Taste test of seven cakes! From top left and proceeding clockwise, the contenders are: Mia’s blackout, Mia’s chocolate fudge, Little Cupcake blackout, From Lucie chocolate, Veniero’s dark chocolate layer, Strip House chocolate layer, and Hani’s chocolate blackout. We had three adults and one five-year-old taste tester (but she quickly became too sugared up to give much helpful feedback lol). We each ranked from best to worst and then averaged out to get our favorites from the group. One of us is not big on sweets at all, and two of us have quite different dessert ideals, so a real range of opinions typically, but we found a consensus on the cakes.
Not pictured/tasted but worth mentioning: Claude (the bakery) has been a fave chocolate cake of mine for awhile, but we just didn’t have time to make it down there today. I suspect it would crack the top three if not top two alongside the rest of these. It’s truly great imo. Haven’t tried Claude (the restaurant) but it wasn’t logistically possible to get because we weren’t eating at the restaurant and they don’t have a pickup option like the Strip House. Lysee chocolate cake is not for me so I didn’t bother including it. Found it dry and bland when I tried it a few years ago, and much prefer the titular Lysee cake if I’m going there. Still need to give Amy’s Bread a try. On to the rankings, from best to worst!
Hani’s – This was number 1 for two of us, so a clear winner. Dense and fudgy, and the salt content is what really puts it ahead imo. Many of these other cakes could do with more salt or at least finishing salt on top like Hani’s. Texturally it has a lot going for it as well. Love the Valrhona pearls on top and the crumbs on the outside. It’s just great. What else to say??
From Lucie AND Mia’s Chocolate Fudge – Tie! From Lucie had a really nice density to it and the ganache frosting was great. There is a slight coffee taste to From Lucie that really added a nice depth of flavor. Also nice frosting ratio. Mia’s chocolate fudge was actually pretty low on my ranking, but my fellow taste tasters ranked it very high. They noted the cake itself had a great consistency. I agree with that but found the frosting a little sweet. Please note for children that the Mia’s Chocolate Fudge has some rainbow sprinkles on top and our little taste tester loved that. It was her clear favorite.
Strip House – The most expensive cake by far. With tax and tip it was $30. Not worth it to us considering it is middle of the pack. It is certainly the biggest slice compared to the others, but it’s a similar style to Hani’s and not as good. Save your money on this one.
Mia’s Blackout – Maybe worth it if you just wanted to try several of the Mia cakes at one time but we all agreed this was not as good as the chocolate fudge slice.
Veniero’s – We were all so sad not to love this one. It looked great and fudgy but just really lackluster. The raspberry truffle slice sounded good but because it had a rum component that wasn’t part of the tasting for the five-year-old and based on how low this ranked I can’t imagine going back and deciding to try it. A real let down unfortunately.
Little Cupcake Bakeshop – Shocked this was last, as it looked so good and moist in the box. Incredibly dry and the frosting was nothing special. Maybe just an off day but we were all extremely unimpressed with this.
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