Please. And send all of your visiting friends and family there, too. Maybe they’ll get on TV or something while they’re waiting for tiny, fancy-pants cupcakes served by perky Georgetown undergrads.
Me? I’ll be down the street having a real cupcake at Baked and Wired. A huge honking cupcake wrapped in a rustic parchment paper cup, stuffed with fresh strawberries or topped with chocolate icing so thick and smooth it could be mistaken for pudding. I’ll be shopping for homemade treats with names like “Chocolate Cupcake of Doom” and “The Unporked Elvis.” No mention of prestige ingredients (although I know they’re in there). No fussy decorations or perfectly piped frosting. Just a big messy hunk of love that shoots you back to the third grade and makes you wish your mom knew how to make these cupcakes instead of the crappy ones from the Betty Crocker box.
And it’s not just the cupcakes. A lot of locals just come for the coffee and tea. I don’t drink coffee, but I still managed to make almost daily visits when I worked across the street. Homemade zucchini bread will bring you to your knees. Chocolate chip cookies, cream cheese brownies, homemade pie…are you kidding me with the pie?! And don’t get me started on the housemade granola, aptly named “Hippie Crack.” Seriously, don’t get me started or you might have to stage an intervention.
But it’s also the atmosphere: laid back, offbeat, always friendly. Local artists decorate the walls. Except where the growing napkin-poetry collection is posted in the back. There’s a hot-pink beach cruiser out front, next to a chalk board that sometimes lists the day’s specials, but more often just shares a random message to make you smile. Or laugh out loud.
It’s just everything that Georgetown Cupcake isn’t. There’s no hype. A lot of hipsters, but no hype. And some damn good cupcakes.
So good that Husband and I served them at our wedding. We had one giant cupcake to cut into and serve each other. We cut it in half and each finished our halves.
So good that I engineered a cupcake taste-off at my old office across the street, complete with several rounds of head to head tasting and a full taste analysis report.
So good that I became completely obsessed with winning the giant cupcake they used to raffle off each Friday, and would put my name into the bowl multiple times and refuse to leave my desk at 3pm when the drawing was held, just in case they called. When they never called, I daydreamed about stealing it.
And now that I don’t have pain au raisins to keep me occupied, I have cupcakes on the brain. Thank goodness they’re on the other side of town.
Unlikely Diplomat 