March 21st: The Fabulous Bakin' Boys Chocolate Cupcake

Kcal 123 Fat 5.9g Fat(sats) 2.4g Carbs 16.2g (per cupcake)

As soon as I started reviewing all those cake bar products (Cadbury Mini Rolls etc) last year, I was immediately inundated with requests for me to review some other cake based products. One of the more popular requests was for me to take a look at some of the offerings from The Fabulous Bakin' Boys product range which boasts products such as flapjacks, brownies and of course these Chocolate Cupcakes. Described as 'moist vanilla sponge with a chocolate flavour topping' they seemed like a pretty simple proposition though obviously had quite the cult following given the amount of people asking for a ChocolateMission review. Given the demand I could hardly turn down the opportunity of a £1 a pack offer in my local OneStop.

The Cupcakes came in a 192.0g box that contained 6 individually wrapped cakes inside. To be honest I didn't really form an overall opinion on the presentation of the product as it neither struck me as being all that appealing or anything to the contrary. The cupcakes themselves were reasonably nice looking with the chocolate topping catching the eye with a noticeably glossy looking finish. As already mentioned each cupcake was contained within a plastic packet which kept each reasonably fresh and released a pleasant sweet cake smell when opened. One thing that was a slight annoyance though was that a large majority of the cake and outer chocolate topping rim stuck to paper cupcake wrapper when I tried removed it.

Before I ate these I have to hold my hands up and admit that I hadn't ever tried a Fabulous Bakin' Boys product so I wasn't quite know what to expecting. Like any normal person would (I use this term loosely) I decided to eat the Cupcakes in two parts - first eating the bottom layer of sponge and then the chocolate coating that lay on top. My initial impression of these thanks to the sponge was that they were pretty taste, and I really enjoyed the sweet cake that had a buttery taste that came off as being surprisingly fresh with a nice note of vanilla essence in the aftertaste. Where these cupcakes unfortunately fell down was in the quality of the chocolate topping ... or the 'chocolate flavoured topping' I should more correctly state. Quite frankly the chocolate element to these cupcakes was woeful - it was waxy and slow melting in texture and added hardly anything in regards to taste. Of course it did bring a mild chocolate influence to the mix but the flavours were predominantly sugar based and the texture just left an awful greasy feel in the mouth that pretty much spoilt the experience completely. Out of the six cupcakes I could only stomach two in total which left the rest resigned for the bin.

Overall these were an odd product in that in one way they were excellent, yet in another utterly awful. As you many have gathered from the above paragraph the cake element to these cupcakes was really well executed and I loved the sweet, light taste on the sponge. What I found so utterly incredible about these cupcakes was that the fact Bakin Boy had the cheek to stick the slogan 'contains no artificial colours or flavours' on the front of the cardboard packaging box! What this should actually say is 'contains no real chocolate'! Formed of the appetising concoction of 'sugar, vegetable oil and reduced fat cocoa powder' it was little surprise that the chocolate element to these cupcakes was carried off rather poorly. The topping lacked lacked a chocolate flavour hit and felt horrible in the mouth with an awkward wax like texture. I personally wont be having these again and unless you already a fan I wouldn't recommend them either.

5.9 out of 10