Cupcake Tour of Atlanta

Hope you are having an awesome holiday weekend so far! I’m going to start changing my posting format a bit and today is kind of a first try at that, so bear with me. Typically I don’t share what’s going on in my days unless I have a “formal” recipe post or restaurant review to show you guys. But I don’t particularly like doing things that way and it leads to me posting less frequently! I cook everyday and have all sorts of things I want to show you all that don’t make it into real recipe posts. So I’m trying something new and giving you a real look into my everyday life and food. 🙂

Yesterday I woke up a little later than normal (my summer internship hasn’t started yet so this is my chance to sleep in) but decided I should still hit the gym for a little running. I had a piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter as my pre-workout snack before leaving my house.

I joined the Planet Fitness near us recently and I love it! It’s never too crowded and I love their philosophy, that their gym is a “Judgement Free Zone”.

I ran a difficult (for me) 2.5 miles. Actually I ran/walked it, but that’s the farthest I have ever gone! I was proud of myself for making it. And I was definitely hurting when I was done!

When I came home from the gym I made a few protein pancakes for breakfast. If you’re unfamiliar with a protein pancake, it’s essentially a pancake made of protein powder instead of flour. It sounds weird but somehow it works! For these I actually just mixed some protein powder into regular pancake batter that Jason had made for his breakfast. Yummy!

Afterwards I went ahead and got dressed and ready for the day. Girly side-note: I was wearing a sock bun, my new favorite hairstyle.

Then Jason, my mom, my sister and I headed out on a (unofficial) cupcake tour of Atlanta! SO many cupcake shops have opened up in this city and we’ve been wanting to check them out so we decided to do a bunch in one day! We were going to just hit up a few but ended up going to FIVE. First was the Great Cupcake Company in Buckhead.

Next was Smallcakes, also in Buckhead.

Then we headed to Cupz and Cakes in Cheshire Bridge.

Then we moved on to Carolyn’s Cupcakes in Decatur.

And we ended the tour with the cupcake shop in our town of Tucker, Sweet Dee’s.

Obviously we didn’t eat whole cupcakes at each shop, that would have been crazy. I got a mini cupcake at the first and then just tried bites of the others. I have to say, the prize DEFINITELY goes to Smallcakes. My mom got a chocolate caramel toffee cupcake that was OUT OF THIS WORLD delicious. Incredible icing, incredible cupcake. Most of the other shops disappointed us, which is too bad. I wouldn’t return to any of them except Smallcakes, which ranks along with other fabulous Atlanta cupcake shops like CamiCakes and Gigi’s Cupcakes. The cupcake craze is definitely in full swing over here! After all that sugar, I was in the mood for a savory and healthy lunch.

We had tacos for dinner last night, and I took some of those leftovers along with mixed greens to make a taco salad. On top of the greens is ground beef, salsa, crumbled tortilla chips, and a little shredded cheddar. Delicious! I love how the salsa acts as the salad dressing.

I made little Ashley a quesadilla in a multigrain tortilla for lunch, which she enjoyed while drawing (she enjoys a lot of things while drawing 🙂 ).

Ashley has so much energy that she really keeps me active, which is a good thing. I swear she never gets tired! She really wanted some outdoor time after lunch so we headed outside for bike riding.

Outdoor time worked up an appetite so I treated myself to this vegan chocolate cupcake that we got from Carolyn’s Cupcakes. Pretty darn good!

A couple hours later dinner was ready! Mom made an awesome meal on the grill, the first official grilling of our summer! She made Armenian chicken, grilled corn, haricot verts, and rice pilaf.

My mom is SUCH a good cook. She’s like Midas–everything she cooks turns to gold! We were happy campers.

I rounded out the meal with an ice cold cerveza. Great ending to a great day!

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren