Since I came to the United States in 1987, I have been a big fan of muffins and cupcakes (muffin with icing). When I was in college, I used to buy these gigantic muffins at a place called the Mill Bakery and Eatery. I believe the partners got into an internal fight and all locations including the one in Tallahassee closed down.

Ever since I graduated and moved away from Florida State University, I tried to bake at home those tasty and giant sized muffins without success. Turns out, I needed 4 ounce thins. Who knew? But I digress....

In March of 2009, Atlantic Magazine published a wonderfully informative article about cupcakes, aptly named "If only somebody could get the cupcake right" The author Corby Kummer states "A good cupcake has all the frosting you really want at a birthday party but can’t ask for. It’s celebratory but restrained, a suitably small indulgence for tough times." He painstakingly (yeah right!) tried numerous cupcake recipes from famous bakeries like the Magnolia of New York and he is of the opinion that our own Baked & Wired located in Georgetown is superior to all. He wrote "The only just-right cupcake I’ve found so far was at Baked and Wired, a hip Georgetown café. The plain white icing on its “birthday” cupcake (pictured here) had exactly the right crackle when I bit into it, and the chocolate cake was moist, airy, and not too rich."

Yesterday, I had a chance to try two of their cupcakes, Coconut Layer and Karen's Chocolate Cake. The Coconut Layer cupcake was "yummers" in the words of my wife. So creamy and crunchy with large flakes of snow white shaved coconut. Chocolate cupcake was indeed moist and topped with richly creamy milk chocolate. I would highly recommend stopping by to try one of their 12 kinds of cupcakes with some delicious coffee.

Picture Courtesy of Atlantic Magazine