Cheap Eats - Little Cake Bakery: The little cake that could

For true cupcake connoisseurs, trying to find a perfect version of the hand-held treat can make you feel like a character straight out of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Too big. Too small. To sweet. Too bland. Too dense. Too dry. What’s a girl to do? Why, head to Little Cake Bakery (3792 Roswell Road, 404-841-8856, www.littlecakebakery.com) where the cupcakes are “just right.” The tiny Buckhead storefront, owned by self-proclaimed Francophiles Pamela Laurent and Meg Genone, has become the spot for in-the-know locals longing for something a bit more sophisticated than the ordinary Publix cupcake.

Typical of any young business, Little Cake continually tweaked its recipes in the first year, but really hit its stride after hiring Kristia Paz, a wildly creative pastry chef formerly of Restaurant Eugene. Little Cake is passionate about procuring high-quality ingredients such as sweet creamery butter, Cacao Barry chocolate sprinkles, Madagascar vanilla and Callebaut Belgian chocolate. Everything in the store is handmade, and you can taste it in each mouthful. Moist cake and fluffy icing are just sweet enough without that off-putting shortening aftertaste found at many other stores.

Variations of vanilla and chocolate are offered on a daily basis ($2.50 each or $25/dozen) along with three other flavors – such as the hugely popular “Elvis” cupcake (banana cake filled with Nutella and covered in peanut butter buttercream) – that change daily based on season and popularity. The most recent addition is the signature “Marie Antoinette,” a vanilla cake filled with fresh raspberry preserves, frosted with a European-style buttercream (made the old-fashioned way on a stove), rolled in homemade almond brittle and topped with a maraschino cherry ($3). A fitting addition to the sweet and petite store whose motto is “let them eat cupcakes!”

Little Cake Bakery, cupcakes, Buckhead, bakery, dessert