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.

And The Winner of the Cupcake Wars is...

Obama may be taking up the Front Page of all the papers, but Cupcakes took over the front page of the Washington Post's Food Section as they declared a winner for the Cupcake Wars! 8 weeks and 141 cupcakes later, Georgetown Cupcake has been declared the winner.


Georgetown Cupcake's Winning Chocolate Ganache Cupcake
Photo Credit: By James M. Thresher For The Washington Post Photo

In order to determine an ultimate cupcake champion, the Post's team of tasters narrowed it down to 6 bakery finalists and their winning flavors. They were:

1. Georgetown Cupcake: Chocolate Squared, Lava Fudge, Chocolate Ganache, Red Velvet, Chocolate Vanilla, Caramel Apple, Chocolate Cubed, and Lemon Blossom.

2. Baked & Wired: Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate Vanilla (Karen's Birthday Cake) and Texas Sheet Cake.

3. Best Buns Bread Co.: Chocolate Cream Cheese and Chocolate Cream Cheese with Coconut

4. Hello Cupcake: Lemon (You Tart!) and Banana with Vanilla Cream Cheese (Vanilla Gorilla)

5. Chatman's D'Vine Bakery & Cafe: Red Velvet.

6. Couture Cupcake: Savannah (Red Velvet).


Cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake
Photo Credit: By James M. Thresher For The Washington Post Photo

According to Joe Yonan, the Washington Post Food Editor who has been heading the Cupcake Wars these last eight weeks, there was no contest that Georgetown Cupcake was the clear winner. After a final round of tasting, "Georgetown, was the only one in the finals whose average score was higher than in the early rounds. Hello's and Best Buns' scoring was virtually stable, while Baked and Wired, Couture and Chatman's saw their scores drop." "Perhaps not surprisingly, Georgetown, which had the most cupcakes (and the highest scorers) going in, also dominated this last round of scoring. And when the judges compared notes after filling out their evaluation sheets, the question was not whether a Georgetown cupcake would take top honors but which one it would be."

So congratulations to Georgetown Cupcake and their winning flavors! Washington Post Staff Writer Jane Black gave us some details on what the ladies of Georgetown Cupcake go through to keep up with the demand for their treats:

"Co-owners and sisters Sohpie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis, winners of our Cupcake Wars, bake from 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. most days. And though they allow employees to scoop batter into tins and check the ovens, they pipe the frosting on every single cupcake themselves. On average, the store sells between 2,000 and 3,000 cupcakes Tuesdays through Fridays (up from 800 when it opened in February), 4,000 on Saturdays and 2,000 on Sundays." Just think, at that rate they're selling over 835,000 cupcakes a year!

Here's a look at some of the statistics from the contest, via the Washington Post:

AVERAGE CUPCAKE RESULTS
(In Order from Highest to Lowest)

Georgetown Cupcake 7.33
Best Buns Bread Co. 6.70
Baked & Wired 6.44
Hello Cupcake 5.02
Couture Cupcakes 4.94
Buzz 3.36
Just Cakes 2.89
Cakelove 2.83
Chatman’s D’Vine Bakery & Café 2.41
Lavender Moon Cupcakery 2.32
Sticky Fingers 2.12
Pastries by Randolph 2.11
BakeshopDC 1.96
Furin’s of Georgetown 1.73
Baltimore Cupcake Co. 1.04
Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe 0.52

HIGHEST-RATED CUPCAKES (in finals)
(In Order from Highest to Lowest)

Georgetown Cupcake – Chocolate Ganache – 9.58
Georgetown Cupcake – Chocolate Vanilla – 9.55
Georgetown Cupcake – Chocolate Squared 9.17
Georgetown Cupcake – Lemon Blossom – 8.58
Georgetown Cupcake – Red Velvet – 8.50
Georgetown Cupcake – Lava Fudge – 8.30
Georgetown Cupcake – Chocolate Cubed – 8.17
Hello Cupcake – Vanilla Gorilla – 7.92
Hello Cupcake – You Tart! – 7.83
Best Buns – Chocolate/Cream Cheese – 7.75
Best Buns – Chocolate/Cream/Coconut – 7.73
Baked & Wired – Chocolate/Peanut Butter – 7.42
Baked & Wired – Texas Sheet Cake – 6.67
Baked & Wired – Chocolate/Vanilla – 6.67
Georgetown Cupcake – Caramel Apple – 6.50
Chatman’s – Red Velvet – 6.33
Couture Cupcake – Savannah – 6.25

Cupcake Wars - Week II

In yesterday’s edition of the Washington Post, Food Editor Joe Yonan and his team are back, weighing in on two more of the DC/Metro area’s cupcake bakeries. And who’s next in the ring for this week's Cupcake Wars? Buzz Bakery and Pastries by Randolph!

