Cupcake Quest: Seattle's Best Coffee (via Borders Bookstore)

This post is part of the Cupcake Quest series on Fork it over, Boston!

Well, well, well. It's been quite some time since I've posted a cupcake update, aside from the post about how the quest is making me fat. Fear not - I've still been eating my way through the cupcakes of Boston. (And now, I'm also adding in a moderate amount of exercise to balance out the buttery, creamy, sugary goodness.) I have some posts that just haven't made it up here yet, and I have plenty more places to visit! I'm going to try to power through the rest of the backlog and schedule them all to go up over the next week or so, and then we can move on to new cupcakes. I'll be in NYC this weekend, so I'm hoping to try out one or more of the legendary cupcakeries there. Kim, the artist responsible for the lovely yeti over there on the left (and all the other Fork it over, Boston! yetis), will be questing with me, possibly to Magnolia. (Any other suggestions?)

Anyway, back to the task at hand. As it turned out, when my co-workers and I were desperately searching for cupcakes within an easy walk from the office in the early days of the quest, there were cupcakes right next door, hidden in the upstairs Seattle's Best cafe at the Copley Square location of Borders, the bookstore. (Well, it doesn't matter; we weren't missing much.)

Usually I get to work before 9am, so Borders isn't open yet, but the other day, it was just after 9, so I figured I'd stop by and get an iced tea. The line at the nearby Starbucks is always out the door (almost literally), so nearby alternatives are nice. I rode the escalator up, a simple iced tea in mind, but there, in the pastry case, sat plates full of cupcakes: chocolate and raspberry and vanilla, oh my! (Sorry, I just finished watching the Tin Man miniseries.)

It was a co-worker's last day at work, so I figured we could have a little cupcake party for breakfast. I got a "raspberry sparkle" (oooh) and a chocolate. They were both packaged very neatly in sturdy cardboard boxes, held in place by another piece of cardboard.

I returned to the office, and we split the cupcakes in half so we could each try both flavors. Both were extraordinarily dry.

The raspberry frosting had a wonderfully creamy texture but tasted very artificial. Coupled with the very dry cake, it was not a winner. The only redeeming factor was the surprise raspberry filling, which tasted a bit more like real raspberries than the frosting.

The chocolate frosting was actually delicious, and it extended into the cupcake a bit as filling, but it just couldn't save the cake. Several glasses of water were necessary to neutralize the resulting dry mouth.

The Verdict: Skip the cupcakes, but try something else. Seattle's Best has great cookies - and they'll even warm them up for you! - and most of the drinks are solid as well. My red iced tea was actually the best iced tea I've ever had from a chain coffee shop. I returned a few days later to get it again, and it was just as good.