I can't see what all the fuss is about! (Marks & Spencer Strawberry and Vanilla Cupcakes)

Member Name: sakura8

Product:	Marks & Spencer Strawberry and Vanilla Cupcakes
Date:	04/06/09 (429 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Look very impressive, taste nice.

Disadvantages: Far too expensive for what they are.

Over the last couple of days I've been helping my future sister-in-law (FSIL) with an outdoor photoshoot, as she's a stylist for a national newspaper and was doing a feature of 3 different styles that you could have in your garden. One of the styles was for kids and featured a lovely wire cupcake stand, so we had to go and buy some cakes to fill it up and make it look fantastic.

We both knew Marks and Spencers had these new cupcakes, as we'd seen them in the shops and my FSIL had tried to get some for her birthday party recently, but M&S said that they were struggling to make them fast enough due to the huge demand. So we were expecting them to taste spectacular due to all the hype!

The cake stand could hold 23 cupcakes, but as each box of M&S cupcakes costs £2.99 for a box of 4, which we thought was very expensive, we decided to get just 4 boxes and hoped that would be enough for the photoshoot.

We had looked in Waitrose at their boxes of cupcakes, which were a similar price, but they didn't look nearly as impressive as the ones from M&S.

The cardboard box has a large window so you can clearly see the cupcakes in all their sweet glory. They are sat in a plastic tray which stops them moving about too much in the box and we managed to transport them safely without ruining any of the delicious looking frosting which had been swirled into a perfect dome.

The Strawberry & Vanilla flavour ones have a light pink frosting with glittery sprinkles and I suggested we get some of the Raspberry and White Chocolate ones too for a slight colour contrast as they have a darker pink frosting.

They certainly did look very impressive in the wire cake stand and we had to wait for the photographer to finish taking pictures before we could devour any cakes!

When something looks so appetising your taste buds must go into overdrive as they expect whatever you're going to put into your mouth to send them crazy. So I eagerly took a large bite into a cupcake, taking a good mouthful of the soft, creamy strawberry frosting and the light, fluffy, vanilla sponge. I expected my mouth to then be saying "ooo" and "aaah" and maybe even "wow", but to be honest the cupcake was nothing special and I was pretty under whelmed. My next bite consisted of the rich strawberry compote, which is in the centre of the cupcake, and this coupled with the frosting was just a bit too sweet and was pretty sickly. Everyone who tried them was in agreement about this and overall the cupcakes were disappointing for the price that they are.

These cupcakes are good for a party as their good looks will impress your guests, but I don't think they're worth the money and it will be more satisfying and easier on the pocket by making your own - just got to go and find some edible glitter!

Some nutritional info per cupcake:
375 calories
20.4g fat (of which saturates 10.5g)
Contains: cow's milk, eggs, wheat, gluten.
Made in a factory that uses nut ingredients.

Summary: I'd rather make my own!