Celebrate the Cupcake!

It is National Cupcake Day aka one of my favorite days of the year. And I think you can guess why! I've been to more cupcake places since I last posted about them, including one today, so forgive the late post! I wanted to be sure I could include that place as well.

A few weeks ago I traveled all the way up to Hagerstown, MD, to try out Hub City Cupcakes. I knew the cupcake place shared a space with an Italian deli, but I'll admit I was a bit startled when I rolled up to find the deli as a stand alone walk-up/drive-thru. It was a cold, rainy day and I didn't quite know what to do with myself. Was I supposed to go through the drive-thru or walk up to the window? There was a man inside watching me to see what I was going to do (awkward) and a cupcake menu posted to the window so I decided it would probably be easiest to just go up to the window.

Hub City has a selection of a little over 10 classic flavors plus the seasonals but I was informed that the baker was not in and I wouldn't be able to get any of those which was a little disappointing because I had really wanted to try their cranberry orange. I settled for a Salted Caramel and Blueberry Lemon. The cupcakes are also considered jumbo making picking two a good number. My favorite was definitely the Salted Caramel. I loved the thin layer of caramel over the top, especially it's presentation, and it was the right amount of salty. The Blueberry Lemon was decent with a blueberry filling. It needed a little bit more filling and could have been more lemony. I skipped the sugared blueberries on the top because I thought they were going to be too sweet. Overall these were good but probably not somewhere that I would drive out of my way to again.

Today I hit up Dessert Fantasies in Federal Hill, courtesy of my father who so kindly drove me around today since I hit a deer with my car yesterday and it's out of commission until further notice. Boo. I had to go into the city anyway to pick up some Christmas gifts I ordered so I figured I would check this place out while I was down there. You can't miss it. It's a bright pink brick row home with turquoise shutters. Dessert Fantasies also does jumbo cupcakes, even larger than the ones at Hub City. I picked the Salted Caramel here too as well as Gingerbread.

These are BIG cupcakes. I have only eaten the Salted Caramel so far. I thought the cake was moist but pretty dense, making it hard for me to finish. There wasn't too much frosting in relation to the cake which was good and it had a little pool of the caramel sitting in the middle. I thought the frosting was pretty good, not too sweet. The salty flavor was definitely there but probably could've been more prominent. The cake also was a little gritty on the top, like it had a sugar crust. This I could've done without. It was a good cupcake but a little much for me. I think I prefer the smaller ones and I definitely liked Hub City's salted caramel more than this one.

Cupcakes are seriously awesome and I love traveling around to try new ones. Here is a list of the cupcake places I've been to in approximately the last 365 days so you can check them out yourself!

Flavor Cupcakery
La Cakerie
Hub City Cupcakes
Dessert Fantasies
Kupcakes and Co.
J Cafe
Starry Night Bakery
Cakes to Die For
Sweet Angela's
Sweet Devotions
CupLove
Midnite Confections 
Touche Touchet Bakery
Crumbs
Sprinkles
Baked by Melissa
Baked and Wired
Billy's Bakery
Sweet 27
Oh So Sweet
Cupcakes in Bloom
Yummy!
Bay Country Cafe
Wicked Good Cupcakes
Georgetown Cupcake
Cunningham's Bakery and Cafe
AngelCakes
Gettysburg Cupcake Cafe
Broken Cookie
Johnny Como's 
Cupcakes Actually
Dessert Affairs
JoJo's Cupcakes