'Washington Post' Staffers Ate 31 Pounds of Cupcakes
Photograph from georgetowncupcake.com
After eight weeks, a team of four brave Washington Post souls completed a little thing called Cupcake Wars, where week-by-week they sampled any cupcake they could get their paws on inside the Beltway. The winner: the chocolate ganache cupcake from Georgetown Cupcake, a spot that's only nine months old but already sells cupcakes to cultish proportions (4,000 on Saturdays).
Editor Joe Yonan—who I saw recently and miraculously looked exactly the same size—came up with a Ten Commandments of Cupcakes. Notable laws include:
1. Learn to walk before you run. Perfect the classic vanilla and chocolate cakes with complementary frostings before you step up to other simple combinations, and long before you try something like Summer Peach Meringue Pie Cupcake. Actually, never try Summer Peach Meringue Pie Cupcake...
3. Don't overbake...If you have cupcakes in the oven right now, go check them, because they're probably done—or overdone.
6. Respect your vanilla extract, and respect your chocolate. Vanilla is a flavor, not a synonym for "white."
Related
Serious Eats City Guide: Washington, D.C.
The Attributes of a Great Cupcake, by Ed Levine
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5 Comments:
I think Georgetown Cupcake is overrated. The cake is dry and the frosting is pasty and oversweetened. I have yet to try a few places but I am a fan of Cakelove cupcakes.
rwhip923 at 11:29AM on 11/06/08
Of course, having not made a cupcake in at least 2 years, I will now have to go forth and immediately attempt to make Summer Peach Meringue Pie Cupcake.
Amandarama at 11:56AM on 11/06/08
@rwhip923:
Dry cake with pasty oversweetened frosting? and you *like* Cakelove? Do you realise you just described every overpriced cupcake I ever had from them? (and yes, I did keep trying - chocolate cake is better than vanilla only because dry chocolate is still chocolate, while dry vanilla is sand.)
DTSSer at 1:10PM on 11/06/08
@DTSSer I've just had better experiences with Cakelove in the past but it could vary between locations and such too. But there are plenty of places I have left to try in DC.
rwhip923 at 2:19PM on 11/06/08
Everytime I read about the coveting of cupcakes it makes me giggle.
Grown men saying things like you got more sprinkles on yours than I did.
I wanted more frosting and less cake, or I want more frosting and no cake.
JerzeeTomato at 6:20PM on 11/06/08