Express' Best of 2009 Competition!

Tired of looking at these "Best Of" competitions and seeing Cakelove round the top 3? Me too! Does it confuse and anger you? Me too! So don't forgot to check out the Best of 2009 Competition and vote for your favorites! (Most importantly, your favorite cupcake spot and favorite bakery).

From now through Friday, Oct. 16, you can vote for your favorite D.C. area people, places and things in more than 100 categories; the finalists in those categories were chosen by Express readers last month. You can (and should) comment, too -- they want to hear why you love what you love. The winners will be announced Friday, Nov. 6, in a special issue of Express.

The finalists in the Cupcake Category are: Baked & Wired, Cakelove, Georgetown Cupcake, Hello Cupcake, and Red Velvet Cupcakery.

The finalists in the Bakery Category are: Best Buns, Cakelove, Firehook, Le Pain Quotidien, and Sticky Fingers Bakery (Best Buns and Sticky Fingers both serve up cupcakes).

Go Vote!!

More on Red Velvet Cupcakery

And here’s Red Velvet Cupcakery’s second mention of the week in the Washington Post Express. The great reviews continue!

Photo from Express Night Out Eating Around Article

The Velveteers

Canada Gordon has always had a crush on cupcakes, and Ceiba's original pastry chef, David Guas, shares a similar affinity for the dainty desserts. They've opened Red Velvet, a lovely little place to spend a date and grab a sugar high.

Try the Morning Call, a chocolate espresso cake with mocha butter cream. Devil's food-chocolate buttermilk cake with bittersweet chocolate ganache is sinfully satisfying; the Peanut Butter Cup, a chocolate chocolate-chip cake dolloped with salted peanut butter frosting is a textural marvel of sweet and salty. And the Southern Belle is the, well, belle of the ball: A red velvet cake with whipped cream cheese frosting; it's simple, elegant and too scrumptious for words.

Red Velvet Cupcakery 675 E St. NW; 202-347-7895.

Red Velvet Red Velvet Red Velvet!

Red Velvet Cupcakery is everywhere! The new cupcakery has had two mentions in the Washington Post Express this week - I’ve attached one below, and I’ll post the second one here in a minute.

Photo by Jonathan Ernst - Washington Post

DINE&DASH
The Trend Is Marching On: Red Velvet
SERIOUSLY, WHEN IS the cupcake trend going to end? Not that cupcakes are objectionable — how can anyone truly oppose tiny islands of delicious? — but there is a recession on, and those tiny islands often cost upwards of $3 each. And yet the cupcake juggernaut does not appear to be slowing, with last month's opening of Red Velvet, a new cupcake-only spot in Penn Quarter.

But don't hold your flagging enthusiasm for cupcakes against Red Velvet. The cake is moist, the frosting is intensely but not off-puttingly flavorful. Think vanilla cupcakes are boring? Try their vanilla bean cupcakes, whose frosting carries just a touch of bourbon. The red velvet flavor — avoiding the characteristically sanguine color in favor of a more appetizing burgundy — is light and tasty, with cream cheese frosting that won't leave you gasping for water, milk, anything to cut the sweetness.

Red Velvet's tiny counter top is only long enough for four or five people to gaze out on 7th St., but it's a lovely place to relax for a glass of milk — and yes, in an incredibly smart move, they do sell milk. Nothing else goes quite so well with cupcakes.

Even if the ubiquity of cupcakes irritates you, you won't be able to hold it against Red Velvet. The food is wonderful, the service is fast and chatty and if you're with a cupcake-hater you can send them to the adjacent TangySweet for their mid-day sugar fix.

Posted By Fiona Zublin at 12:00 AM on January 23, 2009

Although I’m not a fan of the cupcake hating (it’s times like these where people can truly appreciate the little things like a cupcake!), this is a pretty good review!

Cupcakes Cupcakes Cupcakes

Cupcakes have taken over the newspapers today, in both the Express and in the Washington Post. I'll get to the third week of the Cupcake Wars in the next posting; this post is in regards to "The Lion of the Dessert" article in the Express this morning.

It seems that Fiona Zublin, whose articles I've blogged about before, took a cue from the Post Food Editor Joe Yonan and conducted a cupcake taste test of her own. Zublin and a team of taste testers scooped up some cupcakes from Cakelove, Georgetown Cupcake, and Hello Cupcake to pit them against eachother in a battle of the tastiest. And no surprise here, Hello Cupcake came out on top. Here's what Zublin had to say:

CAKELOVE
"The beloved D.C. stalwart did not fare well with testers. The frosting (even peanut butter frosting, which generally has the same consistency as, well, peanut butter) was runny, and the cake - particularly the vanilla cake - was dry and too crumbly."

GEORGETOWN CUPCAKE
"This was D.C.'s first all-cupcakes, all-the-time joint, and the store has gotton less crowded than it once was. Its selection is still lovely, though, with rich, thick cake and a tasty, gooey frosting. The carrot cake was the best of the bunch (if you like carrot cake, that is)."

HELLO CUPCAKE
"This is the newest addition to D.C.'s cupcake cavalcade, but it has appeal in more than just novelty: These are the best cupcakes around. Their flavors are creative, and the cake bits are moist and tasty. But the real triumph in these cupcakes is the frosting - it's intensely flavorful and rich without making you feel ill. It never overpowers the rest of the cupcake, which is unexpected, because each cake comes topped with a mound of frosting the size of K2."

Zublin's reviews reaffirm the general consensus of the three shops, don't you think? Speaking of Georgetown Cupcake, I have heard they've got a new seasonal flavor, Caramel Apple, which is supposed to be pretty sweet and tasty. Anyone tried it yet? While you know I'm more of a Hello Cupcake than Georgetown Cupcake girl, I will be on the lookout for Gtown's Gingerbread cupcake this December!

Cupcakes in the Express

Yea yea, everyone keeps calling cupcakes a trend. I guess it's better cupcakes are more often referred to as a trend than as a fad, as trends are interpreted to have more staying-power than a fad. But come on people, cupcakes have been around forever! How can food be a trend? Dessert never goes out of style!

The Washington Post's Express ran an article on Friday last week, "Cupcakes - Trendy But So Delicious." Express writer Fiona Zublin talked about the "newest cupcake hot spot," Hello Cupcake. The good thing is that she gave it a nice review! She says Hello Cupcake's De Lime and De Coconut is her favorite flavor, calling it "moist and perfect," as she claims it's "nothing like the grainy stuff available at some other D.C. bakeries, where frosting is king and the cake beneath is an afterthought." I would have to agree with that. She raves about the frosting too.

Nice review, Fiona, but I'm sure Penny Karas and other cupcakery owners didn't necessarily enjoy reading the glowing review and then seeing that you finished the article by calling them a "twee trend!"