Soft, moist, flavorful, and vivid enough to resemble colors of nail polish that lil' ol' quirky and whimsical moi would wea ... welcome to the wonderful world of Faygo cupcakes!

These are a uniquely Michigan product — created by the Just Baked bakery in Livonia using the legendary soda made in Detroit. They come in three flavors: Orange, Grape and Redpop.

I'd heard about them for several weeks — they're being sold not only at the Just Baked shops, but also at Hiller's and Busch's. So, of course, near-omnivore that I am with a hearty sweet tooth, I had to give them a try!

Tom and I went into the bakery the other day and asked if we could buy a couple of them; no, sorry, they're packaged by the half-dozen for mass retail sales, so they can't be sold individually.

Well, we didn't need six cupcakes no matter how festive they were. So we were thrilled to have the sales clerk offer to give us a sample, and to even ask which flavors we'd like to taste. Hmmm ... ye olde decision-making brain fizzle! Tom chose Orange, and I chose Redpop, and we set to tasting and sharing.

Each of the cupcakes had a distinct flavor of the soda they are made with, and our charming hostess told us that no food colorings are used in creating the depth of color in the treats — the soda alone provides the hue. They were moist, they were flavorful, they were very sweet and the frosting was silky smooth.

These cupcakes would be perfect for a kids' party, in particular. They would also be a perfect way to support multiple Michigan businesses at once, if one were serving state-themed goodies for the Michigan-Ohio State game at noon on Saturday — show some love to the Great Lakes State against its superarchrival, yeah! (Maize 'n' Blue food is perfectly all right, but buying these cupcakes would be an investment in our econom ... and no, that's not just my way of rationalizing a sugar fix!)

Of course, after being treated so hospitably, we didn't have the heart to leave the shop without buying anything... what a couple of mentsches (pronounced MENT-shez) we are, huh?

So we decided to try one Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcake — chocolate cake filled with peanut butter frosting, topped with more peanut butter frosting that is then coated in chocolate — and a Samoa cupcake with chocolate-drizzled coconut and caramel over a yellow cupcake, in honor of the famous Girl Scout cookie of the same name. Yeah, what a way to spend a Saturday afternoon, huh?

The Samoa cupcake was a bit dry, though the coconut-caramel-chocolate topping was sweet and sticky and wonderful to savor even when it separated from the crumbly cake. The Chocolate Peanut Butter one was rich and smooth and absolutely luscious... definitely one I would eat more (lots more!) of.

In closing, let me one tidbit of news, 'cause it's just a happy little item. Serious Eats, an enormous NYC-based site devoted to all things food (recipes, articles, chatting, photos, etc.) recently did a taste test of regionally produced root beers. Well, you only get one guess as to which was the winne ... come on, you know the answer... FAYGO. Yay!

Mary Bilyeu has won or placed in more than 60 cooking contests and writes about her adventures in the kitchen. The phrase "You Should Only Be Happy" (written in Hebrew on the stone pictured next to the blog's title) comes from Deuteronomy 16:15 and is a wish for all her readers as they cook along with her ... may you always be happy here. Check out her blog -- Food Floozie -- in which she cooks, reviews restaurants and generally enthuses and effuses over all things food-related. Or send an e-mail to yentamary@gmail.com.