Unless you’re allergic to chocolate or don’t like cake — and if that’s the case you have our condolences — you’ve probably eaten at least one Hostess CupCake. Americans, after all, consume more than 600 million of them a year.
Topekans, however, don’t have to rely on a huge corporation to satisfy their chocolate cupcake fix. We have Daddy Cakes, and Daddy Cakes has The Retro, which was featured in the February 2009 issue of “Every Day with Rachael Ray” magazine.
Stop by the tiny store beneath the clock tower in Gage Center, and you’ll find The Retro hanging out with a counter full of its more colorful Daddy Cakes cousins. You’ll know The Retro when you see it because of the squiggles on top.
“What’s great about ours versus the Hostess version is it’s all made from scratch,” Daddy Cakes owner Allyson Fiander said. “It’s got a cream filling, and then we dip it in a really bittersweet chocolate ganache. If you’re a chocolate lover, it’s a really chocolaty cupcake — and it doesn’t happen to have a lot of butter cream on top.”
THE BUZZ: Ray’s magazine found The Retro on Daddy Cakes’ Web site, and placed it in some pretty impressive company with cupcake stores from New York City, Philadelphia, Knoxville and Santa Barbara. “They never came to our store, I never got to meet her, but we did turn in our recipe to the Rachael Ray test kitchen and gave them a photo tutorial on how to make the cakes,” Fiander said. “They recreated The Retro for their article.”
THE RECIPE: Sorry, fans, but Fiander, who studied in France, isn’t about to reveal The Retro’s secrets. “There’s nothing I want to share about my chocolate cake recipe,” she said. “I struggled with finding a really, really good signature chocolate cake for most of my career, and I really think I finally nailed it.”
SALES: The article turned The Retro from a sleeper into a keeper. Daddy Cakes now sells about two dozen a day. “People have decided this is the one I need,” Fiander said. “When they’re buying a mixed dozen, there’s always a Retro in there.”
COST: $2 for a baby Retro; $3 for a daddy Retro.
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