Diamonds & Chocolate at Mervis!

I love how Mervis Diamond Importers decks out desserts with diamonds (see my past posting on their $60K cupcake), and wanted to let the readers know about this fun event at Mervis this Wednesday evening.

Attendees at the Diamonds and Chocolate event will be drizzling fresh fruit in their diamond-topped chocolate fountain and perusing Mervis' selection of jewelry at reduced prices. It's going to be a night to remember. (Or forget, maybe. They'll have their mixologists whipping up a chocolate martini!)

Wednesday, July 22. 4:30-7:30
1700 K St. NW.
Washington, DC
202.293.0600

Click here to RSVP for the event!

Free Cupcake with Dinner at Urbana!

Urbana, the hip DC restaurant & wine bar, kicked off it's 3rd birthday celebration tonight with a DJ, sparkling wine specials, and week of specials and freebies. What does this mean to you? Free cupcakes!

Everyone who dines at the restaurant and becomes a Facebook fan during the week of July 20 will get a free cupcake! All you have to do is show your fan confirmation on a mobile phone or printout. Thanks NBC4 for the heads up!

Urbana is located at 2121 P St. N.W. in Dupont Circle.

Washingtonian Mag Best of DC Party!

On Wednesday night I attended Washingtonian Magazine's Best of Party - what a GREAT time! Definitely worth the ticket price. The portions are plentiful and the drinks are strong!

Georgetown Cupcake and Baked & Wired were both at the event. Since Georgetown Cupcake was obviously bringing cupcakes, Baked & Wired decided it would be a good opportunity to show customers that they do carry other delicious desserts, so they brought their tasty brownies and pies and were doing drawings to give away some cakes!

Me with Teresa, owner of Baked & Wired

The spread at Baked & Wired's table

Posing with Sophie Lamontagne, who owns Georgetown Cupcake with her sister Katherine Kallinis.

Cupcake Heaven? Georgetown Cupcake's spread at the event

Georgetown Cupcake's Peanut Butter Fudge Cupcake was SO good. The chocolate cake was warm and rich, and was filled with a warm and gooey fudge sauce. Mike had the Red Velvet, Georgetown Cupcake's signature flavor, and loved it!

Georgetown Cupcake Weekly Giveaway

Want to know how to make all your coworkers love you? Drop off your business card at Georgetown Cupcake every Wednesday in July & August for a chance to win a "Cupcake Break" for your office. 4 dozen cupcakes - flavors of your choice - delivered on the day of your choice!

Great American Bake Sale

Georgetown Cupcake will be at the Tenleytown Whole Foods Great American Bakesale event on Sunday, July 19th. Come out and support the community to help end childhood hunger! The event takes place all day.

Speaking of the Great American Bake Sale, mark your calendars for July 19th and tune into Food Network at 10pm for the Ace of Cakes season premiere featuring Duff Goldman, Great American Bake Sale National Spokesperson, and the Charm City Cakes team as they hold a Great American Bake Sale of their own in Baltimore, MD.

The S'Mores Cupcakes are BACK!

I almost don't even want to post this because I want them ALL for myself...Lola S'Mores Cupcakes are back! Seriously people, these are SO incredibly good, you don't know what you're missing until you have one. These cupcakes are a seasonal item at Lola's, so make sure you go and get one, or ten, before they're gone.

The S'Mores cupcakes are made up of Lola's Milk Chocolate cake, frosted with their rich chocolate ganache and then frosted again with a vanilla-infused marshmallow frosting. After all that, it's topped with graham cracker bits. When you take a bite into this thing, it's like you've entered a rich chocolatey gooey marshmallow heaven.

Go get one! Now! They're available in the bakeshop and this weekend at her farmer's market stand.

Georgetown Cupcake's Future Location

Behold! The future location of Georgetown Cupcake - Bethesda. Georgetown's second location will be at 4834 Bethesda Avenue (in Bethesda Row). It's weird because the address is skipped - the stores go right from 4832 to 4836 - but 4836 is a large space and is currently vacant. So maybe they be cutting that space in half? Who knows.

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.

Hill Country BBQ & Cupcakes

Looks like Hill Country - the Chelsea NY barbecue joint - is coming to Penn Quarter in July 2010. Why do I care, you ask? Because they've got PB&J, German Chocolate, and Red Velvet cupcakes! Hill Country-goers will be able to enjoy their cupcakes with the restaurant's signature slow-smoked brisket and ribs, Big Red cream soda all the way from Waco, and Blue Bell ice cream. Marc Glosserman - the Bethesda native who founded the restaurant - plans to dish up live music, including country, blues and Southern rock. Really, is there anything better than country music, barbecue, and cupcakes? I think not!

Hill Country will be located at 410 Seventh St. NW.

