ginger, the intoxicating smell of cinnamon baking in the oven, and the comfort of brown sugar. I spend all year waiting for it. Yes, I do eat it year round but there is something about a warm slice of pumpkin bread or one of these molasses spice cookies in the cool fall weather or the bright white snow in the dead of winter that can’t be duplicated any other time of year.

These are easily one of my top cookies. Chewy and soft all over, a slight crunch from the sugar coating, a strong molasses spice flavor, and it’s easy to make a large batch. I ate most of them after baking but I’m still snacking a day later and everyone I shared them with wanted the recipe, so I’m going to share it a bit early so you can all get into your fall baking ahead of time.
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An icebox cake is a cake made of whipped cream and graham crackers. It’s not baked at all, it’s place in the fridge to allow the moisture from the whipped cream to soak into the graham crackers to create a cake-like consistency. Some people achieve this with cool whip and graham crackers, I, however, am strongly against any kind of whipped toppings. It’s just as easy to whip up your own cream, especially if you have a stand mixer, and it tastes a ton better. Plus, you can toss in other flavorings with ease. I used lemon to flavor this whipped cream to pair with the chocolate graham crackers and topped it off with homemade candied lemon slices. All that deliciousness without ever having to turn on your oven.
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I’ll completely admit that I’m not sure if I did this right. I went through a ton of lemons trying to slice them right, I may not have candied them correctly, they may not be perfect, but they taste good and I learned a couple things. I went through various sources and didn’t find any that fully explained the process so I did a lot of guess work.
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These would be excellent topped with whipped cream or meringue, left plain they are extremely tart. People with a high tart tolerance will like it a lot, or people who like the feeling of their face scrunching up so much it hurts.
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New Wave Coffee
3103 W Logan Blvd, Chicago, IL 60647

This coffee shop was right around the corner from the friend’s place that I stayed at and I ended up going in one day with another friend because we were in the area and needed someplace to go. I saw some cupcakes on display, I think they are all vegan (including the one I got), and decided to get one. The woman working the counter was extremely friendly and had a great sense of humor, so I really have to compliment that.

The cupcake is a (vegan?) lemon cupcake with lemon frosting, lemon zest, and a lemon wedge. It was incredibly soft, moist, full of lemon flavor. The frosting was the perfect amount of sweet and had a cream cheese taste to it. Oddly enough this coffee shop cupcake was probably the best cupcake I had my entire trip to Chicago, along with the atmosphere and kindness of the staff, I really have to recommend this place.

Hoosier Mama Pie Company
1618 1/2 Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60622

Despite riding the bus in the opposite direction for 20 minutes, I was able to get here before they closed for the day. I’ve heard great things about their chocolate pie but I didn’t want to weigh myself down with chocolate after all the bakeries I visited that day so I went with a safe choice: a small buttermilk pie.

Hoosier Mama Pie Company offers small pies and normal sized pies. They have a small shop front that offers seating or they will box it up to go. I took mine to go and split it with some friends.

It had a soft but crisp crust that gave way easily, managed not to be dry and have a nice flavor. It had a creamy, custard like buttermilk filling that was tangy without being overwhelming. I loved it and want to go back for their decadent chocolate pie. This might be the one place that could turn me into a pie lover.

Swirlz Cupcakes
705 West Belden Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614

Swirlz was recommended to me by a reader so I decided to head on over.

They say you can always tell a bakery by how they handle their “basic” flavors, such as vanilla. Vanilla also happens to be one of my favorite flavors so that’s what I decided to get here. It’s a vanilla buttermilk cake with a whipped Italian frosting. I am not a fan of whipped frosting so I can’t properly judge it but it was super light and had good flavor. The cake was flatter and wider than most cupcakes, which I enjoyed, it let me get a full bite of cake with a full bite of frosting without any kind of awkwardness. The cake blew me away, it’s one of the best vanilla cakes I’ve ever tasted. It was light, soft, moist, packed with vanilla flavor, and completely enjoyable. It tasted fresh and had a great frosting to cake ratio. I’m eager to try all of their flavors on my next trip.

Bittersweet
1114 West Belmont Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657-2798

I was a bit disappointed with Bittersweet. I walked in and was surrounded by beautiful pastries and lots of people sitting at tables eating. I grabbed a vanilla cupcake and lemon macaron to go.

The lemon macaron was good but I couldn’t find the lemon at all. It just tasted like a yellow macaron with a swiss meringue buttercream filling. There might have been lemon curd but I didn’t see or taste it at all.

