I say goodbye because I ate them.
A few weeks ago I visited Hello Cupcake bakery in Dupont Circle. I had been meaning to check them out for a while, and finally had some time on my hands to make it happen.
When I walked into the store, I was the only customer there. The girl behind the counter was nice, but she seemed a little harried, even though the owner and another employee were storefront packing an order of mini cupcakes. Maybe that’s why she seemed a bit uncomfortable.
I must admit, I found the service a bit cold, for being the only person there. I bought a box of six, and asked questions about which one they enjoyed the most, and what their seasonal flavors were. The answers I got were short, and I didn’t really get much out of them. I ended up getting pretty much what I had expected to get.
The box above features six flavors (from back left to right, then front left to right): Peanut Butter Blossom, Maya Favorite Cupcake, Heart of Darkness, Triple Coconut, Tiramisu, and You Tart (lemon).
The coconut and Tiramisu were both mediocre. The cake was a bit dry and the cream cheese frosting on the coconut and the marscapone on the tiramisu were both a bit heavy for me (although the marscapone frosting was exceptionally creamy and had good flavor). The chocolate cakes were excellent, and the Maya cupcake was a nice mixture of rich chocolate flavor with the heat of red pepper flakes sprinkled on top. However, my favorite by far was the peanut butter blossom. The peanut butter frosting was just the way I like it: creamy, with the flavor of rich peanut butter but the lightness and texture of buttercream frosting.
(As an aside, I really hate toppings on cupcakes like the Hershey’s Kiss on the PB Blossom and the chocolate-covered espresso bean on the tiramisu. I can appreciate their decorative purpose, but they add nothing to the flavor of the cupcake or the overall experience of eating one. I find them an unnecessary distraction from the actual cupcake. I appreciate cuteness, but I really feel like bakers should focus on the flavors that you eat together, not the afterthoughts.)
What was probably the most dangerous part of this experience for me was that the cupcakes with the buttercream and chocolate frostings did not sit heavy in my stomach, and I did not feel like a whale post-consumption. I will be returning again for a PB Blossom, and will hopefully find a few more enjoyable flavors, and a bit better service.
