Introducing: Prairie Girl Bakery, the financial district’s new cupcake emporium

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.

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.