Random Letters to the Public

Alrighty, and we're back to Crumbs!  This return to Crumbs was after a debate at a party with a couple of friends which included my friend Davy that told me that my choice of lurving Georgetown Cupcake was whack and that Crumbs was better IHO. In the past, my experience with Crumbs was pretty neutral but leaning towards the good rating, since to me personally - these cupcakes are bigger than the others and does not allow me to further "sample" other flavors in the same sitting....I know, I know.  But as a person that is really interested in cupcakes and enjoys having the opps to try others, it is hard with this mammoth of a cupcake.  And this takes a toll on my optimal freshness non-biased nommings! Since Davy was in a super hurry and let the lady behind the counter choose, I ended up getting gifted the Cosmo Cupcake and some unknown choco, vanilla, caramel concoction that is not currently listed on their website.  Buttscratchers. So let's start with the Choco-vanilla-caramel cupcake.  Pretty decent, although this cupcake is rather pedestrian as in I can totally make this with box mix (hmm...good idea there!) The cake was a marble choco-yellow cake, similar to one that you would find in sliced loaf form at Starbucks, the cake was topped with a Duncan Hines-esque rich choco frosting and topped with somethat that looked like a slice of a candy bar that had caramel in it.  My brain is having a hard time to figure out which candy bar it really was!  Overall as the elements together were really good, IMO I think it was just average since I feel like it is something that could be easily duped from my local grocery aisle and some Better Crocker mixing and baking.

The other cupcake is a mos def different story.  So the Cosmo is green and pink "FAHHHHHBEWLISSSS."  Taking a cue from my fave show 30 Rock, Intern Kenneth's 'everyone is my best friend in the whole world' theory combined with categorization similar to award shows.  I would like to officially dub, that this cupcake is "The tastiest cupcake, gay looking cupcake category."  As the cupcake colors are what adds the excitement to this cupcake, my problem with it was whether I did or did not know that this is a "Cosmo" flavor - personally I wouldn't know what the heck it was supposed to be taste wise on a blind sitting.  Although I hafta say that this is a pretty good cupcake as I did enjoy the cake texture and the frosting, the sanding sugar cupcake rim, and the surprise frosting squirt of whatever frosting in the middle of the cupcake.

 But as I research the real undertones of the cupcake   - on the website the Cosmo is really vanilla cake tinted pink filled with strawberry buttercream frosting and topped with a lime cream cheese frosting edged in pink sugar. Okay so from what I can taste - vanilla cake tinted pink(check), pink sanding sugar(check), but that is it.  For all I knew that the strawberry buttercream and lime cream cheese frosting were just colored frostings, and I came away disappointed that it was not more Cosmo-y, as if I know what a Cosmo cupcake should taste like!  Anyways, again a tasty cupcake- cake was a good texture and presentation was fun, but I would give a thumbs down on overall execution since this was not the flavor as presented.  Don't get me wrong this won't deter me from returning, this will be my go to when I just want a good regular cupcake.

Anyways, thanks to Davy for his donation to my nomming philanthropy!!!  I owe you some cupcakes the next time I see you yo!  (Insert Cupcake Salute!)

First, Hello Cupcake's bacon cupcake was paired with maple and pecan, so formally it was a Maple Bacon Pecan cupcake and further described as "moist maple cake made with pure, real maple syrup topped with browned butter frosting, candied pecans and bacon."


Second, wording problemo: "moist" - my cake was not very moist as the description inferred, in fact my cupcake was a bit crusty the clown on the outside, which I think suited the cupcake better since you can pretend it was wafflely (that's totally a word...Imma going to try it on my next opp on Words with Friends...watch out for that Sean...WAFFLELY...right in the dangeah zonage) or even french toasty - something needed to be crispy in the cupcake...since the bacon was not crispy (refer my fif point below).

Turd, toppings problemo: "canded pecans and bacon".  HEY!  I thought this was the bacon show, not the pecan and bacon show!  While I do enjoy my candied pecans, the mixture sorta felt like filler.

Fourth, missing in action problemo: while I think maple syrup pairs well with bacon and the brown butter frosting was quite tasty, I feel like the bb frosting should have been choco.  I mean choco bacon is yerms!

