Thursday, December 4, 2008

Couture Cupcakes at ACKC DC

When I needed to pick up some chocolates yesterday for my mom's birthday, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and swing by ACKC's DC location to check out their selection of Couture Cupcakes! If you've never been, the store is really adorable with plenty of seating and sweet goodies.
Towards the back of the shop there is a dessert window, with a little display case on top for Couture Cupcakes' selections. I'm assuming their selections change every so often, but this week they had:
Savannah: Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
Duracelle: Carrot, Walnut & Pineapple cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Betsy: Chocolate Cake with a Vanilla Buttercream
Bella Lucia: Vanilla Cake with Nutella center topped with Stracclatella Buttercream
Antoinette: Chocolate Cake topped with Raspberry Buttercream
Pamela: Chocolate Brownie Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and a Caramel swirl
Mrs. Kimery: Pumpkin Spice Cake with Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Frosting
Back in August Paula Domenge, owner of Couture Cupcakes, was kind enough to give me a sample of seven different flavors. Of those seven flavors, Pamela was the only one from the group above that was in the sample. The rich, moist and gooey mixture of chocolate and caramel made it not only my favorite flavor of all the samples, but it was one of the best cupcakes I'd ever had. So of course when the Washington Post's team of taste testers for the paper's recent Cupcake Wars gave the Pamela Cupcake a less than satisfactory rating, calling it "gummy and underdone," I was in total disagreement
All that being said, when I walked in the store yesterday afternoon and saw Pamela sitting there in the display case, I had to do another taste test. After one bite all I can say is...WHAT HAPPENED?!? This cupcake was both gummy and dry, nothing like the delicious chocolatey goodness I tasted almost 4 months ago. Was it because the Pamela I had was fresh, and maybe this one had been sitting for a while?? Whatever the case, this was not a cupcake I would eat again. I am so bummed out!!
I'm not ready to write off Couture Cupcakes compeltely though. Based on my taste test from this past summer I know that Paula has good cupcakes; if you read the results of the Washington Post's Cupcake Wars, you'll see they agree. I regret not picking up another flavor, like Savannah (which the Cupcake Wars taste test team gave a good review) or Mrs. Kimery. I'd like to know if the Pamela's poor taste was a just a fluke, or if that's what's to be expected of ACKC's selection of Couture Cupcakes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought the same thing. So I called Couture and asked why the brownie cupcakes and another flavor had changed. The woman told me that ACKC freezes the cupcakes a lot which changes the cupcakes. I did order some for a bridal shower on Saturday directly from Couture, the raspberry one. It was awesome. So I think it's the freezing.

Anonymous said...

Funny enough- their Brownie cupcake is the one I tried at Cafe Tu O Tu (they used to sell them there) based on your recommendation. It was AMAZING. I had to have it again so I had a group of friends go to ACKC one night...sad to say it wasn't as good and I too got in touch with Paolo, the owner and she also mentioned something about them being frozen...none the less, I wish ACKC didn't do this! That brownie is amaaaaaaaaaazing, I'm going to order straight from Paolo to get my fix

Danielle said...

Ahhh, yup! The freezer will do that unfortunately. That's good to know she hasn't changed the recipe though, that would have been a big disappointment!! Because you're right, unfrozen, it is amazing!

Anonymous said...

Its look amazing,I wish I would eat it sometime