Introducing: Prairie Girl Bakery, the financial district’s new cupcake emporium
The March issue of our print edition featured a story that profiled five Bay Street escapees who left six-figure jobs to start their own businesses. Last week, another successful escapee got added to the list: Jean Blacklock, owner of Prairie Girl Bakery, a new financial-district cupcake shop.
A “prairie girl” from Saskatchewan, Blacklock had a successful career as a lawyer and wealth management executive at the Bank of Montreal. In 2009, she left the bank. She then wrote a book (50 Biggest Estate Planning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them), got married and decided—with the support of husband and co-owner Andrew Auerbach (also a BMO exec)—to open a cupcake shop.
Prairie Girl’s cupcakes, made daily with the help of head baker Andrea Ascione, don’t contain preservatives, hydrogenated or trans fats, or artificial colourings or flavourings. The store offers 13 varieties of cupcake, made from recipes that Blacklock herself developed over the past year and a half. Five cake batters, including Mom’s Golden Buttermilk, Grandma’s Dark Cocoa, red velvet, banana and carrot, create the base for Blacklock’s top-secret buttercream and cream cheese icings. Specialties include Rebecca’s Red Velvet Cupcake with cream cheese icing, banana cupcakes with peanut butter icing and carrot cupcakes with classic cream cheese icing. There will also be a Treat of the Week featuring a new cupcake flavour.
The interior of the shop, which is hidden away on Victoria Street, was designed by Mary Bannett of Just the Thing. Our eyes were immediately drawn to the drawers filled with cupcakes ready for purchase, as well as the chocolate-brown quartz countertop on a wooden base that looks like vanilla buttercream. Cupcake artwork by Angela Morgan and Rachel Nickerson hangs on the walls.
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- Outside Prairie Girl Bakery
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- Prairie Girl Bakery owners Andrew Auerbach and Jean Blacklock
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- Prairie Girl Bakery’s vanilla buttercream counter
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- Drawers filled with fresh cupcakes
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- Behind the display case
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- Artwork by Rachel Nickerson
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- Vanilla strawberry cupcake
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- Rebecca’s red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing
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- Chocolate with peanut butter buttercream cupcake
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- Chocolate vanilla cupcake
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- Carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing
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Regular-sized cupcakes are $2.95 each, $16.95 for six and $31.95 for a dozen. Mini cupcakes go for $1.75 each, $9.95 for six and $18.95 for a dozen.
Prairie Girl Bakery, 18 King St. E. Suite 106 (entrance on Victoria St.), 416-504-2253, prairiegirlbakery.com.
Am I the only one who is exhausted of seeing cupcakes, let alone eating them?
The cupcake bubble has burst people, two bankers should have realized that.
I’m just waiting for someone to open a combo burger/poutine/cupcake place. May as well hit 3 trends with one stone.
YARGH enough with the cupcakes already! Doughnuts is where it’s at.
Thank god. What the world really needed was another cupcake shop.
how about a burger /cupcake/burrito/pizza/poutine place?
how about a burger/cupcake/burrito/pizza/poutine/coffee bar/food truck? Now that would cover all the bases I think.
It would need a show on Food Network to be complete.
Had some today – chocolate with vanilla cream cheese icing. The cupcake part was delicious, icing was good but a little sweet.
I’d try more kinds.
And I don’t like poutine.
food makes me puke
I love cupcakes! Bring em on! Don’t listen to all these naysayers … they are just jealous because they haven’t yet mustered up the guts to leave their boring day jobs and do something they really love. Congratulations Prairie Girl!
If you’re sick of cupcakes, no one’s forcing you to go buy them. I for one am happy to see this place open in my neighbourhood… and their cupcakes are fabulous, by the way.
Who could be sick of cupcakes?? Congrats to Prairie Girl and all the other people out there with the guts to follow their dreams!