Fif, type of bacon problemo:  The texture was really odd, and not yo momma's breakfast bacon (or shall I say my dad since my mom would never fry us up some bacon...EVAR) It was neither hearty or crunchy, it was just loose and stringy and had a weird bacon dust and film on it.  I want to say that the bacon used was one from a jar...you know like the ones that you could buy on the salad aisle. And no not uber red Bacos, but like the more "natty" bacon in a jar.  EEP!  I get it, bacon is a pain in the culo to fry up and crumble in the ktichen, BUT if you are gonna do a bacon cupcake justice you have to fry some oinky for reals!

Overall a bit of disappointment.  I'm super bummed.  But the light at the end of the tunnel was that I can now say, I Kissed Bacon Cupcake and I didn't like it.

Behind the sneezeguard and droolguard

Menu with their Teethbreaking fondant Flavor Legend

Sticker on the side - rockin' like a rad "side-pony"

Deanna has a lazy eye!

Photo of me by Deanna in her cool iPhone App that keeps crashing my iPhone

So another cupcakery has entered my neighborhood, mind you I always stalk out cupcakeries that enter my neighborhood immediately, but as you can see I have been so lazy to post!  Lilly Magilly is located in the RIO Washingtonian center in Gaithersburg, MD.

For the record,  I have no idea who or what is a Lilly Magilly. First it sounds like a cartoon or book character, but I'm just guessing it is a name that has meaning and then it was punctuated with a catchy last name to sound cute.  Upon doing any research, I cannot find any information on the name, but I just I'll just have to not wonder and move on to eating some cupcakes!

Aside from the really girly interior and their very fun pink, black and white theme inside it is quite the cheery place to be.  My traveling cupcake companion, Deanna and I decided to partake in sharing two cupcakes AND THEN complimenting them with some awesome Shirley Temples!  Super fun!  =)  We decided on a Snickerdoodle (the one with the Hershey Kiss on top pictured above) and the Strawberry (the cupcake with the Strawberry on top pictured below...and DUH).  Overall, they were both pretty tasty.  The flavors that they offer are quite ordinary, but they were executed well.  The cake was very fluffy and moist and the frosting was just a touch sweet for my palette, but I think what just made me happy was the fact that we both got to sip on Shirley Temples as we ate....it's just hard not to be happy when you are sipping on a Shirley Temple!!!  Overall the, Om Nom Nom ratings chronicle would put Lilly Magilly's at an overall ranking of 3.5 down the board for cake and frosting, a 2.5 for Flavah Flav Creativity, but get a 4.0 on TADA Factor based on letting me have a Shirley Temple with our cupcake nomming!

And now it is time for the invasion of non-DC cupcake stores!  Crumbs Bake Shop comes from New York City and decided to plop themselves in hungry cupcake luvin' DC  with two locations in DC (Union Station and 11th and F Street) and 1 in Arlington, VA (in Clarendon).  As I was in the area in Arlington hanging with friends we ended up in the Clarendon location during their first week of being open.  There was a long, long line inside - and it was good to see as it was probably taking business from the crappy other bakery that my friend Deanna and I went to previously that sucked big time (I mean when do we NOT finish cupcakes?  That means it was REALLY bad!
The cool thing about Crumbs that these are some massive cupcakes!  They have 4 different sizes, from mini, to your average size cupcakes, to one that is the size of your fist, and then a colossal size which pretty much doubles as a regular cake.  Most of the cupcakes in the case were about the size of a clenched fist and pretty filling.  You basically can't go too crazy here or else you will be stuck with a lot of cupcakes, but if you want try a little something of a lot of flavors you can also get a mini cupcake pack, pictured below.  I like this concept as they look cute, fancy, flavors I wanted to sample, and I got to try a little bit of everything!

All in all, I was able to take this to work and have some Seangie cupcake nomming time, but I must say it took awhile to tread through them, since it was overwhelming to eat them all in one or two sittings.  (I know WTF is wrong with us)

So how do they rate on the OM NOM NOM ratings scale you ask?  They are pretty up there, my two cupcakes I chose were the Cotton Candy and the Elvis.  The Cotton Candy cupcake was a standout in Crumbs' display case as I think every 4 year old girl wanted the big pink cupcake.  This is probably why Deanna and I both got the Cotton Candy cupcake!

