Review of Luscious Layers and Hoosier Mama Pie Company

I'm not sure how I got the wrong address at first. But I did. I drove our happy butts all the way to the far far north side, damn close to Evanston only to discover the address I found online was wrong. Never use yahoo again.

Anyways, so I googled Hoosier Mama Pie Company on my phone and found out that it wasn't all that far away, so we trekked over to Luscious Layers and then Hoosier Mama Pie Company. Because of the way the pics loaded onto the page, I'm going to start with Hoosier Mama.

There are so many different varieties of pies there and you can get a small pie for $8, like I got, or large pies for $18-$20. There is also chicken pot pie that you can get in small, large, or just a slice of the large. I ended up leaving with 4 small pies, packaged all cute and country like.

This was the box for the chicken pot pie. She wrote out instructions for heating it so I wouldn't forget. :)

This was one awesome chicken pot pie. I had it for dinner that night.

Honestly, I didn't finish it, but I pushed myself to the max. Yes, I saved the leftovers. Are you kidding me? A little less than half was left over! I wasn't tossing that!

Yummy apple pie. Surprisingly no nutmeg in it. I was shocked. And very very pleased. :) I gave this one to dad, but he saved me a quarter of it to try. Yum.

Strawberry rhubarb pie. Delicious. I took this to work and had a quarter of it for lunch, then went home and then polished the rest off for dinner/dessert. So wrong, I know.

My mom's raspberry pie. She complained, of course. Said that she tasted cinnamon and said it was too tart. I'm not sure when my mom is going to realize that fresh raspberries tend to be more tart than sweet. Jam is only sweet as it is b/c of all the added sugar. Woman will never be happy...
But I had a bite, there definitely was something in there that didn't seem like it should be. Dad finished that one too :)

I would go back in a heartbeat. The chicken pot pie was the BEST chicken pot pie ever. The crust was phenomenal, the inside was amazing. I'm not a fan of thick creamy sauces, especially in pot pie. I think it makes the crust soggy and gross. The re-heating time was perfect b/c it didn't overcook the crust or insides, but it made it all bubbly warm. Let me tell you, I would so get a whole pot pie and try to pass it off as my own. It's that good.

Now onto Luscious Layers... The reason why I wanted to go here was b/c I heard they had $1 cupcakes. $1!!!
Amazing, right? I thought Sweet Honeybee's was cheap! Nope, this place definitely tops Sweet Honeybee's in price... But what about taste?
First off, they giver you free samples. They make little itsy bitsy cupcakes you can pop into your mouth to try. I tried a champagne cupcake and a gluten free cherry vanilla. Let me tell you, gluten free is DEFINITELY an acquired taste. I was not thrilled w/ it at all and the owner wasn't insulted, so I didn't feel quite as bad when I made the "ew" face. The champagne was good and I ended up getting that one as well as four others:

Chocolate devil's food with raspberry mousse and chocolate fudge frosting. This one was good. The cake was a bit dry, perhaps b/c I ate it a couple days later. The raspberry mousse definitely tasted like raspberry, so that was a plus. The frosting (like the rest) was hard on the outside, very little soft fudgy inside, so I ended up wiping it off.

Red Velvet with cream cheese buttercream. There was no way this frosting had cream cheese in it. No way. It was hard, had no flavor and was powdery when it crumbled. WAY TOO MUCH POWDERED SUGAR! The cake wasn't too bad, a bit dry, but again, it had been a couple days before I ate it.

The Champagne cupcake w/ strawberry mousse filling. Not a bad cupcake. My #2 fav. The frosting was wiped off like the first too, but the cake actually tasted like champagne. And there wasn't a tone of strawberry mousse to over power the cupcake. Def a yummy one. :)

Save the best for last... This was actually the last cupcake I had and the moistest one, even though a few days past. AND the strawberry buttercream was delicious. I hate buttercream, but this was very yummy. I pinched off some of the harder edges on the frosting, but there was definitely lots of soft frosting underneath the hard edges. The cake was moist and tasted like strawberries in white cake. Yum. Definitely a keeper.

All in all, it was a good trip out. It was worth the driving around and 1/4 tank of gas to get to all the places. If was I fixing for a cupcake, I'd probably headover to Sweet Honeybee's first. I'd pay $0.90 more for a guaranteed better cupcake.