One of the perks of being a food writer is getting free samples. Recently we got to try a few cupcakes that had just been photographed for Elizabeth Falkner’s upcoming cookbook, Demolition Desserts: Recipes from Citizen Cake (to be published in September 2007 by Ten Speed Press). The book will include an entire chapter on cupcakes.

The two we tried, pictured below, were decadent and delicious. My favorite part? The filling, which reminds me of eating Hostess cupcakes, only these are obviously much more refined.


(left) Candy Bar cupcake: brown sugar cake filled with caramel and then topped with chocolate-peanut butter frosting and salted Spanish peanuts
(right) Lemania: lemon-buttermilk cake filled with lemon curd and topped with meringue icing


A view of the Lemania filling

Similar versions of the cupcakes are sold at Citizen Cupcake (citizencupcake.com), for those of you who are out doing holiday shopping in Union Square—and can’t wait until next year to try making them at home.

Citizen Cupcake
2 Stockton St.
415-399-1565