Not a vegan and to be honest believed that great cupcakes could not be vegan. Despite this I decided to give them a go and see if vegan cupcakes could rival non-vegan cupcakes. I have to say I was surprised and disappointed by VST.
I was in the Eton shopping center so decided to give them a try. My wife and I each chose a flavor---chocolate with vanilla bean frosting and the lavender vanilla. We chose the former because we are chocolate lovers and thought it would be a good test of vegan baking. The latter we chose because we had read about the lavender cupcakes on reviews here.
The chocolate cupcake was fantastic. It was chocolaty without being overpowered with cocoa powder. The cake had a great crumb and texture and was better than most non-vegan cupcakes I have had from other establishments. Put another way, I would say it was one of the best chocolate cupcakes I have had from a commercial establishment. That it was vegan was frankly irrelevant.
The lavender cupcake was disappointing. While you could smell the lavender, its floral elements were overwhelmed by the vanilla--all we could taste was vanilla. Unlike the chocolate cake, which had a slight dome, the lavender cupcake had a significant concave top (sunken)--I could tell this from looking at them in the display but opted to try one anyway.
When we cut them in half, it looked like it was filled with frosting (it was not marked as a filled cupcake). The vanilla flavor was good but the cake was quite gummy--not good for a cupcake. Since I have only had them once I cannot say if this is how they are supposed to be. However given the texture and crumb of the chocolate cupcake, I would be surprised if they were.
It is possible it was a poor batch--if so I am not sure why they would have been sold. Given the pronounced depression and the fact that it seemed filled, it would not have been hard to tell that something was amiss with these and they should not have been sold. Between sampling a very gummy cupcake and not being able to taste one because the batch was poor I would rather have been disappointed to not be able to taste one.
Given how good the chocolate cupcake was I doubt the gumminess of the lavender cake was from the cake being vegan. Thus I would happily sample other vegan cupcakes. However I am not sure I would sample them from here as I am not sure VST engages in sufficient quality control given how poor the lavender cupcake was.