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!!

Cupcake Eating Contest

Attention Cupcake Monsters! As part of the event lineup for the 3rd Annual Columbia Heights Day, there will be a cupcake eating contest! The contest is being hosted by Sticky Fingers Bakery (the vegan bakery in DC) and I believe to register you must contact Kenny Dubin by emailing him kennydubin@gmail.com.

There will be plenty of other restaurants, artisans, contests and events that day. Columbia Heights Day is being held this Saturday beginning at 10am at Harriet Tubman Elementary School, 3101 13th St. NW, at Irving St. The cupcake eating contest is from 3:30 to 4:15!

Wasington Post Cupcake Taste Test

It looks like Joe Yonan, the Food Editor of the Washington Post, has taken it upon himself to conduct a six-week cupcake taste test in and around the nation's capital in order to find the best cupcake in town. Sounds like a good idea to me!


Sticky Fingers Cupcakes, Photo Credit - The Washington Post (James Thresher)

One of the bakeries Yonan has tried so far is Sticky Finger's Bakery in Columbia Heights (where our DC/Metro Cupcake Group had our second meetup). He says that "Sticky Fingers's cookie cupcake earned high marks for presentation, but the taste just didn't win us over." I would have to agree. When I tried a couple different flavors back in July for our meetup, the cake and the frosting had a very flour-like taste to them and weren't something I would eat again.


Cakelove Cupcakes, Photo Credit - The Washington Post (James Thresher)

The other bakery Yonan has sampled is (gag) Cakelove/Love Cafe (same thing). Yonan tried a couple different flavors, one of which he writes "The thin layer of ganache-like frosting gave this CakeLove cupcake a Boston Creme Pie look, but the dry dessert had nothing else in common with its creamy counterpart." Of the second cupcake he tried, Yonan says "a tart cream-cheese frosting kicked this CakeLove cupcake up a notch. It scored a 4.5 on our 10-point scale." Kicked it up a notch to still score less than 5 out of 10 points? Hahahahaha. That pretty much sums up what everyone has said all along about Cakelove - gross, dry and a waste of money. Yonan also adds that "LoveCafe is hardly generous with its frosting. A thin shmear can hardly quench a dry cupcake."

I like this guy! Stay tuned for more of his cupcake adventures in days to come.

Meetup 2 - Sticky Fingers Bakery

This past Saturday we had our second DC/Metro Cupcake Group Meetup! (By the way, the group is now 103 members strong!) It was held at Sticky Fingers Bakery in DC. Sticky Fingers is a vegan bakery that was voted Best Bakery by the readers of Washington City Paper for their 2008 Best of DC Contest, so we thought it would be a fun and different place to try out.

Despite delays on the metro lines all day, there were about 14 or 15 of us that came out. We staked out our little corner of the shop and sat down with some iced coffee and cupcakes. (You'll have to forgive me...I don't have a lot of pretty cupcake pictures this time as a lot of them came out pretty blurry.)

The first cupcake we tried was the Cookies n Cream. It was a chocolate cake cupcake with a white frosting. The chocolate cake was decent. It was thick and moist, which was good, but the frosting had this flour-like after taste that a lot of the group members didn't like. I mean a frosting that tastes like flour? Blah.

Next up was the Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla Frosting. The frosting here was much better, definitely on the sweeter side compared to the Cookies n Cream frosting, but still with that floury after taste. The vanilla cake, on the other hand, was no good. Very bland and a little on the dry side.

The last one I tried was the Peanut Butter Fudge. The chocolate cake in this cupcake tasted better than the Cookies n Cream version. It was very dark, practically black, and very moist. The frosting on top was good, not sweet but definitely not bland, and had a nice dollop of peanut butter in the center. This one, along with the Almond Creme, were the group favorites. I didn't try the Almond Creme because I was too stuffed from everything else, but if you're ever around Sticky Fingers I would keep these as your go-to flavors.

Other members tried the Raspberry Chocolate, but weren't too crazy about that one either. I wish we had a vegan join us so they could tell us how these cupcakes rank of the list of other Vegan desserts they've tried!

My overall review is that considering Sticky Fingers cupcakes are dairy/lactose-free, egg-free, cholesterol-free, low in saturated fat, and made with soy and non-hydrogenated oils, they didn't turn out too bad. However with all the other fine and delleicious cupcakes in the area, I don't think I'll be returning to Sticky Fingers any time soon. Yes, other bakeries may be higher in fat, but at least I'm getting what I paid for (about $2.75 each).

One more thing before I leave this post, I thought I would see if anyone out there has ever made cupcakes, or any dessert for that matter, that are free of allergin's such as wheat and dairy, etc? One of our group members bakes for children who have severe allergies. She is looking for ideas and as you can imagine it's pretty hard to come up with a dessert recipe that doesn't contain these kind of products. If you know of or have ever used any recipe that's free of these ingredients, please share! Thanks!

DC/Metro Cupcake Group Meetup

I've posted a new meetup for the DC/Metro Cupcake Group! This month we'll be going to Sticky Fingers Bakery in DC. Click here to join the group and come out to the meetup!