San Francisco Bites

What’s the big deal about Citizen Cake?

When I first bit into one of Elizabeth Faulkner’s pastries, a passion fruit cake with a cream cheese filling. I was confused. I tasted one of her hazelnut biscotti, and again, puzzlement.

They weren’t very good.

The cake was moist, but there was too little of it and too much cream cheese filling, which tasted remarkably like plain Philly straight out of the container. The biscotti were crisp but bland.

I wouldn’t be so perplexed except that Elizabeth Faulkner has such a storied reputation. She’s been a judge on Top Chef and a competitor on Iron Chef.

Maybe she was out of the kitchen the day I visited.

Then again…maybe she wasn’t.

A few weeks later, I tried Citizen Cupcake, her cupcake joint which sits on top of the Virgin Records near Union Square.

The cupcakes aren’t bad. In some ways, they’re actually delicious. The cake is always moist and the flavor, whether it’s coconut, hazelnut, or chocolate, is authentic. (Beware of the saccharine pineapple , however) But cake is only one part of a cupcake, and maybe not even the most important part. The frosting — that decadent swirl of butter and sugar that we love to lick and smear all over ours faces — was disappointing. The texture was gritty, as in, I was crunching sugar crystals.

Despite some highs, at $3.00 a cupcakes for something that’s only so-so, I’d rather bake my own batch.

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