Drop by Georgetown Cupcake's Bethesda location this Sunday between 12pm - 6pm to celebrate their Grand Opening and to snag a free cupcake! They'll be handing out the free cupcakes - one per person - all day.
4834 Bethesda Avenue - be there!
Either way, it will be located between Organic To Go (4832) and Assaggi (4838). About a 5 minute walk from my office! The picture below is just a shot of the street if you're standing outfront of the store. Very nice location. 
"We are opening our second shop in response to the overwhelming demand we've had from our customers in Montgomery County," said Sophie LaMontagne, who owns the high-end Georgetown bakery with her sister, Katherine Kallinis. "We think cupcakes have, and will continue to be, an affordable treat, even during recessions." Cupcake businesses are doing better than most bakeries during the recession because smaller treats tend to sell better during hard times, said Paul Sapienza, vice president of operations for Retail Bakers of America in McLean, Va. "People like to award themselves with little treats that don't cost much," Sapienza said.
"I think that people are so used to eating very low-quality food in general, and around here, there's not that many great bakeries. Some of these new places actually have a great taste, but they have to keep the quality up," she said. Goldman-Poyourow, who has owned her cake shop for 14 years and just moved it from Gaithersburg in October, said the cupcake market is becoming oversaturated, with many people "hyper-focused" on them. She suspects the trend may die down soon, with Maryland on the tail end of the craze. "There will always be something new," she said.I was going through some old magazines tonight, and when looking through my December Bethesda Magazine, saw an advertisement saying that Just Cakes Cupcakes are now available at the Chevy Chase Supermarket. Has anyone seen them there?
Wedding Cupcakes photo from Just Cakes Website
UPDATE: Looks like this is no longer the case! Thanks to reader Kate, I've found out Chevy Chase Supermarket used to carry Just Cakes Cupcakes, but no longer does. Bummer! Thanks for the tip, Kate!
Fancy Cakes by Leslie over on Bethesda Row recently opened up, so around noon I bundled up in my down coat and braced the cold winter wind as I made my way over to the shop. I chose from a wide variety of cupcakes, and ended up picking out four flavors: Carrot Cake, Pumpkin, Red Velvet, and Brownie.
The first thing I noticed when I bit into the Carrot Cake was that the Cream Cheese frosting had a gooey/stringy consistency...what in the world? And not only was the texture weird, the taste was off too. Cream cheese frosting is very easy to do, so I'm not sure how they got this wrong. The cake didn’t even taste like carrot cake, it had this weird blandness to it that I can’t even pinpoint. The lady at the counter suggested this one to me when I had her pick out her favorite, and she was raving how it was all full of great spices like nutmeg. I don’t even taste any spices. This is probably one of the worst carrot cakes I’ve had.
The Pumpkin was better than the carrot cake, but that’s not saying much. The only thing that made it better was that you could actually taste a flavor to it – the pumpkin. Georgetown Cupcake’s and Hello Cupcake’s Pumpkin are both worlds better than this. Really it tasted like something I’d expect from an amateur baker, and seeing as to how Leslie is a very seasoned baker, there’s no excuse.
A slight improvement, the Red Velvet cupcake was decent. The cake was incredibly sweet though, sweeter than any Red Velvet I’ve had before. Like the Red Velvet cupcake I had from Starbucks last week, I can compare this to a sugar cookie. However if I had a choice between Starbucks Red Velvet and Leslie’s Red Velvet, I would 100% of the time go for Starbucks. This just came up short, not to mention it unfortunately used the same weird cream cheese frosting as the pumpkin and carrot cake.
Lastly, the Brownie Cupcake. What a disappointment. I’ve had better brownies out of a box from the grocery store. The kind of rich, gooey chocolateness you expect from a brownie was completely lacking, and it even bordered on dry. The chocolate frosting was very cocoa-ish and thick, and I think it could have used a little more sweetness to balance out the heavy cocoa flavor.
In summary: Leslie is an amazing decorater, one of the most talented I’ve seen. But where were those skills in decorating these cupcakes?? Not only were they not pretty, but they were sloppily made as they clearly baked out over the edge of the liner, which in turn made the edges hard. And while we’re talking about actual baking, I'd like to go out on a limb here and say that she has a lot to learn. The cakes are all lacking in flavor and creativity. Considering the gourmet price ($3.25/cupcake, the brownie one is $4), there is nothing gourmet about them. When I first bought the cupcakes and saw the minimal dollop of frosting, I was a little dismayed, but considering the taste of the cream cheese frosting, that was probably best. I can't help but wonder, is this what her expensive designer wedding cakes taste like??? I sure hope not, because you'd have to pay me to serve this at an event. I won’t be wasting a dime on any cupcakes from Fancy Cakes by Leslie ever again.
Aside from carrying great cupcake-related items, Creative Parties is an invitations and event planning company. Their store on Woodmont sells a lot of great knick-knacks though, like Kate Spade stationary and cell phone holders, Rhinestone-studded wine stoppers, cherry-blossom printed sticky notes, etc. etc. Definitely wander in if you're ever in the area!
However, I'm wondering if these are the same cupcakes I had heard about before...there were only two flavors, Chocolate Fudge and Vanilla Buttercream, and on the little signs was a Cheesecake Factory Logo. While it's news to me that Cheesecake Factory makes cupcakes, I thought the cupcakes I had heard about in the past were Starbucks originals. Interesting...
Anyway, I decided to go with the Chocolate Fudge. These cupcakes are Jumbo size, but still decently priced at $1.95. The frosting was good. It had a firm outer shell, but once you forked it, underneath laid fudgy goodness. The chocolate cake was egh, nothing special. The parts closest to the wrapper were a little dry, but the center was moist. I will say that once I cut it in half an bit into the middle, the combination was pretty good. That being said though, I probably wouldn't have it again. The frosting was good but the cake missed the mark. And since it was a jumbo cupcake, that's a whole lotta cake. While it's better than your average grocery store cupcake, it's definitley not gourmet. I didn't exactly have high expectations for a Starbucks dessert, but I did have higher expectations for a Cheesecake Factory dessert. Maybe they should just stick to cheesecake...!
It was a vanilla cupcake with raspberry frosting. The vanilla cake was very sweet, buttery, and crumbly. The frosting in my opinion tasted a little crisco-ish...kind of oily. At the same time, it was light...melting in your mouth, but didn't really have much of a berry flavor to it. I could imagine this cupcake being much better with a chocolate frosting. Overall, while I thought the cake was good on it's own, the combination of frosting and cake was a little too sweet for my tastebuds. I'm still really interested however to try more of her custom flavors (aside from the basic chocolates and vanillas). Just for kicks, I bit off a little piece of the fondant adornment on top...it wasn't awful, but it wasn't good either. I couldn't fathom eating an entire cake covered in that stuff!