It can be spotted in kid eye level in the case, as you can see in the picture to the left of this text.  How can you NOT miss it?  So anyways, the cotton candy cupcake was a vanilla cake with a sweet cream filling and then topped with a sugary pink frosting and had itty bitty cotton candy bits on the side.  This is where I think cotton candy manufacturers hit the jackpot...I mean what the heck do you do with cotton candy bits?  All in all, the cupcake was awesome!  The cake was moist, frosting wasn't too sweet as I feared and the cotton candy bit were nommy! Overall, a 4 rating down two of my nomming rating categories of cake, frosting, and a 4.5 rating down two of my nomming rating categories based on Flavah Flav Creativity and TADA factor....and it is all because of the itty bitty Cotton Candy bits!  Take note other cupcakeries!

Next up was my Elvis cupcake, banana cake, with cream filling, a white butter cream with a smudgy of peanut butter on top and then a peanut butter chip rim.  OMG!  It was AMAZEBALLS! Granted that this cupcake has been replicated often in cupcakeries around town, but none have executed as well as Crumbs!  The cake was super moist and tasty and it just had the right ratio of peanut butter and sweetness that is didn't overwhelm my palette.  Over all I would give it a 4.5 rating in the cake, frosting, and TADA Factor in the nom nom rating chronicles.  And as for Flavah Flav creativity I would have to give it a 3.5, cause you know.....this was Elvis' flavor combo!

Overall, I am pretty happy with Crumbs, all they have to do is open one closer to me....or maybe I should just move closer to one!  =)

Crumbs, I'll be seeing you and one of your Colossal Cupcakes around soon!!!!!!

It's Georgetown Cupcake Time! (What? again?)  So okay, I make new excuses to head to Bethesda, but really needed to make a BIG excuse to head to GTC on a MONDAY.  Why?  Cos, it is the only day of the week that I haven't been to GTC and there were flavors that were BEGGING for me to eat and enjoy them.  I mean really?  It is truly those specific cupcake's honor to be rated in the Seangie Om Nom Nom Cupcake review! (Left to right in the picture, Cherry Cheesecake, Toffee, Ginger Peach, Cinnamon and Honey Banana) NOM!

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The Seangie Om Nom Nom Rating Chronicles (on a grade from 1 to 5, with 5 being the nommyest!)

HONEY BANANA: Fresh banana cupcake topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting and a fondant frosting.
TADA Factor: 3.0
    Flavah Flav Creativity: 3.75
    Frosting: 4.0
    Cake: 4.25
    NOTES: OMG!  The cake was AMAZEBALLS!  We can taste the   banana and honey goodness in the small little package.  Me being the lover of the bready bases with fruits and veg this rang a nice 5 alarm nommyest on my tastebuds.  Sean had to admit this cupcake was damn good!

CHERRY CHEESECAKE: Fresh cherry and mascarpone cheesecake topped with vanilla icing and a fondant flower.
TADA Factor: 3.75
Flavah Flav Creativity: 4.25
Frosting: 4.75
Cake: 5
NOTES: OMG, OMG, OMG.  I think I screamed "fuck yeah!" midbite out loud after tasting this cupcake.  It was cheesecake at it's finest.  This is what all the little cheescakes dream about when they are in cheesecake school.  Screw being a cheesecake doctor or a cheesecake famous movie actor.  They want to be put in this GTC monthly flavor! The only neg was that it was a bit messy, but in the end it doesn't matter cause Team Seangie were liking our own fingers anyways.  I mean really.  I'm so sad that August is ending soon.  I will miss you Cherry Cheesecake Cupcake!  WANH!

CINNAMON: Cinnamon cupcake topped with a cinnamon buttercream and a fondant heart.
TADA Factor: 3.0
Flavah Flav Creativity: 2.5
Frosting: 4.0
Cake: 4.5
NOTES: Cinnamon on cinnamon lurve.  The cake was amazing, it reminded me of a bundt cake with a cinnamon swirl through the cake. How creative and classic!  The buttercream topped off the cupcake VERY NICE! (Borat style! But not nekkid running around the conference room kind of VERY NICE!)




