Best of Philly?

I was having another cupcake craving (I'm 8 months pregnant ya know) so I figured it was a good time to continue my Cupcake Quest. My 2 year old and I tagged along on another one of my husband's business trips - this time to Philadelphia. So the cupcake place I wanted to try was an easy choice because of a little award called "Best Of Philly 2008." And the big winner was..... Cupcakes Gourmet (actually in Frazer, PA). How could a cupcake shop with an award like that be bad?? So I was completely excited to try this place, but I was a little nervous because I had very high expectations.

Cupcakes Gourmet is on some random street, in sort of a "strip mall area." Obviously this is a place that you would need to know about. it's not the kind of place you would just walk by and go in. The shop looked decent - they had a big banner out front boasting their "Best Of" award.

The inside of the shop was cute, small, and simple. I was the only customer in the shop at the time. The woman that was working there that day was totally helpful and nice, and she offered me a free cupcake with my purchase just because it was my first time in! Bonus!!! The only thing better than cupcakes are FREE cupcakes. :) I was excited to find out that they make all their cupcakes in regular size and mini size - I love mini cupcakes! So I bought a dozen minis, which was practically every flavor available.

My favorite part about Cupcakes Gourmet was their "dipped" cupcakes. They have this cool way of dipping just the top part of the cupcake into a dark chocolate ganache. They only do it with certain flavors like Peanut Butter Cup, Dark Chocolate, Triple Chocolate, and Raspberry/Dark Chocolate. So it's basically a regular frosted cupcake, but on top of the frosting is a layer of amazingly delicious ganache. My favorite out of those was the Raspberry/Dark Chocolate. It was dark chocolate cake with raspberry frosting dipped in the ganache. I just loved the contrast between the sweet raspberry frosting and the bittersweet ganache.

The other cupcakes I tried were all pretty good. My only problem with some of them was the fact that the cake part was a little dry and boring. Especially the chocolate cake (used in cupcakes like choc/vanilla, milk choc, triple choc, dk chocolate, etc.) The best cake of all the cupcakes was used in the Carrot cupcakes. It was a really good, moist cake, and the frosting was good too. Good solid carrot cupcake. However, the frosting on most of the cupcakes was really good. Especially the Strawberry cupcake (tasted almost like it had little bits of strawberry, but I wasn't sure). The frosting on the Lemon cupcake was excellent as well - had the perfect amount of lemon tartness. The only problem with both the strawberry and lemon is that they just used normal vanilla cake for the cake part. I felt like the cake part should have been fruity as well. The vanilla cake was like the chocolate - it was just...okay. Ya know what I mean?

I also tried the Red Velvet, since that is my specialty. :) It wasn't bad. Definitely a decent RV cupcake. But I felt like the frosting could have been a little more "cream-cheesy" and the cake could have been a little more dense and moist.

So overall, I definitely had a good experience at Cupcakes Gourmet. It still doesn't compare to my precious and perfect Sprinkles Cupcakes, but it was still good. I can't complain. Best of Philly though? I find that hard to believe. In a city that size, there's got to be something better, but I could be wrong.

So I will continue on my quest to find the best cupcakes in the country.

Cupcakes make my world go round.
T