UpCake Energy Brownie Review

Though I get many products sent to me, this caffeinated treat cost me $3.49, which is rather expensive even with all its novelty. But the UpCake Energy Brownie shows signs of problem almost immediately with its name. Yes, it's a clever pun on "cupcake," but any baker will tell you cakes and brownies are not as closely related as the packaging seems to think. They are very much similar, and you'd be correct to hail brownies as denser versions of the other, but the general consensus is that they're not the same, and that makes the packaging confusing. The label is decent, though, with it thriving wildly within the confines of its gimmick, and the actual idea is sort neat, with it combining consumer's daily sweet treat and coffee into one convenient product.

The gritty texture of this dry confection is much like those terrible over cooked, cake-like brownies that someone who can't bake baked. They crumble with no satisfaction in the mouth, and there are coarse crumbs left behind on whatever you eat it off of. The flavour is poorly based on the more complex work of chocolate, and here it is cheap and bitter to the tongue. The mordant presence of sugar should at least alleviate some of the latter, but it's an inadequate sweetness that doesn't care if anything in the experience works. Each bite is grainy and bland, and the raw cocoa powder aftertaste is rather mild but ever unpleasant, and this isn't even censored by the cloying sugariness. The brown pastry traditionally requires some type of fat, but the hydrogenated oils utilized do not give the confiture the desired buttery consistency, either in taste or mouthfeel, and while cake-like brownies would not have a fudgy viscosity, there should at least be a lardaceous and dense flavor profile. Nothing works together here, everything operates separately, and overall, UpCake Energy Brownies wouldn't be so bad if my expectations of caffeinated desserts hadn't been set so high by products like Mocca Mallows.

300 milligrams of caffeine does the kicking around here, and unlike everything else, it does its job well. It lasted a cool five hours, complete with mild jitters and a slight crash. Overall, UpCake Energy Brownies are a clumsily executed disappointment.