Cupcake Madness Finals: The Tasty Two

It's Cupcake Madness! Click here for the bracket and the judging sheet. Check out the contenders Red Velvet, Couture Cupcakes, Cakelove, Hello Cupcake, Baked & Wired and Georgetown Cupcake.

Two weeks after the initial cupcake crawl (we gave ourselves a bye week, to both rest up and stave off diabetes) my team reassembled for the final showdown: Baked & Wired v. Hello Cupcake.  Only one cupcakery would take home the title: CUPCAKE CHAMPION.

The rules were a little bit different for the final round.  We abandoned the "control cupcake" and let each person decide what flavor they wanted.  We explained what we were doing at both cupcakeries, and told the people behind the counter to wow us with their best cakes.  

We were wowed.

At Baked & Wired, we focused on the chocolate with peanut butter frosting, the strawberry cupcake with fresh strawberries and strawberry frosting, the chocolate silk cupcake with vanilla cupake and chocolate ganache frosting and the Karen's Birthday Cake cupcake, the cupcake that made me fall in love with Baked & Wired in the first place.  Unfortunately, we'd eaten everything before I remembered to take a picture.

At Hello Cupcake, we re-ordered the 'you tart,' and desperately wanted another velvet Elvis, but had to settle for carrot cake with vanilla frosting.  We ordered the 'princess' cupcake -- chocolate cake with raspberry frosting -- the dulce de leche cupcake, and a chocolate cupcake with white chocolate frosting.

All of these cupcakes were so good, it was really hard to pick a winner.  The cake at Baked & Wired is perfect, and the frosting is a perfect counterbalance, rich and sweet but not overwhelming.  The cupcakes at Hello Cupcake fall over with the weight of their hefty icing, and their banana and carrot cakes in particular really shine.  The cupcakes at Hello Cupcake are prettier, and more creative, while the cupcakes at Baked & Wired rely fall back on perfecting the classics.

So what did we love the best?

Baked & Wired!!

In the final head to head vote, Baked & Wired beat Hello Cupcake 8 to 2!  

So what are you waiting for?  Go eat the winning cupcakes!  

One year ago: I took a cooking class at Whole Foods.

Thing 144: Georgetown Cupcake

It's Cupcake Madness! Click here for the bracket and the judging sheet. Check out previous contenders Red Velvet, Couture Cupcakes, Cakelove, Hello Cupcake and Baked & Wired.

Georgetown Cupcake?  More like Georgetown Fraudcake!*

People, it is time to stop the madness.  You are waiting in line for these...these...globs of sugar and artificial color that I can't even bring myself to call cupcakes.  Stop waiting in line!  Use that time to write a poem or stroll down by the canal.  Or if you want a cupcake, go to any of the other cupcakeries in this bracket!  Save yourselves!!

Ok, so I'm being a bit dramatic.  But only a bit.  These puppies ain't good.

We wanted to order a couple of the 'control' cupcakes -- vanilla cake with chocolate frosting -- that were sitting out on the counter, looking lovely, but they wouldn't let us.  The counter cupcakes were for show, not to be sold.  So, we waited in line for twenty minutes, weren't sold the cupcakes we wanted and then finally were granted the privilege of buying two chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, one red velvet and one 'very berry' cupcake.

These cupcakes are very pretty.  I'll give them that.  But how do they taste?  Bad! The vanilla frosting was gloppy and the cake tasted like it came from a box.  But the most offensive part?  The dyed purple frosting of the very berry cupcake and its distinctly chemical, burn-the-back-of-your-throat aftertaste.  You know how you make berry frosting?  By putting berries in it.  Not by chemically dying it purple.

These cakes scored below average across the board, but especially in the icing category.  Overall score?  2.3!  .2 points less than Red Velvet!  Georgetown Cupcake decidedly does not make it into the Tasty Two.