TOFFEE CRUNCH: Toffee cupcake with a toffee infused vanilla frosting topped with crushed Heath Bar.
TADA Factor: 3.25
Flavah Flav Creativity: 3.5
Frosting: 4.5
Cake: 5.0
NOTES: It is toffee on toffee on toffee manage a trois.  UM AMAZEBALLS!  Do you see in my picture there are toffee bits in the cake?  Yeah that's right, baked in toffee bits!!!!  And then more toffee in the frosting and then MORE toffee bits?  Today was a good day.  We mos def felt that feeling.  LA'CHAIM! (Okay will be my ONLY Black Eye Peas music reference on here....EVER!)









GINGER PEACH: Classic madagascar bourbon vanilla cupcake baked with fresh peaches and topped with a ginger-infused vanilla frosting and a fondant flower.
TADA Factor: 3.5
Flavah Flav Creativity: 3.75
Frosting: 4.0
Cake: 3.5
NOTES: Another month of August specialty, but did not live up as high to it's other month counterpart, Cherry Cheesecake.  I mean this sound good, but I really felt like I tasted peaches in the frosting.  I know confusing right?  I didn't taste peach in the cake and really didn't taste and ginger in the frosting.  A fail?  Not really.  I mean the cake was still decent and the frosting was really good!  Whatever it was supposed to be.....

AND ON TO THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER CUPCAKES!!!! CHARGE!!!!!!!!!!

BABA'S BABY: carrot bottom with vanilla cream cheese buttercream top.

CUPCAKE CONGA LINE!  HOLLA!

So being the cupcake princess that I am, I wanted to see what were the potential new cupcakes that all the local cupcakeries had to offer. And I ran across this magical sounding flavor on HERROW Cupcake (it is really called Hello, but I'm adding my cute Asian spin on things) called DREAMSICLE. Um, HERROW! After my experience with Herrow Cupcake's flavor du jour, Margarita in the month of May, I think I almost peed myself dreaming of this cupcake touching my lips. OM NOM NOMMY. So as Sean and I studied the cupcake flavors on Herrow Cupcake's menu, and we decided that we needed to go on a Thursday, well, to go get the PB (you know to give Sean his daily PB fix) and banana concoction called the Velvet Elvis!
So on the hot, hot Thursday I ventured to Dupont Circle and grabbed some cupcakes for Team Seangie and even for Stevie the Wonder Intern (because I felt guilty for teasing him my GTC cupcakes from last week) and decided to have a mini cupcake party! Okay a really big cupcake party, cause I bought 8 cupcakes. And THAT'S A PARTEEEEE! (really I swear!)

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Team Seangie (with guest Stevie the Wonder Intern, but we let he only partake in 2 of the cupcake reviews - you know he had real work to do...you know like take pictures of us eating nommy cupcakes) Om Nom Nom Rating Chronicles (on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest)



VELVET ELVIS: Elvis Presley's favorite sandwich - peanut butter and banana - IN A CUPCAKE! Moist fluffy banana cake made with real bananas, topped with Herrow Cupcake's sweet peanut butter frosting (that's the velvet part!)
TADA Factor: 3.0
Flavah Flav Creativity: 4.25
Frosting: 4.25
Cake: 4.25
NOTES: This was surprisingly tasty to me. As the non-PB slut (you know who that is of Team Seangie) I did not think I was ready for the deliciousness. I think I'm now in love with cupcake bottoms that are more of the "bread" variety, as I have approved of GTC and Baked and Wired "bread" cupcake bottoms! OM NOM NOM. Note that Team Seangie agreed that out of the three Elvis' that are pictured with his cupcake above, this was mos def the old fat Elvis' cupcake. (one in the middle MAMA!)