While this week’s contestants fared better than last week’s disappointments, the scores were still nothing to be proud of. First up, Buzz Bakery of Alexandria, Virginia. Of the Buzz cupcakes, here’s what Joe had to say about his team’s taste test:



“We had high hopes, partly because Buzz should get bonus points for such a well-designed box, which protects the contents while allowing easy access. Things started off well enough, with – finally, after last week’s debacle – moist textures and the taste of fresh ingredients. But our affection diminished as we moved through the group, which turned out to be a mixed bag. The biggest mystery: the Bumble Bee cupcake, a cute concept but a muddled combination of flavors.”

Joe and his team claim Vanilla with vanilla frosting as the “best of the bunch,” and Red Velvet as the biggest Buzz loser, as it had “very little flavor” and a “slightly funky taste to the frosting.” Buzz’s score? A 5.5 out of 10. While Buzz now holds the highest score bestowed by Joe’s team upon any cupcake place in the Cupcake Wars, a 5.5 is still flunking! What do you guys think? Is 5.5 accurate?

Next to be thrown into the gauntlet – Pastries by Randolph. This bakery has been an Arlington staple for twenty years now and bakes a wide range of desserts, pastries and other tiny confections. While I’ve never tried a PBR cupcake, I have had a slice of their carrot cake. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad either.

The vanilla and chocolate cupcakes at PBR go for $1.50, while their other flavors like Cappuccino and German Chocolate go for $2.75; more expensive than Buzz! Unfortunately, Joe and the team were not fans. Take a look:



“For the most part, no better than what you’d find in a grade-school cafeteria, and they seemed to have picked up (stale) flavors from the cake. The low point: lemon, which reminded us of Pledge; and orange, which tasted like an Orange Julius. (In other words, artificial).” Ouch!! A “Pledge” cupcake??? Gross.

Joe and the team did like PBR’s Red Velvet, saying that it’s “one of the most substantial cupcakes we’ve tasted so far,” but even with that Pastries by Randolph finished with a disappointing 3.5.

Here’s the Cupcake Wars results thus far:

Buzz – 5.5
Pastries by Randolph – 3.5
Cakelove – 2.8
Sticky Fingers – 2.1

While I can’t comment on Pastries by Randolph as I haven’t tried their cupcakes, I can say that I agree with Joe and the team’s scoring so far. I feel like the scores will begin to improve as they move onto other bakeries like Lavender Moon and Hello Cupcake (which I hope are on the list!) What do you guys think?

More on the Cupcake Wars

Earlier this week I did a post about the six week taste test being conducted by Food Editor Joe Yonan over at the Washington Post. Click here for a link to the article than ran in yesterday's Post, which mentions Delleicious DC!

When I originally posted that blog entry, I thought it was Jim Thresher who was conducting the oh-so-tasty-test, but as I found out from yesterday's article it's Joe Yonan, who's work I've referenced before like in my post about the cupcakes at Organic to Go! Anyway, I just wanted to clarify since the Cupcake Wars are Joe's brainchild, so I thought he deserved credit :)

That being said, here's an excerpt from yesterday's article on how the six week taste test is being done - "[we're] taste-testing and scoring the range of cupcakes from two bakeries a week, choosing one from each as our favorite. (For the budget-conscious, we're also weighing them and calculating the price per ounce.) Then, after visiting a dozen places, we'll stack up the favorites in a final round of tasting and pick an overall winner: Washington's best cupcake." Click here to read the rest of the article, where Joe breaks down everything about Week 1's bakeries: Cakelove and Sticky Fingers. Through a nifty little chart, Joe fills readers in on the story behind each bakery, their range of flavors, the cupcake prices (and price per ounce), size, and taste, as well as what he thinks is the "Best of the Bunch." It doesn't get more detailed than that!

Stay tuned to the Washington Post and the blog to see what Joe and his team think of DC's hottest cupcake spots!