I can think of witches good and bad

What: Wicked Whoopie (Peanut Butter)
Where: The Highway, Pennsylvania
Cost: $2.09

Cupcakes are passé, you guys.

Everybody who follows the ups and downs of the hand-held cake industry knows that the new queen in the fairy cake kingdom is the whoopie pie. Or maybe there is something even newer and hipper now, I don't know. I let my subscription lapse.

Either way, this was my first sighting of a whoopie pie in the wild. They seemed relatively fresh-looking, despite the unfortunate placement between peeled hardboiled eggs and cans of Redbull in a gas station just off the interstate somewhere.

Anybody who has ever tried to pack a cupcake into a lunchbox or been shown how to properly eat a cupcake will recognise the whoopie pie's obvious selling point. It is extremely portable.

It's basically an icing sandwich.

A lot of the people I cajoled into helping me eat it (it was deceptively huge) compared it to a Jos. Louis. Although they are missing the chocolate coating and are considerably denser, whoopie pies are indeed very similar. Delicious. The addition of peanut butter to the icing was a nice twist.

I definitely see myself making a few whoopie pies in the future, but I still prefer the original. I think a cupcake's inability to be carelessly tossed into a sack somehow adds to its appeal.

7.6/10

HR

Chips and Dales

What: Romney's Kendal Mint Cake (Brown)
Where: Tan Hill Inn, Yorkshire Dales
Cost: Unknown (purchased by Basia)

The Tan Hill Pub is the highest pub in Great Britain. We were lucky enough to be playing inside a converted barn at a music festival there, full of old friends and motherless lambs.

Basia found this Mint Cake at some point after our set. The package was too special to ignore and I gleefully unwrapped it as soon as she gave it to me.

When Paul (our resident expert on all things British) told me that it was pure sugar I thought he just meant that it was really sweet. But he wasn't exaggerating.

I opened the package to find a sparkly block of what appeared to be tightly compressed brown sugar. A peek at the ingredients list showed that it was indeed just sugar and peppermint oil - two of my favourite things - unsullied by chocolate or other fillers. Excellent.

The smell of mint wafted up to me as I read the package. Apparently this is the exact brand of mint cake that Tenzing Norgay would have eaten while climbing to the summit of Mount Everest. It's a funny claim to fame, but definitely felt appropriate for our remote locale.

I broke off a block and took a bite. It was softer than I had expected and melted immediately in my mouth. Minty and very sweet, it was delicious but one piece was more than enough for me.

9.4/10

HR