Best of Washington 2009

It’s that time of year again – time for the Verizon Wireless Best of Washington!

For the past 30 years, Washingtonian Magazine has invited readers to vote for the best people, places, and services in the area. Readers rate everything from pizza parlors, pot stickers, and cocktails to Congress members. Washingtonian editors weigh in too with their picks of the best Washington has to offer.At the Verizon Wireless Best of Washington Party, Washingtonian invites the winners to set up booths and serve up their best. In 2008 more than 1,200 guests, celebrities, restaurateurs, and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society supporters filled the National Building Museum to sample, sip, and socialize.

Both Georgetown Cupcake and Baked & Wired will be serving up their sweets at the annual party.

The Verizon Wireless Best of Washington 2009 party is on Wednesday, July 15, from 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM at the National Building Museum in DC. Tickets are available for purchase on the event page, which you can access by clicking here. There are two types of tickets available:

VICE PRESIDENTIAL TICKET, $95: 7pm admission to cuisine from more than 50 of Washingtonian's very best restaurants and unlimited beer, wine, and cocktail from the areas best bars and lounges.

PRESIDENTIAL TICKET, $125: Offers early admission to the Best of Party. Skip the lines and gain early access to all the best food and drink when you arrive at 6pm – a full hour before the VP Ticket Holders. Ticket price includes a Limited Edition Best of Washington Event T-Shirt.

Butttttt after a lengthy Google search, I found a couple discount codes to save you some money on the ticket prices. For the VP ticket, use the code DC1BEST to get $10 off, and for the Prez ticket, use the code LLS1 to get $30 off per ticket!

For a full list of restaurants, bakeries & brews at the event, click here.

Red, White & Blue Cupcake Tower

How great is this??? My vote for dessert displays this 4th of July are definitely the Cupcake Kabobs and THIS - a delicious and festive cupcake tower!

Fancy Flours, one of my fave websites for buying fun baking stuff, shows us how to make to make this great display. I've copied and pasted the instructions for you below! If you do make it this weekend, be sure to send a picture!

You will need:

1 large styrofoam cone (at a local craft store) and around 24 3-6″ wooden dowels, plus several toothpicks for the fruit.

5 cups fresh fruit (red strawberries, raspberries and blueberries preferred)

Cupcakes can be baked and frosted as usual, however a more dense cupcake batter will work better for attaching to the tower. Try using a pound cake, chocolate cake or carrot cake for best results. Lightly frost with buttercream or cream cheese frosting using a star tip. The heavier the frosting, the more likely it will not stay connected to the tower as it will be side heavy.

Affix cupcakes to tower by first sticking the wooden dowels firmly into the styrofoam tower. Place them evenly apart, making sure to be able to affix fruit in between each cupcake. Attach cupcakes to wooden dowels by pushing cupcake onto dowel (you may need to cut a small hole in the bottom of the cupcake wrapper (or don’t use any wrappers to avoid this step).

Now poke each strawberry, blueberry or other piece of fruit with a toothpick and push toothpick into styrofoam, in between each cupcake. You can make fruit kabobs as well and place a few pieces of fruit onto each toothpick. Make sure to completely fill up styrofoam tower so there is no syrofoam showing. Add sprigs of fresh mint to complete the look.

Maryland Cupcake Wars

Anyone see the Recession Fuels Cupcake Wars article in the Gazette last week? Looks like Maryland cupcake competition is heating up as the Bethesda location of Georgetown Cupcake is coming soon. You can read the whole piece by clicking here, but I’ve taken the main points below for you:

Competition to create — and sell — the ultimate cupcake is heating up in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region, as the culinary craze gains steam in metropolitan areas, driven by the recession.

Georgetown Cupcake, which jump-started the movement locally in 2008 when it opened a location in Washington, is preparing for its second location in Bethesda this fall.

"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.
Competition in Bethesda is growing stiff with the arrival of Georgetown Cupcake, which sells thousands of cupcakes each day and employs more than 60 part-time workers at its current location, LaMontagne said.

The renewed interest in cupcakes has brought in many customers who order cupcakes in lieu of traditional wedding cakes, she said.

Not too far from Georgetown Cupcake's proposed site in downtown Bethesda, Leslie Goldman-Poyourow is using the cupcake allure to supplement her creative cake shop, Cakes by Leslie. She said customers are often coming in to sample the miniature treats and then buying party cakes, too.

"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.

Georgetown Cupcake July Flavors

Looks like I was mistaken (luckily!) about Georgetown Cupcake's Strawberry Cupcake flavor ending in June. The cupcakery will have this flavor as well as BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE (how good does that sound????) for the month of July, along with 4th of July themed cupcakes. I will definitely be heading over there to try out this Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcake...mmmm!