mission: cupcake

Two girls. Three days. Twenty-five cupcakes.

In lieu of spending Valentine's Day alone, six states away from my boyfriend, I embarked on a glorious three-day vacation to our nation's capital. I stayed in D.C. with Ashley, who had one last weekend of freedom before beginning a cushy new waitressing job in which she will make $500/night in tips (lucky lady).

I'd been to D.C. once before, mostly making the essential tourist stops. This time was different. This time, there were cupcakes. And what better way to really tour a city than through a cupcake crawl?

Our goal: to visit each major cupcakery in D.C., eating many varieties of cupcakes and rating each one based on an ever-changing, unofficial criterion. From a handful of shops, we hoped a victor would emerge; the best cupcake purveyor in the District.

Disclaimer - Ashley and I are both major sweet tooths; we each crave sugar breakfast, noon and night. This was the perfect activity to occupy our time together. However, a cupcake crawl of such magnitude should not be attempted by the average cupcake fan. As you will read, we each felt quite ill after our journey (SEE: cupcake fatigue, cupcake death) - and this with nearly 43 collective years of champion-level-dessert-consumption to our names. Proceed with caution.

Shops listed in order of our visit

Red Velvet Cupcakery (Penn Quarter) 4 cupcakes, $3.25 apiece


Peanut butter: Chocolate cake with chocolate chips and peanut butter frosting. Cake was too dry, frosting was very peanut-y. Sea salt on top was an interesting addition. BC
Summertime: Lemon cake with coconut frosting. Frosting was overpowered by the cake, which was extremely lemony. Refreshing taste, a little dry. BC
Southern Belle: Red velvet cake, whipped cream cheese frosting. Cake was too crunchy and dry. Frosting was rich but boring. C
Devil's Food: Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Cake was relatively moist, a ganache frosting was rich and mousse-like. Nothing we couldn't make ourselves. BC

Average: BC. Sadly, none of the cupcakes were particularly inspired and most were too dry.

Presidential Cupcakes (Smithsonian American Art Museum) 8 cupcakes (4 each), free of charge

Created by Zillycakes, 5,900 mini vanilla cupcakes of different colors combined to form an image of Presidents Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln. We arrived just in time for the disassembly, which consisted of the artist's volunteers running around with the mini-cupcakes piled high on trays, free to the public.

Obama/Lincoln cupcakes: Vanilla cupcake with fondant topping. These cupcakes were in no way delicious, but 1) were free, and 2) were edible. We each ate at least four.
Average: D for tastiness, A for amazing presentation.

Baked & Wired (Georgetown) 3 cupcakes, $3.50 apiece

Cupcakes aren't Baked & Wired's main attraction (it's a coffee shop and bakery in one), but they were darn good.


Coconut: Vanilla cake with coconut frosting. Cake was dense and tasty. Frosting was thick, creamy and sweet. Coconut is excellent. AB
Red Velvet: Red velvet cake with vanilla frosting. Cake is moist and bright red; nice flavor. The frosting is excellent - creamy and sweet. A/AB
Peanut butter: Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. Drier than other cupcakes, icing is thick but not too sweet; strong and yummy peanut flavor. AB
Average: A/AB - despite its simple flavors, this was my favorite place for cupcakes. The presentation was gorgeous - parchment wrappers, beautiful icing, cute candy hearts. Bonus points for the cafe's calming ambiance and addicting "hippy crack" granola mix.

Georgetown Cupcake (Georgetown) 4 cupcakes, $2.75 apiece

The winner of the Washington Post's Cupcake Wars, Georgetown Cupcake is an extremely popular cupcake destination - we waited in a ridiculously slow-moving line for 45 minutes before entering the store.

Key Lime: Lime cake with lime frosting. Top of the cake a little dry. Pieces of lime in the cake a nice touch. Frosting could use more lime flavor. A/AB
Carrot Cake: Carrot cake with whipped cream cheese frosting. Cake is flavorful and moist, but not overly sweet. Frosting is sweet and heavy. Kind of plain. B
Vanilla with Chocolate: Vanilla cake with chocolate ganache frosting. Frosting is heavy and mouthwatering. Cake is light, balancing out the frosting. AB
Chocolate³: Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting/chocolate sprinkles. We expected more - cake is not very sweet, not quite enough frosting for our liking. Too bland for the name "chocolate cubed" but still a solid cupcake. B

Average: AB/B. We wanted to like these cupcakes more (especially with the wait), but overall they were too bland and frosting wasn't sweet enough.

Love Cafe (U-Street) 2 cupcakes, $3.25 apiece

Strangely, Love Cafe's cupcakes are refrigerated and must be set out for 15 minutes in order to reach room temperature.


Vanilla/vanilla: Vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. A cupcake you could easily re-create yourself. Cake is crumbly and dry and they skimped on frosting. A vanilla cupcake needs to have something more than this. C
Strawberry/chocolate: Chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. Cake crunchy on top, crumbly, strawberry frosting not flavorful enough. Light and forgettable. C

Average: C. The actual cafe was a great place to sit down, order a sandwich and play Bananagrams, but the cupcakes are entirely unremarkable.

Hello Cupcake (Dupont Circle) 4 cupcakes, $3 apiece


Velvet Elvis: Banana cupcake with peanut butter frosting. The peanut butter and banana flavors work so well together. The frosting is piled insanely high and is absolutely delicious. Banana cake is tasty. I loved this cupcake. A/AB
You Tart!: Lemon cake with lemon frosting. A good cupcake, but a tiny bit dry. Lemon sugar on top made it very sweet. Light and refreshing taste. AB
Peanut Butter Blossom: Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. Chocolate cake dry and crunchy near the top. Generous dollop of frosting again, but the flavor combination is not as unique as others. B/BC
Heart of Darkness: Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting/chocolate sprinkles. Cake is crumbly, dry and not chocolatey enough. Ganache icing is rich, but almost too much. "The obligatory chocolate cupcake." BC

Average: B. Scores were across the board, chocolate cakes were too dry and left something to be desired. They opened recently, so maybe they're still honing their trade? Hello Cupcake did have the most fun flavors and a really cute shop.

RESULTS: Overall, our favorites were: Velvet Elvis (Hello Cupcake), Red Velvet (Baked and Wired) and Key Lime (Georgetown Cupcake), but no one place stood out as better than the others with every single offering.

This experience also taught us of the dangers of cupcake binging. Halfway through the contenders at Hello Cupcake, cupcake fatigue set in. Our brains worked slower. Our stomachs didn't like us anymore. We had to pause between cupcakes to drink water and take a breather. After we declared our mission complete, we realized that cupcake fatigue is followed by cupcake death. Both of us felt sick and unable to function for a couple of hours. Apparently, there is a thing as too much sugar, my friends. And it's tragic.

More cupcake pictures? OKAY!

The end!