Actually I think what the world really needed was some more sarcastic individuals such as yourselves! So…how about instead of taking out your bitterness and negativity on others you get a life? I went by prairie girl bakery on Thursday on my way home from work…the staff serving on the counter were very friendly and helpful and the cupcakes were DELICIOUS!! Very moist and a generous amount of icing! I tried the vanilla cake with strawberry, the chocolate cake with chocolate icing and the red velvet. All were amazing but my favourite was the vanilla with strawberry. I will definitely be back and highly recommend these cupcakes!
Hey, I agree! Just because some foodies say a trend is over, doesn’t mean that regular people won’t eat it up! Not everyone out there will only eat the latest food trend. Some people want to just eat something good!
I would love to see some nice vegan cupcakes just like Babycakes in NYC or Sprinkles in LA. Congrats on the new venture – may it be very successful!
I tried these cupcakes last week and was totally blown away. This is not just another cupcake store, the “made from scratch” makes a huge difference. I’ll be back this week for another sample!
These cupcakes are like nothing you have ever tasted before. They are absolutely the best cupcakes you will ever have – they are seriously DELICIOUS!! The red velvet with cream cheese icing and the strawberry vanilla are my favourite and will send you into another dimension. I can’t wait to go back and try other kinds. One taste and you won’t eat anything else.
My husband surprised me by bringing some home. Nope, will never ever get sick of cupcakes :) The peanut butter chocolate was awesome!
I was really pleased to find that they offer a gluten free cupcake! I am so used to previously frozen GF treats…..the made from scratch cupcakes they make are a real treat!
CUPCAKES ARE DEAD …………ANOTHER TREND
PS WATCH FOR CAKE LOLLIPOPS THATS THE NEW TREND CAKE ON A STICK , CALIFORNIA HAS HAD IT FOR 2 YEARS ALL READY
MARKET RESEARCH IS WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD OR SILVER THESE DAYS AT 42 DOLLARS AN OUNCE LOL
Why so trendy, Michael? It’s more fun to go for yummy! I sampled these the other day … mmmmmm ~ mmm! Need I say more?
Vanilla cupcake was great. Red velvet, penut butter… eh.
The place could use: somewhere to sit, a garbage, water?!? coffee? less space for staff more for customers.
Yeah, cupcakes have been overdone. So what? They’re freakin’ good. Pricey? Yes. But they don’t skimp – the cupcakes are big and the icing is piled on. You can tell they use real, natural ingredeints and these babies are super fresh. Their gluten-free cupcakes are awesome – can’t even tell the difference! The strawberry icing is so delicious it’s ridiculous. If you’re a sucker for sweet, rich baking, don’t go on an empty stomach. You’ve been warned. #winning!
OH my goodness.
Most delicious, moist, rich, decadant mini cupcake ever. One of the girls in our office brought cupcakes in for someone’s birthday and it’s been a long time since a cupcake excited me.
I made them for years for my kid, parties, school, bakesales but these are the bomb and mini too!!!
Yummy cupcakes!!!
Now I’m going to get them for my friend’s b-day party!!!
Thank you prarie girl!
I just inhaled a delicious banana cupcake with peanut butter icing. Amazing! I’m so happy to see something in this neighbourhood that isn’t a Starbucks or a Tim Horton’s. I’ll be back!
i went by today to pick up a few cupcakes for v-day and the line up was incredible! it was out the door and around the corner! i also heard the first canadian place location was crazy! apparently people were waiting over an hour for cupcakes. i guess the cupcake trend has not disappeared after all :-).
Love the selection…every morning my kids beg me to buy them a few of the Golden Buttermilk for their weekend treat
i’ve tried to like these. and i love baked goods. BUT…their cupcakes are cloyingly sweet. and way TOO MUCH icing. icing to cupcake ratio is about 3>1. fail.
Doesn’t anyone want to know how many calories in these cupcakes… this the the beginning to the end of eating healthy… their reasoning on their website is that they have 17 different flavors so they haven’t really had the time to figure out calories… a company that has established itself this far hasn’t had the time???… really, more like doesn’t want people to know the truth!