My daughter and I LOVE cupcakes. When we lived in Rochester, New York, she and I would take study breaks from homeschooling and head to Sugar Mountain Bakery in Brighton to pick up a cupcake, or two. It was always such a fun treat or us. Once we moved to Michigan we could never find anything that even came close to those wonderful cupcakes. We had grocery store and little bakery cupcakes that were good but we were looking for something great.

We spend a great deal of time in the Mishawaka/South Bend area of Indiana. Most of the kids specialists are down there and we are there at least 3-4 times a month. We are just starting to explore off the main roads where all the big corporate places are to find the little hidden gems.

After my daughter’s hearing appointment the other day where she listened to the doctor make the same joke again, “Are you sure you are not a 70-year-old man who has been a cop your whole life?” Because the hearing loss she has is typical of a person that has been in the military or law enforcement for 20-30 years. I finally asked the question, “What can we expect as she grows up from this?” The answer was, “We cannot predict.” Her hearing has been stable for the last 2-3 years but that is to say it will not get worse quickly at some point in her life. If she were the older person we know it only gets progressively worse but because she is 15 it could happen when she’s 20 it could happen when she’s 50. But, we are taking steps to help her now such as she is learning sign language as her foreign language for school and she is learning to advocate for herself in asking people to face her when they speak to her. I thought my daughter needed a bit of a pick-me-up after this appointment and started looking for somewhere special to stop on the way home.

As we were driving home when I saw a little cupcake shop in a plaza. I immediately turned in. My daughter looked at me and then said, “I see a candy shop and a cupcake shop. My life is perfect.”

As we entered Gigi’s Cupcakes in Granger, Indiana, I knew this was going to be different. My daughter looked around and immediately decided she wanted her bedroom to look like this. It was a little girls version of heaven. Bright, clean and open the bakery was so cute with pink walls.

I quickly decided we would just get a dozen cupcakes to try a few different varieties. The woman behind the counter was so helpful and sweet. They had gluten-free and sugar-free cupcakes which I did not try on this visit but I am already planning another visit to try some of their Valentine’s flavors and the gluten-free and sugar-free cupcakes too!

This was our little box of heaven. Yes, you can see 2 cupcakes missing as we couldn’t even get out of the parking lot before we dug into them. Top left was Red Velvet, center top row was Salted Caramel, bottom two rows were Midnight Chocolate with chocolate and then Midnight Chocolate with Vanilla just below it, then two Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, two Strawberry and two Carrot Cake cupcakes.

This is a close up of the Salted Caramel Cupcake. Yes, the frosting is about 2 1/2″ to 3″ thick! I could only eat half of it. It was huge and it was delicious! I wish that there had been a bit of salt added to the frosting to offset the sweetness but this was the best cupcake I have ever eaten hands down. You can see in the picture that there is a bit of caramel that had dripped down the side from the filling.

My daughter thought the Strawberry was her favorite. She was amazed at how heavy the frosting was. She took it off to compare to the cupcake. Her favorite part was that the whole thing tasted like real strawberries and not the fake taste of most strawberry products.

I have found that Gigi’s Cupcakes is a national franchise chain. All I can say is if they are all the same as this one, look up your closest one online and if you love cupcakes like we do your taste buds will love you! They have a rotating cupcake menu by month and day. We are already planning another stop in the beginning of February to try their Valentine Day flavors including a few cheesecake cupcakes. Yum….

*I have not been compensated in any way for this post. All cupcakes were purchased by me for our consumption. All thoughts and opinions are my own and should be read as such.