Cake Love Review

Our time in the DC area is more precious now since our jobs have taken us away from the area ( I actually enjoy the time away but miss the area's cupcakes). Today was a rare day that Tony and I were together in the DC area and what better thing to do than go sight seeing and cupcake tasting! I had read a few years ago somewhere that CakeLove won some cupcake contest beating Baked and Wired.  After tasting Baked and Wired cupcakes early on in my cupcake tasting I was skeptical. Baked and Wired cupcakes are delicious.  Tony and I arrived at the Campbell Street location around 2:00PM.  We skipped lunch to save our taste buds for serious cupcake tasting.  When we arrived at CakeLove there were about a dozen different flavors available.  Tony ordered a chocolate lemon coconut and because I read on Yelp that the salted carmel was the best, I ordered the salted caramel.  I was looking forward to sitting down in the shop with a cup of coffee and eating my cupcake.  When I looked at the coffee pots on display, I changed my mind.  The coffee looked like it hadn't been brewed since the morning and the pots looked like they hadn't been cleaned in months (a few tablesspoons of salt, a few tablespoons of lemon juice, fill pot with ice and swirl.  In a matter of seconds you have a sparkling clean coffee pot).  



Chocolate Lemon Coconut
 Salted Caramel

A bit disapointed we sat at our table and right before we opened our box of cupcakes we noticed several signs displayed around the store "eat cupcakes at room temperature". We thought the sign meant that if you took the cupcakes home and put them in the refrigerator to let them thaw first.  When we opened the box and attempted to eat the cupcakes we JUST bought, we realize that the sign really meant when you bought them "fresh" from the store.   These cupcakes were hard as a rock cold! Sort of frozen.  Who goes to a bakery and "waits" for something to thaw? We decided not to make this trip a total bust, packed up our cupcakes and headed to lunch, hoping our cupcakes will be thawed by the time we finish eating lunch.  An hour later, our cupcakes sitting at room temperature (like the sign said), they were still not thawed.  When they were thawed enough to eat, the taste and texture was disappointing.  The cupcakes were dry, I'm sure that if these cupcakes were not ever frozen or chilled, they might have been tasty.  The frosting on the chocolate coconut was not memorable and the lemon dollop on top took over the taste of the barely there coconut.  The salted caramel (I just don't get the whole salted caramel craze) was a basic vanilla cupcake with a basic vanilla butter cream with a drizzle of caramel and a few bites with a hint of salt in them.



I honestly do not like to leave negative reviews.  I think that any person who opens a cupcake shop rocks! I wish them all the luck in the world and I would love to give them as much positive exposure as possible.  However, if a cupcake shop is going to charge gourmet prices the cupcakes, the cupcake shop better deliver gourmet cupcakes. I am tired of spending good money on a "gourmet" cupcake that tastes like generic supermarket cupcakes.