So, for those of you playing along at home, you'll see that it's Hello Cupcake and Cakelove in the Tasty Two...But.  You know how I mentioned that the bracket was flawed?  The problem with the bracket is that the best match up came in the Sweet Six of Western Bracket.  Both Baked & Wired and Hello Cupcake could beat Cakelove pretty handily, and where's the drama in that?So...in order to truly find the best cupcake, we revisited Baked & Wired and Hello Cupcake for the final round.  Who will win the final match up?  You'll have to stay tuned!!

*Thank you, Alan!

Two years ago: my review of the War Room.

Thing 101: Baked & Wired Revisited

It's Cupcake Madness! Click here for the bracket and the judging sheet. Check out previous contenders Red Velvet, Couture Cupcakes, Cakelove and Hello Cupcake.

It is no secret that I love Baked & Wired. When I visited it almost exactly a year ago I wrote:

This is one hell of a cupcake, the frosting sweet and flavorful without hurting my teeth, the cake moist and rich while still maintaining cake status and not veering into brownie territory.

I have been a fervent admirer ever since.

As per the bracket, we ordered two "control" cupcakes (vanilla cake with chocolate icing), and then a strawberry cupcake made with real strawberries, and a red velvet cupcake.

It's the cake. The cake on these guys is so incredibly good. I think oftentimes people focus on the icing, and don't get me wrong, I really love icing. But in the focus on the icing, people neglect the cake, and the cake is the hard part. Really good cake, dense, with a good crumb, flavorful and also moist -- it's really hard to pull off. And Baked & Wired pulls it off, and then some! The icing is really good too, but the magic is in the cake.

Did my team agree? Baked & Wired got the highest score for cake almost across the board, and scored above average on icing, amount of icing, value and size. The creativity scored average. Comments included "great cake, icing not so much, not so creative," "poor selection of flavors," "real strawberries, red velvet is amazing!!, it's the cake," "great control, rich flavors," and "like the strawberries."

The composite score: 4.1. 4.1!! 0.1 less than Hello Cupcake! What an exciting match up, a nail biter to the end! But Hello Cupcake squeaks by the the Fabulous Four, and will face off against Georgetown Cupcake next! Who will win the championship?

Two years ago: The Hawk 'N' Dove.

Thing 143: Hello Cupcake

It's Cupcake Madness! Click here for the bracket and the judging sheet. Check out previous contenders Red Velvet and Couture Cupcakes and Cakelove.

Helloooooo Cupcake!

This small shop on the south side of Dupont Circle is delightful. Delightful!

We ordered two 'control' cupcakes (vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting), the "heart of darkness" (devil's food with chocolate ganache frosting and chocolate chips), tiramisu (espresso cake with mascarpone frosting, dusted in cocoa), "you tart!" (lemon cake with an insane lemon cream cheese frosting), and oh dear God, the "velvet Elvis" (banana cake with peanut butter frosting). This was also the only cupcakery that we visited that regularly bakes gluten-free cupcakes, and also vegan cupcakes, although we didn't try any because we do so enjoy butter and white flour.

My first thought, when I was looking at the cupcakes, is that this is what cupcakes are supposed to look like. These are stereotypically the ideal cupcake -- small cakes held in paper, frosting swirled high on top with little sprinkles or candies on top. Then the taste. These taste like the ideal cupcake. It's the ideal frosting to cake ratio -- vanilla and chocolate in perfect, complimentary quantities, the cake light, the frosting thick, all different tastes and textures at once.

Then, the specialty flavors. "You tart!" was palest yellow, sour and creamy at once, ridiculously good. Heart of Darkness was super rich, almost like a brownie mixed with fudge. But the velvet Elvis. Without ruining the outcome, the velvet Elvis was the single best cupcake I ate on the crawl. And apparently, they only bake it on Mondays and Thursdays, so plan your visit accordingly. But all these cupcakes were marvelous, I think you can't really go wrong at Hello Cupcake.