DREAMSICLE: A cool, creamy summer treat. Orange cake, vanilla bean cream filling, and orange buttercream with a sprinkling of orange sugar. This is Herrow Cupcake's July flavah of the month!
TADA Factor: 4.0
Flavah Flav Creativity: 5.0
Frosting: 4.5
Cake: 5.0
NOTES: This cupcake was an extra 50 cents! Well I'm not chitty-chitty-bang-bang (well give me some red wine and well talk again), but when I was informed there would be an extra cost for the Dreamsicle cupcake, I then inquired why it was 50 cents extra and the guy behind the counter just said that 'it was the special flavor and they cost 50 cents extra.' Well gee, that sounds like a stoopid answer. So hypothetically if you were a prostitute, could you be like the hand job with my left hand is 50 cent extra? And when clients asked why a hand job with your left hand was an extra 50 cents it would be..well, it is just the other hand and it cost 50 cents extra. See? Doesn't make sense. Maybe it would of been better if he just justified it with the Chewbacca defense. So like he should of said, "This cupcake cost extra, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!" Then I think the answer would of sufficed. DONE. ANYWHO, after splitting the cupcake in half, Sean and I figured that the extra 50 cents was most likely for the little squirt of vanila bean cream filling in the middle of the cake. Okay mystery solved, thanks pesky kids. On a side note, this cupcake was AMAZEBALLS and I think that Sean and I would be able to clear a full dozen of these, that is as long as we also had the Velvet Elvis as a palette cleanser! OM NOM NOMMY!


PRINCESS: Hello Cupcake's vanilla cake with fresh strawberry buttercream frosting and a sprinkling of pink sugar.
TADA Factor: 3.0
Flava Flav Creativity: 2
Frosting: 1.75
Cake: 3
NOTE: Frosting was way TOOOO SWEET! I think it rotted my fillings out of my teeth. I didn't finish it. Sean being the trooper that he is, ate his and then ate my leftovers. And then something punched him in the face, (no not my fist) he then found out it was too sweet to. And that is where we had to end the cupcaking for the day, the Princess cupcake max'ed out our palette and it time to pass out on the floor from the sugar rush. (Also that is Peekles the Penguin checking on the Princess cupcake before it caused me to convulse on the floor!)
These Cupcakes are Frosting Heavy!!!!!!!!!
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Part Deux-Deux (aka Day 2)

So after we recovered and let Superman guard the cupcakes, it was time for the last three cupcakes on our list. I must say after eating the strawberry frosting on the Princess cupcake last, I was scared and skeptical of all the rest of the cupcakes. I was bracing myself, but as I like to tell myself a girl must do it for science. =) Let the Om Nom Nomming (or the not so Om Nom Nomming) begin!

RASPBERRY BERET: Choco cake with a sweet little cap of raspberry buttercream frosting and choco sprinkles.
TADA Factor: 3.25
Flavah Flav Creativity: 3.25
Frosting: 3.75
Cake: 3.25
NOTES: To our surprise, it was actually pretty decent. The raspberry frosting tasted like raspberry sherbet! YUM! But I must say that the frosting was a little grainy to be called buttercream IMO. Let's just say I thought it was a Prince song in my mouth...not that one about Purple Rain or Doves Cry. it was more of a 1999 jam. You know, it happened and I have already forgotten about it.

PEPPERMINT PENNY: Rich choco cake with peppermint buttercream and choco sprinkles. (aka known as a Seangie Palette cleanser)
TADA Factor: 2.75
Flavah Flav Creativity: 3.0
Frosting: 2.0
Cake: 3.5
NOTES: OH DISAPPOINTMENT. PALETTE CLEANSER FAIL. You know when something has an after-taste? Well this had a before-taste! WTF! It was a bitter creme de menthe taste that ruined the cupcake. Sean thought it was a good idea in theory, but the execution was poor. But let's just say Sean liked it better than I did! BLEHHHHH!

COOKIES-n-CREAM: moist vanilla cake studded with chunks of choco cream cookies topped with a cookies n cream frosting and adorable mini cookie.
TADA Factor: 4.0
Flavah Flav Creativity: 3.0
Frosting: 2.5
Cake: 4.25
NOTES: We were at first skeptical of this cupcake, but were pleasantly surprised. I must say that this cookies and cream cupcake tastes waaaaay better than GTC. The cake was awesome but the frosting could use a little less of Oreo stuff. More cookies, less stuff please!
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Life as a cupcake Om Nom Nommer