LA Area Cupcake Tour 2011

I met my dear friend Polly (the genius behind this tour) last year.  She has quickly become a great friend and I am so thankful for her!  One of the commonalities we share is a mutual love and appreciation for cupcakes.  

We. Love. Them.

When Polly mentioned her idea for a Southern California cupcake tour, I jumped all over it.  I have to give her 100% credit for this weekend's festivities, as it was all her idea and her execution as well.  She thought of everything, from mapping out our route, to creating a spreadsheet for our evaluations.  She's amazing!
In the interest of saving you poor readers from what could potentially be the longest blog entry ever written, I'm going to break up our tour into several posts this week.


So...here we go!

Polly and I pooled our bakery suggestions and narrowed them down to 7 in the Los Angeles area.  The plan was to purchase our cupcakes and then bring them back to a central location where we could taste and judge them.  Each bakery and its cupcakes was judged on the following categories (worth 10 points each):
Cake
Frosting
Presentation
Creativity
Variety
Atmosphere
Customer Service


Total possible points : 70


Early Saturday afternoon we headed downtown, itinerary in hand:

Destination Numero Uno was Famous Cupcakes in Beverly Hills.  The 'official Kupcake of the Kardashians' (cue eye roll), this was a first-time stop for both of us.  The shop is cute and appealing from the outside:

Though somewhat sparsely decorated indoors, it still had a fresh and fun vibe:

We were immediately greeted by the employee behind the counter, who was excited to hear that it was our first time at Famous Cupcakes.  He explained that all of their cupcakes are baked with natural and organic ingredients, and that they offer about 10 flavours each day.  After some deliberation, we opted for the Peanut Butter Cup.  I'm now kicking myself for not taking a photo of each cupcake separately.  The Famous Cupcake is in the bottom right of this shot. 

You may be seeing this group picture a few times in the days to come (my apologies):

Simple in nature, this creation's base is a chocolate cake with a peanut butter frosting, topped with a small peanut butter cup.  The cake was somewhat dry and lacked alot of taste, and we scored it a low 5 out of 10 possible points.  Both Polly and really enjoyed the frosting though, and gave it a 9/10.  the presentation was cute, but their cupcakes lacked variety and creativity.  All of the options were pretty basic. What really stood out here was their customer service - it was exceptional and scored a 9/10.

Overall, we rated Famous Cupcakes at a 43 out of 70 possible points.  That's a 61% satisfaction rate.  

I might go back, but it probably wouldn't be first on my list. I do like that they offer only organic and natural ingredients, but would love to see more variety in their cupcakes.  

Have you been?  Let me know what you think! 

And here is their website in case you're interested:

http://www.famouscupcakes.com/