I first visited Austin's Capital City Bakeryin 2012 when they were still a food cart (a food cart owner and chief baker Kristin let me get in!) and now look, they're a super adorable shop! I love the colour so much!
It's equally cute on the inside.
I loved that there's both indoor and outdoor seating, Texas is hot so air con is necessary and oddly whilst we were there there was a huge rainstorm and hiding somewhere this cute and watching the rain bouncing of the pavement outside was totally fun!
I swear bakery cases are the hardest thing to photograph, they never come out right for me anyway but I think this should give you an idea of the range of gorgeous cupcakes, bakes and cookies.
I picked a strawberry blonde cupcake which was totally delicious. The cake itself was so light and fluffy and there was just the right amount of buttercream. I'd go as far as to call it perfect.
On mine and Nick's other visit I went with a Cherry Bomb cupcake and Nick got Funfetti. There was no rain this time so we grabbed a table outside.
I love how funfetti looks, it's so cute but I just don't love vanilla frosting so I never get it. Nick thought it was totally delicious though. I adored my cherry bomb cupcake, it had the perfect amount of creamy fluffy frosting and the chocolate cake was spot on - I think the depth of flavour in Capital City Bakery's chocolate cakes comes from black cocoa powder which is something I can't get in the UK. Either that or Kristen's just a magician which is totally possible.
Capital City Bakery recently started doing some savoury food to compliment their range of cakes and soon they'll be launching a lunch menu. We tried a couple of ham and cheese kolaces which were ridiculously good.
I'd actually never even heard of a kolach or kolace but I knew dough filled with ham and cheese was something I needed to eat! Wikipedia is telling me many conflicting things about what should and should not be in a kolace and now I'm more confused than ever! Whatever it is or isn't meant to be this was freaking delicious and we went back and grabbed a couple more on our last day because I didn't want to go eight months without another one.
The other thing Capital City Bakery is famous for, aside from epic cakes, are their brownies. They are seriously the best brownies I've ever eaten because the crackle top is totally spot on and they have the exact right amount of fudginess. These brownies even made their way to Portland for Vida Vegan Con last May which was exciting for everyone involved - they made an appearance on the ice cream bar which was totally awesome! This is a pretty awful picture but when there's a brownie to eat I'm not going to be hanging around waiting for some natural light!
Basically if you're in Austin you need to visit Capital City Bakery, what's not to love?
Talking of love today is mine and Nick's ten year anniversary, or loveaversary as we are enjoying calling it. We'll be spending the day eating lunch at Terre a Terre our every-fancy-occasion-ever spot, building a fort to snuggle and watch movies in and koalaing each other...y'know, like this! I feel super lucky to have such a rad life partner, he's constantly supportive of everything I do, he's compassionate and caring and kind to everyone and just an all round good dude. He's also ridiculously adorable. And hot! I guess I feel lucky not only because I found him (whilst working an incredibly shitty job!) but because we're totally growing and changing and moving in the same directions together and it's so fun and just writing this is making me do a little heartsplode! It always surprises me when I think back to when we met and remember that neither of us were vegan then, I almost was but he wasn't and I love that we're like a little vegan team now! Anyway, enough of the sappy love stuff, back to Austin...
Austin doesn't only have one vegan bakery, nope, there's also Red Rabbit who specialise in doughnuts. Honestly I'm not the hugest doughnut fan, well I am but I like the baked ones! The kind from Mighty O in Seattle are my favourite ever but I'm also partial to the ones from Babycakes in NYC and the ones I can throw together in my kitchen! This being said we still went to check out their pop up outside Monkey Wrench books because Nick loved doughnuts and we both like supporting vegan bake sales and on the day we went they were doing a fundraiser.
I picked a chocolate doughnut and Nick got to eat half of it, I can handle a little fried doughnut but I'm not in love with them. Not even the ones from Ronald's in Las Vegas!
What I do love though is an apple fritter and you can buy these alongside a huge selection of Red Rabbit doughnuts at both Wheatsville co-op locations. This is hands down my favourite Red Rabbit treat.
Heads up, that Evolution juice in the background is awful, I thought the apple in there would sweeten it up and I was trying to eat a balanced breakfast but good lord, it was terrible! I should have got a second fritter! Whether you're a doughnut lover or not you're going to want to seek out some Red Rabbit treats whilst you're in Austin. Wheatsville is also the home of some amazing sandwiches, mac and cheese and more but there'll be more about that tomorrow!