These cupcakes scored above-average in all categories, but got especially high marks for frosting, amount of frosting and creativity. These were also the cheapest cupcakes we ate, at $3 a piece, and scored high on value as a result. Comments from my team included "really good," "big cake, big frosting," "you may do me on this cupcake," "the peanut butter banana was unbelievable...doable," "nice amount of frosting," "best aesthetic so far," and "prettiest cupcakes, banana peanut butter is amazing!"

The composite score was a 4.2 -- a solid lead above Cakelove and a strong competitor in the Western bracket. Can it beat my personal favorite though, Baked and Wired? Who will advance to face Georgetown Cupcake in the Fabulous Four??

Happy 2nd blogiversary! One year ago: One Year, One Hundred Things, two years ago: the mission statement, Wonderland trivia, and Cowgirl Creamery.

Thing 142: Cakelove

It's Cupcake Madness! Click here for the bracket and the judging sheet.  Check out previous contenders Red Velvet and Couture Cupcakes.

Cakelove was the original.  Before cupcakeries were a dime a dozen, before Sex and the City made cupcakes flirty and commonplace, Warren Brown had a dream.  He was a government worker, droning on at a job he didn't like, and during his free time, he was baking cakes.  His coworkers reaped the rewards of his after-hours experiments as he adjusted butter and sugar levels, coming up with perfect butter cream and seductive, layered combinations.

Now, Warren owns six Cake Loves, the Love Cafe, is a minor local celebrity and even has his own show on the Food Network.  He is a pillar of the business community.

But can his cakes compete??

I had my doubts.

Truth be told, I don't much like Cakelove cupcakes anymore.  Sure, there was a time in my life when I asked a coworker to drive from Fairfax to U Street to pick some up for my birthday.  And when I was a having a quarter-life crisis I gave very serious thought to taking Warren's offer of a minimum wage job just to learn the secrets of good baking.  I still think his cakes themselves are about the best in town (that chocolate/vanilla/raspberry/butter cream/ganache monster being my favorite).  But the last few times I tried his cupcakes...well, they were dry.  I thought the cake was dry, and the frosting was fine, but not great.  

I don't know if Warren has re-calibrated his cake recipe, or if Cakelove was just having a good day, but when my team came to evaluate the cupcakes for the bracket, they were good.  Really good.

As per the bracket, we ordered three "control" cupcakes (vanilla cake, chocolate frosting), as well as one salted caramel cupcake, and one maple butterscotch.  Cakelove uses a very traditional butter cream, and I had to restrain my team from eating the cupcakes right away -- the frosting needs at least 20 minutes to come to room temperature or it just tastes like butter.  

But once we cut in and tasted, we really liked them!  The cakes were more moist than I remember, and the frosting, though not particularly thick, was rich and well-flavored.  The maple butterscotch in particular was a big hit, though I was partial to the salted caramel.

At $3.25, these were priced about average, and were average-sized.  Overall, these cupcakes scored above-average on cake, size and amount of frosting, with average or low scores for icing and creativity.  One person even checked the 'yes' box on the all-important "this cupcake makes me want to say 'do me on this cupcake'" criteria, a sentiment we all came close to sharing. 

Comments from my team included "do me with butterscotch," "maple butterscotch very good, salty caramel good too," "maple butterscotch almost 'do' worthy," "control - buttery, cake good, maple butterscotch - incredible, best yet," "did not like it," "big, but control was too buttery,""pretty good, almost do me good," and "cake moist!".

The overall score for Cakelove? A 3.6!  0.5 points more than Couture Cupcakes!!  Cakelove advances to the Tasty Two!!  

Who will make it from the Western Bracket??  Check back to find out!

Thing 141: Couture Cupcakes at ACKC

It's Cupcake Madness! Click here for the bracket and the judging sheet. Check out previous contender Red Velvet.

