photo by Kelly O for The Stranger
Megan Seling at Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger explores the city's bakeries in "The Persistence of Cupcakes," one cupcake at a time, concluding:
But we can't crown the best cupcake based on the plain ol' chocolate-vanilla combo, oh no. The best cupcake has to have flair and flavor. The best cupcake has to be as pretty and fun to eat as it is tasty.
While Cupcake Royale cupcakes are, in fact, pretty, and they do have that crispy "crown" of a top that makes them fun eating, they are, in truth, an everyday cupcake. They're yummy and thoughtful, but there's nothing at all indulgent about them. I could eat three of them and not feel a thing.
Trophy amps up the indulgence factor by piling on lots of tasty frosting and offering a variety of unique flavors (rotating every day of the week and every season), but I'm never overwhelmed when I walk into their cute Wallingford cafe. The cupcakes on display are almost too perfect, lacking the charm of being baked by hand.
Sugar Rush, though, is wonderfully overwhelming. Their pastry case is full of dozens of different kinds of cupcakes—chocolate, vanilla, lemon, red velvet, coconut, mocha, cappuccino, strawberry, mint, and even a vegan option or two. They have cupcakes filled with raspberry jam and lemon curd, they have cupcakes the size of a fist and cupcakes the size of a thimble.
And each cupcake is obviously treated with great care. Some have small icing flowers piped on top of mounds of coconut, some have petals of frosting, sitting pretty like a rose, some have sprinkles settled in deep crevices of chocolate frosting—each cupcake is its own piece of art, and not so uniform that it appears a robot made it.
For a constant update on Seattle's baked goods, read Cakespy's Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog.
Cupcake Royale owner Jody Hall gets profiled in a piece on small business and health care in The Seattle Times.
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