More Pasadena eating: Violet’s Bakery

It seems unfair to combine Violet’s Bakery in Pasadena with the previous post. If I were to sum of my entire year in Los Angeles in relation to food, one word comes up: cupcakes. So when my friend and former coworker Jammie raved about Violet’s Cupcake in Pasadena I had to visit. Her petite figure is misleading because Jammie really knows her cupcakes.

Violet’s Bakery is located on East Holly Street near Colorado Avenue. Despite the signage on the door advertising cakes, cupcakes and brownies, all I could see were cupcakes in the display case. Beyond the display case was the kitchen area where a team of about four people were steadily baking, mixing and decorating what looked like several cakes. But I was here for the cupcakes which was a deal at $2.25 each.

The plan was to get only four cupcakes to take back to San Diego but temptation was huge especially with the flavors offered on this Saturday: blueberry/cream cheese, banana/black, elvis, strawberry shortcake, brownie bomb/vanilla, south pacific, vanilla mocha, red velvet/creme cheese, black/black, french toast, white/white, cherry pie and red velvet/chocolate. The cupcake menu rotates throughout the week with a few standards ones available every day (they are closed on Sundays and Mondays) .

Everything looked so fresh and delicious. In the end, I walked away with six cupcakes: blueberry, cherry pie, brownie bomb, french toast, and red velvet with a creme cheese frosting one one and chocolate frosting on another. Unfortunately the strawberry shortcake flavor was not available, but I saw in the kitchen fresh strawberries in a bin ready to be incorporated into the batter.

The drive back was unbearable. There’s something to be said for consuming cupcakes in the privacy of your own home with your own milk. For me, it’s the leeway to pig out and throughly examine the cupcake. But from the first bite, I knew that this was my kind of cupcake.

While I always thought Yummy Cupcakes’ frosting was too sweet and Sprinkle’s Cupcakes were too much of a status symbol among the Hollywood celebs, Violet’s Cupcakes were perfect.

The cherry pie cupcake as well as the blueberry creme cheese used fresh berries in the batter. The french toast, while the least sweet one of the bunch was still satisfying. And the frosting for all the cupcakes were fluffy and somewhat dense but not sickingly sweet. As for the red velvet, a special treat was having a chocolate frosting variation available (see photo above). Now if only Violet’s Cupcakes could deliver to Orange County, that would be perfect.