Artfully Chocolate Kingsbury Confections (ACKC) sells local cupcake brand Couture Cupcakes, which are, as the name might imply, rather fancy. So fancy in fact, that we couldn't order a control cupcake (ie, a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing). Did this set Couture back? Not necessarily. But my team is hard to please, and once again their socks were not knocked off.

This time, absent the control cupcake, we ordered a vanilla cupcake with pink cinnamon icing, a chocolate cupcake with raspberry frosting and two chocolate cupcake/brownies with whipped cream and caramel.

The vanilla and cinnamon one ended up actually being my favorite of the three -- the icing was light and airy, a highly whipped cinnamon-flavored buttercream. The chocolate cake with raspberry struck me as too sweet, and the chocolate brownie one was dense and rich -- delicious, but not a perfect cupcake, more like a good brownie. Also, at $3.65 these were the most expensive cupcakes on our crawl.

Comments from my team include "too sweet, icing was light and delicious," "cinnamon was the worst, they got better," "don't like cinnamon, the chocolate and raspberry was dry," "didn't like choice of flavors, but liked chocolate/caramel," "liked the cinnamon frosting, cake was moist for vanilla," "prefer cake type and icing type," "enjoyed chocolate caramel," and "eh..." These cupcakes scored low on value and size, and earned slightly above average marks for cake and icing.

The overall score was a 3.1 -- 0.6 more than Red Velvet! Couture Cupcakes advances to the Fabulous Four, set to face off with CakeLove...

Thing 140: Red Velvet

It's Cupcake Madness! Click here for the bracket and the judging sheet.

Red Velvet is a closet-sized store front facing out to 7th Street in Chinatown, with a towering cupcake poster inside the entrance, a pastry case full of cupcakes, a small bar that looks out on the street, and not much else. Luckily, they are affiliated with the new Tangysweet next door, and you can take your cupcakes there for sitting and staying if you are so inclined.

But what of the cupcakes?

As per the rules we set up for the cupcake crawl, we ordered two 'control' cupcakes (vanilla cake with chocolate icing), and then ordered the titular red velvet cupcake and a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting.

Sad to say, utterly average.

The vanilla cake had a coconut taste going on, and was kind of crumbly. The chocolate frosting was a dense ganache, and there wasn't all that much of it. The red velvet was a bit better, and the chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting was delicious -- the frosting light and salty/sweet, the cake chocolatey and moist with mini chocolate chips strewn throughout.

Comments from my team included "not a fan," "not a fan of control, but enjoyed red velvet and peanut butter frosting," rather have a milk chocolate frosting," "chocolate peanut butter delicious," "peanut butter icing delicious, red velvet good, cake mediocre." Overall, Red Velvet scored low marks for value and size, and average marks for cake, icing and creativity. The composite score was 2.5 out of five.

Will that be enough to beat Couture Cupcakes to make it to the Fabulous Four?? Check back to find out!

Cupcake Madness!

Over the past year there has been a glut of cupcakeries opening, and I have meant for the longest time to get to the bottom of which one is best.  For once and for all, who has the best cupcake?!  Can Baked & Wired hold its own?  Or do the upstarts Georgetown Cupcake, Hello Cupcake and Red Velvet have it beat?  Can CakeLove, DC's original cupcakery and the one that spawned all the imitators, still compete?  Or has the old-timer been replaced?  

There was only one way to answer my questions:  CUPCAKE MADNESS!  I gathered up nine committed friends, mapped out a course and wrote up some basic judging criteria.  

Folks, I made a bracket.  And if you scroll down, you can also see the judging sheet.  You, too, can play along!!  Cupcake Bracket

Publish at Scribd or explore others: photo picture

 

The bracket turned out to be a tiny bit flawed -- I'll get to that at the end.  But in the meantime, I'll be posting for the next couple weeks about each cupcakery, our thoughts and notes, our likes and dislikes, leading up to the tasty two, and ultimately, the Cupcake Champion.  Who will take home the title?!  Place your bets in the comments.