Cupcakes No. 3: Red Velvet Cupcakery

I was excited about going to the Red Velvet Cupcakery from the get-go, if only because they reaffirmed my use of the word “cupcakery.” (Which is more than my spell check can say.) I actually went there twice last week – once to the one on 7th Street with Cousin Emily and once to the one in Reston with my friend Amy – and while I was a bit concerned about the condition known as Too Much Sugar, multiple trips to the same cupcakery turned out to be a good idea, as I feel it reduces the margin of error in this very scientific survey. Legitimacy: always a good thing. ;)

On the exterior, the DC Red Velvet Cupcakery totally rocks the ‘Main St. Quaint’ look, but the inside is too small to convey any sort of feel. You’ll need to jockey around in line to get a glimpse of the cupcakes, which are artfully laid out on a Mancala-like board, and shimmy past the rest of the line to make it out again. (Hopefully, you have not had too many cupcakes before entering. ;) There’s seating available at the adjacent frozen yogurt joint, but we took ours to go.

The Reston outlet was the opposite. It’s inside Reston Town Center, so they don’t have much leeway as far as exterior appearances go, but the inside was spacious, with an open ‘kitchen,’ dark wood floors, and modern seating. Their cupcakes were displayed on raised cake plates that, while not as clever as the mancala boards, did make the baked goods a lot easier to see.

Over the course of my two trips, I tried three different cupcakes – Summertime, Hazelnut Café, and a seasonal Orange & Serrano creation – which was really easy to do because Red Velvet definitely has the most creative flavors so far. (Amy ordered the Peanut Butter Cupcake and you could literally smell the peanut butter wafting off of it!) Summertime, lemon cake topped with cream cheese frosting and shredded coconut, was my favorite, with Hazelnut Café, hazelnut cake frosted with “sexy espresso buttercream” (How is buttercream sexy?), not too far behind.

This is how you make buttercream sexy! Mmm...not so much. ;)

The only problem with creative flavors is that they don’t always work. I was really intrigued by the whole Orange & Serrano concept, but it turned out to just be…strange. Citrus and heat lends to an interesting aftertaste, which is kind of an awkward attribute to a cupcake. Mad points for trying though!

The cake itself is a little more dense than I prefer – kind of like when I try to bake from scratch and OD it on the butter – but stays within the lines of “cake” without veering over into the heavy world of muffins. The hazelnut cake was a bit dry, but that always seems to be the nature of the “cooking with nuts” beast. Their buttercream was not heavy, and struck the perfect sweet note for a Frosting Hater such as myself. I also loved how they piped it on in discs, rather than the traditional ‘circus tent’ look. Very modern.

The consensus? I'd definitely go back. (There's one in Arlington!) And order a normal flavor. ;)

Cupcakery Design - Three out of Five Cupcakes

The Cake - Four out of Five Cupcakes

The Frosting - Three out of Five Cupcakes