5th Annual Cupcakes for a Cause

This week is the 5th Annual Cupcakes for a Cause week! How can you take part? All you have to do is visit a participating bakery from October 20th through 26th and purchase one of their special CancerCare for Kids Cupcakes and you will be helping save a child's life. Participating bakeries in Maryland, DC, and Virginia include:

Georgetown Cupcake
1209 Potomac Street NW
Washington DC 20007

CakeLove
935 Ellsworth Drive
Silver Spring MD 20910

Couture Cupcakes
Potomac MD 20854

The Baltimore Cupcake Company
1433 East Fort Avenue
Baltimore MD 21230

Blackbird Bakery
56 Piedmont Avenue
Bristol VA 24201

Edibles Incredible Desserts
11917 Freedom Drive
Reston VA 20190

Edibles Incredible Desserts
22855 Brambleton Plaza, 103
Brambleton VA 20148

Reese's Cupcakes
14420 Rosebud Road
Chesterfield VA 23838

Roxie's Cupcakes
5521 Forestview Drive
Virginia Beach VA 23455

Don't have time to make it into a bakery this week? Then try to find a minute to hop over to the Cupcakes for a Cause website and send a friend an ecupcake! $1 will be donated for each ecupcake that is sent (up to $10,000). Right now only 947 ecupcakes have been sent, so we have a ways to go! Click here to get started creating your own ecupcake, or selecting a premade one!

If you're a bakery who would like to participate in Cupcakes for a Cause but haven't had a chance to sign up yet, click here to get yourself on the list.

So if you were looking for an excuse to eat some cupcakes, now you've got it! Get out and get yourself a CancerCare for Kids Cupcake!

DC's First Annual Cupcake Contest

Attention Cupcake Lovers! There is a fabulous event taking place this week - DC's First Annual Cupcake Contest! A couple months in the making, the contest is being held at the Washington Club at 15 Dupont Circle this Thursday, September 25, 2008 from 6:30 - 8:30pm.

Some of the entrants include Baked & Wired, Nostalgia Cupcakes (opening later this year in Annapolis), fellow blogger 52 Cupcakes, The Baltimore Cupcake Company, Delaware's own Sweet N Sassy Cupcakes, and many many more!

Just a little background on the contest: There are 3 categories for entry - Professional, Amateur, and Out of Town - and each baker will enter a Chocolate Cupcake with White Icing, a Yellow Cupcake with Chocolate Icing, and a Wildcard (ooooo exciting!). The Cupcakes will be judged on flavor, taste and texture, not on decorating. While standard sized cupcakes are only being made for the judges, most all entrants will be providing mini's for the public to sample.

So if you're not busy on Thursday evening, swing by the Washington Club, sample some cupcakes, and see who's crowned with the "Best Cupcake" title! You can find more details on the contest by visiting the Blonde's I-View blog.

Scanty Cupcake Pajamas

A girlfriend of mine saw these at Nordstrom over the weekend, so I had to share them with you guys!

The pants and boxers come in one color, light blue, and are decked out in cupcakes, cherries, and pinwheels! The pants are $56 and the boxers are $36. The oversized cupcake printed on the tank is sprinkled with smiley faces and peace signs, comes in White, and sells for $40.

You can get it all at Nordstrom by clicking here. I know Neiman Marcus carries Scanty, but couldn't find that set available on their website. However I did find the adorable "Sprinkles Night Tee!" It comes in light blue and has multicolor "It feels so yummy!" cupcake print on the front; it sells for $70.

AND, Neiman's also has this cupcake print Pajama set, on sale for $60 (down from $100)!

Open Invitations Cupcakes

So it was a crazy busy Fourth of July weekend and I didn't get much posting done, but I'm back! And with another review for you!

A friend of mine, knowing that I had yet to sample any cupcakes from Open Invitations in Olney, MD, dropped in on her way home and picked up a variety pack for me. For those that don't know, Open Invitations is a paper store that creates announcements/invites for various events, but they also carry cupcakes from Baltimore Cupcake Company. The cupcakes are actually baked in the Baltimore, MD store and delivered to Open Invitations for sale.

When I dropped by my friend's house to have a little taste test, I was surprised to open the bag and find a Just Cakes sticker on the top of the cupcake box. Does anyone know what the deal with this is??? When did they switch?? I'll have to get to the bottom of this. Anyway, I had never tried any of the flavors in this variety pack from Just Cakes, so it wasn't too big a deal.



The variety pack had 6 different flavors: Lemon, Rum (you can see I accidently stuck my finger in the "R"...), German Chocolate, Red Velvet, Neopolitan, and possibly a Gingerbread flavor? I thought they all had a cute little presentation.

We tried the Lemon Cupcake first. It was very buttery, with a nice lemon flavor with that just right...strong but not overpowering. The icing was very light and tangy. We went for the Rum Cupcake next. The cake itself was very rich and delicious, but the buttercream icing was way too sweet.

Third we tried the German Chocolate. The nuts were a little too big and chunky, but the coconut gave the cupcake some nice flavor. While the cupcake was moist, unlike my past experience with Just Cakes Cupcakes, it was still a little bland in my opinion. The "possibly Gingerbread" cupcake had a strong nutmeg flavoring, and the icing was good and sweet. If you like something with a little spice to it, you will like this cupcake. On to the Red Velvet. Unfortunately, the cake was very thick and very dry, making it pretty hard to chew and swallow. The icing was also too buttery. Definitely not the best Red Velvet I've ever had. And lastly, the Neopolitan. While it was overly crumbly, it was actually pretty good. A very rich cake with well done buttercream frosting, and big chunks of oversized chocolate morsels throughout.

While none of the cupcakes were bad, they weren't GREAT. I will say that my favorite of the bunch was the Lemon, while my friend's favorite was the possibly Gingerbread. The only ones I wouldn't eat again would be the Red Velvet and the German Chocolate.

Open Invitations is located at 17912 Georgia Avenue. If you're in need of a cupcake fix, you should definitely drop in. The only ones I would definitely avoid would be the Red Velvet and the German Chocolate. And if you happen to be in there, try to find out what why they've switched to Just Cakes!