Muddy's Bake Shop

Muddy’s suffers—or benefits—from their location, depending on how you look at it. They’re tucked away in a strip mall that is itself nestled way in the back of a larger collection of shopping centers. It’s a place you have to actually know about or be looking for, because it’s not a place you’re likely to simply come across by happenstance—unless you’re in one of the nearby office complexes (where I suspect a majority of their business comes from).

I heard about Muddy’s initially when several friends began raving about it, so (after Googling to find out where it was) I opted to go have lunch there. I went expecting it to be a combination of specialty bakery and coffee shop, but it is really just a specialty bakery. They do serve coffee in the regular and decaf variety, but that’s basically the extent of it.

I had The Thomas sandwich (a hybrid BLT and pimento cheese sandwich), and it was both excellent and filling. The pimento cheese appeared to be made in-house and thus extremely fresh and tasty. Unfortunately Muddy’s lunch selection is generally limited to just three kinds of sandwiches, though this is understandable as lunch is not their primary focus—and probably just serves as an excuse to bring in people from nearby businesses during their lunch breaks.

I bought an assortment of baked goods to bring back to the office: cookies, toffee bars, and cupcakes. They were all gone by the end of the day. Of particular note, I highly recommend the Prozac cupcake (chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing), the grasshopper cupcake (chocolate cupcake with peppermint icing), and last but certainly not least the mopsy (ginger carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese icing).

As troutqueen notes in her review, there might be a little more icing on the cupcakes than most people generally care for. (I’ve not tried their cakes yet, so can’t comment there.) I didn’t mind the excess, though: I think the bakery is about excess and indulgence. Much like a really good chocolate bar is far more satisfying/rich than a Hershey’s bar, I think the point is to indulge in just one (or maybe two) cupcakes—not to go through a half dozen. Anyone who eats more than 3-4 cupcakes at a time is likely to feel a bit queasy from the sugar overload and the richness of it all.

Ignoring the icing, the cake base is excellent: a perfect balance of texture and moistness. I could eat “naked” cupcakes almost as happily as iced ones.

I took my parents back for lunch one day and, as it happened, my mom had brought homemade peanut butter cookies with her. We bought a few of Muddy’s ultimate peanut butter cookies and did a side-by-side comparison….

…. Sorry, mom. :)

Pricing is very reasonable, especially if you’re looking at just 1 or 2 small items as a special treat. The larger items (whole cakes or pies) are substantially more expensive, but would likely be the talk of any dinner/birthday party.

I’d been told about this newish bake shop for a couple months now and just now got the chance to go check it out.

Muddy’s specializes in cupcakes, but also have pies, cakes, cookies and toffee bars. It is a very small place, with seating for no more than 10-15. It smells divine.

We purchased a slice of the expresso icing chocolate cake, a slice of the dreamsicle cake, and a Prozac cupcake. To go, we got 2 chocolate chip cookies and a toffee bar.

My husband and I found the icing on the cake too sweet for us; but the actual cake was lovely – moist and full of flavor. The icing, however, made us a little sick. The cupcake was devoured by our toddler, who had no problem with all the icing on the cupcake :)

Overall, while we liked what we had, we think that the cupcakes are the way to go, and if you get a slice of cake, be sure to scrape off half the icing if you don’t like things too sweet.

The cookies and toffee bars were also quite delicious.

Service wise, it was 2 hours to closing for them, and we felt a bit like they were too busy trying to shut down operations to close than to help us. The lady at the counter never smiled at us, and was barely polite. The girls cleaning up ignored us for the most part and were more interested in joking with each other.

Definitely a place you want to visit if you need a sugar fix. I’m hoping the indifferent service was more the result of a bad day, than their norm.