Cupcakes didn't really hit the LA landscape until the new century. And one of the first hotspots was Toast - best known as the breakfast joint on many a modern reality show, (not to mention a key scene on last year's season of Entourage). In the beginning, Toast boasted a cupcake baker who migrated from Magnolia. Today, the Toasters claim the baby cakes to be all their own and have branched off into a number of flavors beyond Magnolia's chocolate and vanilla.

As for the taste, to be fair, I held my cakeoff on a not entirely even playing field. The Magnolia cakes were second day, having traveled via jet plane on the early morning NY-LA run. The Toast cakes had been iced the very morning of this little temptation taste test.

The Magnolia cupcakes benefited from the extra time in the box, with a bit of the oil from the half-inch thick icing oozing into the cake. This made them the more moist of the two. Additionally, the actual cake of the Toast chocolate cupcake lacked the cocoa intensity of the Magnolia cake. However, the Toast icing was the lighter, slightly less sweet of the two while Magnolia's cakes were heavy with sweetness.

While I couldn't dare to declare a winner, both coasts boast highlights as well as lows. Ultimately, I think it comes down to where you want to eat your dessert. If you envision yourself licking icing in the buzz of the concrete jungle, you're definitely a Magnolia. If you need palm fronds with your treats, you are a Hollywood sugar. As for me? I'm feeling fine any place they serve chocolate cupcakes with a topping of peanut butter buttercream.

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