Lion of the Dessert: Rating D.C.'s Cupcakes

JOURNALISM IS a tough gig. We have to go undercover, posing as Playboy bunnies and security guards. And on some assignments — like this one — we have to eat cupcakes.

You see, our fair city has recently fallen prey to a cupcake craze, with the opening of two new cupcakeries since February — Georgetown Cupcake and Hello Cupcake. So we decided to see whether these new cupcakes were truly superior to the old D.C. standby, Cakelove. We gathered warily around ominous square boxes decorated with pink and beige stickers. And then, the delicious carnage began.

» 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. The only popular cupcake of the batch was the German chocolate, which has delicious coconut to redeem its sub-par frosting. After the testing, our sad cake-a-teers concurred: Cakelove was a disappointment. Le petit gateau est mort, vive le petit gateau.

» GEORGETOWN CUPCAKE
This was D.C.'s first all-cupcakes, all-the-time joint, and the store has gotten less crowded than it once was. Their selection is still lovely, though, with rich, thick cake and a tasty, gooey frosting.

The Chocolate Squared cupcakes — chocolate cake with chocolate icing — were almost too much. The first bite was heavenly, the second was overpowering.

"One bite is enough," commented one tester, "If I had to eat a whole one, I would die."

Lava fudge, filled with rich chocolate and awash in marshmallow frosting, tasted like a S'more, but in cupcake form. Georgetown Cupcake makes incredible cream cheese frosting, which serves both their red velvet and carrot cake cupcakes very well.

The carrot cake was the best of the bunch (if you like carrot cake, that is). It was filled with chunks of carrot and a liberal dose of cinnamon — everything you want in regular carrot cake, unless you're one of those freaks who likes raisins in carrot cake. Each Georgetown cupcake comes with a tiny sugary morsel on the top — a heart, a carrot, a flower — that tastes exactly like a Lucky Charm marshmallow.

» HELLO CUPCAKE!
This is the newest addition to D.C.'s cupcake cavalcade, but it's got appeal in more than just novelty: These are the best cupcakes around. Their flavors are creative and fun and their employees are friendly. An Express employee trying to buy cupcakes at 10:04 a.m. (less than five minutes after the place opened) found a line already to the door filled with hungry Dupont Circle denizens who apparently thought, "Hey, cupcakes for breakfast! What an idea!"

The cake bits are moist and tasty, particularly the chocolate, which tastes more of cocoa than of sugar. De Lime and De Coconut (guess what that tastes like) was a favorite, as was the minty Peppermint Penny, which has soft green frosting that tastes like the filling in a grasshopper cookie. The Maya Favorite Cupcake melds deep chocolate with ancho chiles, giving a spicy kick that's unexpected (and not entirely welcome).

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.

"I'll definitely be making a trip to Hello Cupcake," said one tester. Indeed, since our arduous journalistic taste-test endeavor, this reporter has been back three times.

"Cupcakes for breakfast!" I thought. "That's an idea!"

Photo by Dayna Smith/The Washington Post