District of [Columbia] Cupcakes!

I set a goal for myself this semester: to eat at as many of the local cupcake shops as possible. Each neighborhood is home to many “boutique bakeries,” each of which specializes in special flavors, classes, décor and atmosphere. I’m proud to say that in the last 2 months, I’ve had at about a dozen different cupcakes from 5 different cupcakeries.

Taking it from the top, we had the pleasure of visiting Red Velvet in Gallery Place during our orientation back in January. The W&M in Washington staff and our entire class had the opportunity to mix, whip, stir, bake, and learn to frost their signature red velvet “Southern-Belle” flavor. It was a group effort to make over 3 dozen cupcakes, and frosting them put our artistic skills to the test – being an arts-based semester, this was an early start to fully immersing ourselves in the arts scene in Washington. Red Velvet is known for using the freshest, “healthiest” ingredients (albeit it is difficult to find a “healthy” cupcake), including huge blocks of cream cheese for their signature whipped icing. I have since made a trip back to Red Velvet for their “Black Velvet” vegan, gluten-free chocolate cupcake. If I hadn’t read the sign myself, I never would have guessed this rich treat would be vegan AND gluten-free.

Inauguration Day prompted a visit to Georgetown Cupcake, the famed bakery of TLC’s “DC Cupcake” television program. I indulged in yet again another red velvet cupcake, this time decorated with a gold-plated, fondant presidential seal honoring Obama’s re-inauguration. The tiny shop usually has a line down the street and around the corner and offers the cheapest cupcakes in the city ($2.75 each), but I disliked the gritty consistency of the cream cheese frosting when compared to that of Red Velvet. An experience, certainly, but probably not worth huddling in the cold for hours.

A sunny February weekend prompted yet another trip back to Georgetown, this time for some light shopping and a quick stop at Sprinkles. A cramped little shop on K Street, Sprinkles actually originated in LA and is relatively new to the DC cupcake scene. I got the vanilla coconut cupcake, vanilla cake with coconut cream cheese icing lightly dusted in coconut flakes. A bigger cupcake, the cake was moist and fluffy and not overwhelmingly rich. Less than 5 minutes away from rival Georgetown Cupcakes, the shorter line and friendlier atmosphere were enough to make me return a second time, this time for a strawberry cupcake complete with a light coat of strawberry cream cheese frosting.

As the Community Advisor in this semester’s program (a class of all females), I hosted a Valentine’s Day cupcake movie night. We ordered a dozen cupcakes from Hello Cupcake in Dupont Circle, which we divided and sampled together. My favorites were you tart! (lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting), chocolate strawberry (a Valentine’s special, chocolate cake with strawberry icing topped with a chocolate-dipped strawberry), carrot cake (a classic), and samoa (a cupcake spin on America’s favorite girl scout cookie). Between the five of us, we devoured the entire dozen, resulting in a series of stomach aches (I supposed the Chipotle burritos before didn’t help our cause).

Alex, one of my beloved roommates, treated us to yet another dozen cupcakes from Lilly Magilly’s, a bakery in her hometown, Gaithersburg, MD, a suburb of the city.  I scarfed down a Chocolate Ganache, chocolate cake with a generous serving of vanilla icing coated in a dark chocolate shell with a small fondant flower. Up next was a seasonal cupcake, Pumpkin Spice, which was muffin like in texture. It was so delicious I ended up eating a second for breakfast the following morning.

In honor of Roxane’s birthday, the W&M in Washington staff treated us to a mix-matched box of cupcakes. In “luck of the draw” style, I randomly selected a yellow cake cupcake, thinking it might be lemon, a personal favorite. Instead of a citrus treat, the cupcake turned out to be a banana muffin, complete with vanilla cream-cheese frosting. Upon further research, I discovered this was the “Vanilla Gorilla” from Hello Cupcake. Not my personal favorite, but an interesting surprise!

I found myself this past weekend wandering around the Penn Quarter when I stumbled upon Crumbs, a very very small bake shop with very very big cupcakes. For those of you looking for a place to sit and eat cupcakes, Crumbs is not the place to go – there’s only two chairs! After a long process of elimination (the St. Patty’s day cupcakes were hard to resist), I finally picked the “Mudslide” – a chocolate cake cupcake with cappuccino cream filling, frosted with a coffee cream cheese frosting rolled in chocolate chips and topped with Oreo cookie crumbs – quite the chocolately treat! First off, this cupcake was massive.  I quartered it and took it to go, eating it over the course of a few hours. It was incredibly rich (might have been the candy) but the cake itself was fluffy. It was by far the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had – I will be going back ASAP to break from my diet and splurge on another.

With the exception of the snow right now, spring has sprung in the city, meaning the cherry blossoms are finally here! We were lucky enough to get tickets to the opening ceremonies, which included some amazing performances by award winning Japanese pop stars as well as Andy Grammer! The best part came in the form of – you guessed it – cupcakes! Cherry cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake were given to all attendees; a vanilla cake with cherries folded into the batter, topped with cherry cream cheese frosting and a beautiful fondant blossom!

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to eat many more cupcakes in the second half of the semester – I’m also planning on running outside more often now that springtime is here, just so I’m not made of cupcakes!  Upcoming: Baked and Wired, Sticky Fingers, and more!