The vanilla cupcake was dry and the frosting was piled high and really thick and sweet. It was just too much and completely unsatisfying. I hate giving places bad reviews but I really just didn’t enjoy this place.

This first part is covering all the bakeries I went to in my first trip, and first post about Chicago bakeries, which can be found by clicking here.

I wanted to try their other flavors, give the places I didn’t like a second chance, and if it wasn’t a cupcake-only shop I wanted to try their other offerings. Overall, I liked the bakeries just as much, if not more, than last time, but I did have a couple disappointments.

Molly’s Cupcakes
2536 North Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60614

Last time I was at Molly’s I got the Chocolate Decadence cupcake, looking back I don’t know what I was thinking when there were so many other options. This time, I got cookie dough, lemon meringue, and the butterscotch caramel.

I wish I got the cake batter one and will have to get it next time I’m in Chicago.

My favorite was the cookie dough, which was a chocolate chip cupcake with vanilla buttercream, a cookie on top, and a soft cookie dough filling.

The lemon meringue was super lemony, light, and had a toasted meringue topping (which I could have used more of, but it was still delightful).

Finally, my least favorite was the butterscotch caramel. It tasted like burnt caramel and I just didn’t like it at all. I was really hoping it would be amazing but I was mostly just disappointed, maybe it was having a bad day but I don’t think I’d get it again.

Bleeding Heart Bakery
1955 West Belmont Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657

I was looking forward to Bleeding Heart Bakery the most. They have such a huge selection and I really wanted to go back and try their cake balls. The photo above only shows the stuff I got the first trip. A s’mores brownie with vegan marshmallows and graham cracker pieces baked in and a veruca salt cake ball. On another trip I got a chocolate mint cake ball, a chocolate hazelnut cake ball, and another flavor I can’t remember. On top of all that, I got a lemon bar.

The bars and brownies are huge. I’d really recommend splitting it with someone unless you had a big appetite that day. The brownie was dense and packed with chocolate, the graham crackers got a little lost but the marshmallows were melted and toasted and really stood out. The lemon bar was a huge slab of lemon filling with a delicious shortbread crust. I recommend both of them highly.

The cake balls are a great deal at just $1.50. They are pretty deceiving in size, one is definitely enough. I tried to eat 4 and felt stuffed and saved the rest for later. Every single one was great, my favorite being the veruca salt (a salted caramel cake ball, also available as a cupcake). They are also a great way to sample flavors that you can then buy in a cupcake version.

Sweet Mandy B’s
1208 West Webster Avenue Chicago, IL 60614

I was a bit caked out by the time I got to Sweet Mandy B’s, it was my fifth bakery in one day, so I wanted to switch up my order a bit and got butterscotch pudding. It was thick, smooth, and packed with brown sugar flavor. It was layered with whipped cream and a cool treat for a hot day. I got a large size to share but they have them in smaller, single serving sizes as well.

Sprinkles
50 E Walton St, Chicago, IL 60611

I didn’t like Sprinkles much on my first visit. I liked the key lime cupcake and hated the milk chocolate. This time I went with a staple flavor, Vanilla, because it’s also one of my favorite flavors.

I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it. It wasn’t the best vanilla cupcake I ever had but I wouldn’t hesitate to stop in and enjoy it.

More Cupcakes
1 East Delaware Place, Chicago, IL 60611

I’m sad to say that More Cupcakes was the most disappointing of them all again. Last time I had a cupcake that had too much frosting and made me feel kind of sick by the end of it so this time I went with something with a lot less frosting, the salted caramel.

The frosting was a swiss meringue buttercream with a small amount of sea salt sprinkled in the middle. This might have been the only salt in the entire cupcake unfortunately. The cake was very dry and the center was just a big hole where the caramel had kind of soaked into the cake but still didn’t manage to flavor or moisten it. I want to like More and would love to give it a third try, but so far I have just been disappointed.

On the upside, the staff is really friendly (but the staff at all the bakeries I visited was extremely friendly as well).

Summer does have it’s shining food flavors though, like refreshing citrus and a favorite of mine: s’mores.

This is a two layer graham cracker cake with marshmallow fluff filling and a dark chocolate fudge frosting. The cake manages to stay moist even though it replaces most of the flour with graham cracker crumbs. The filling is straight up marshmallow fluff from a jar but you could get adventurous and make your own fluff or use the fluff to make marshmallow buttercream. On top is a two-ingredient fudge frosting garnished with vegan marshmallows (since marshmallows have gelatin, they aren’t vegetarian/vegan friendly, but a few brands, like Dandies, make them without gelatin. They taste even better without gelatin in my opinion).
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