Georgetown Cupcakes, home of the show “DC Cupcakes”, just broke the world record making the world’s largest cupcake. TLC aired an hour-long special about it last week. This is not a review on how I feel about the show, although I rarely watch it because it drives me up the wall (and this special was no exception), but I tuned in about 1/2 way thru because I caught wind that for 24 hours after that episode was aired, there was a promo code to get 40% off cupcakes, and they ship all over the US. With the promo code, shipping was practically free. W00t! I have no plans of ever being in the vicinity of Georgetown Cupcakes’ storefront and I’m a sucker for sales, so I figured, what the hell? I’ve blown $33 bucks on much stupider stuff, might as well order some.
But honestly, I was major curious how they ship. I mean yeah, I wanted to taste their cupcakes but I REALLY wanted to see how they do their packaging, because as any professional baker will tell you, figuring out perfect packaging is like searching for the Lost Ark, and just when you think you have it all figured out you see a competitor come up with something way cool. But also, there is lots of misinformation in the cake world about what you really need in order to ship baked goods. I’ve read people say you need special kitchens, special permits, special nutritional labels, and pay special interstate taxes. I’ve never found any documentation to back this up and the owners of my commercial kitchen says you don’t need any of that, but I figured, if there WAS something special, famed Georgetown Cupcakes would most certainly have it.
They ship via Federal Express overnight, and here is breakdown of what I got:
The Outer Box
The main box reminded me of a large folding shoebox made of super heavy cardboard. It is super-branded, covered in pink with Georgetown Cupcakes’ signature black design pattern covering the entire box. NO mistake of what’s in it and where it came from. The only label on this box is the Fedex sticker.
Mylar envelope
Open the box and you see this – a padded Mylar envelope that is mostly sealed. There is a card (tucked into the top of the envelope) that explains that the cupcakes were baked the prior day, shipped frozen, and to leave them out for 3 hours to defrost. It had no nutritional info nor did it have an ingredients label, but did have the standard “food allergy” warning. I don’t think that is a legal requirement, I think it’s done for liability purposes (but I could be wrong).
Inside the Envelope
Another box with this single ice pack. Not dry ice, but a simple cheap gel coolant pack. (reusable!)
The Inner Box
A better photo of the inner box, made of the same super-thick cardboard as the outer box. Other then the logo on top, there is no other label on it.
Finally, cupcakes in sight!
Now we finally see some cupcakes, 12 of them in a super thick, plastic clamshell container. I ordered a variety pack and pretty much chose at random.
Inside the Clamshell (from top left to right): Strawberry, red velvet, lemon berry, carrot, toasted marshmallow fudge, salted caramel, milk chocolate birthday, chocolate2, chocolate salted caramel, toffee crunch, vanilla, and lemon blossom
As if the packaging wasn’t enough, they have lollypop sticks inserted in each cupcake, I assume to keep them from hitting the top of the clamshell if the box is dropped or something. I don;t see how that could have effected anything because these girls were frozen solid when I opened this box.
My over-all impression: I know cake is fragile, but it’s not THAT fragile. The San Francisco hippie in me shakes my head at the waist of paper and resources that went into all this packaging. Is it necessary? Could they reduce some of it? I think so. I mean, these aren’t Faberge eggs, they’re cupcakes for crying out loud!
Oh, how did we like them, you may be asking?
Um, well...
Just to clarify, I got these to examine the packaging and to taste something that I normally wouldn’t, but the plan never was for my husband and I to actually eat these. Please understand, I have cake available 24/7, so it’s not very often that we would eat, say, a whole one of MY cupcakes, let alone a whole dozen of Georgetown Cupcakes. This is a pic of them today right before they go out to the trash to give you an idea of what we liked. I believe these are the exact cupcakes that people wait in massive lines for and that nothing in flavor or texture was lost due to shipping. Hubbie liked the cream cheese frosting so that’s why you see the frosting missing off one, but honestly this just isn’t our type of cake… it’s too sweet for us. But comparing these to say, SusieCakes or other cupcakes of the same fame that I’ve had, these are good, and I appreciate their price point (as opposed to SusieCakes, $3.00 for failed scratch cake with fake frosting from a can. A can! But hey, I guess it IS pretty genius to fill a failed sunken cupcake with frosting, turn it into a marketing ploy and call them “frosting filled!”). Anyway, I really felt these Georgetown Cupcakes are priced appropriately and even though we didn’t eat all of them, I felt I got my money’s worth.
Gotta Try: Toffee Crunch. I swiped just frosting. Meh. I nibbled just cake. Meh. I took a bite putting it all together, and it was the tastiest of the bunch. The flavors really worked well with each other. 2nd runner up was the Carrot cake. Kind of a mystery to me, it seemed like a butter cake when most carrot cakes are oil-based. Makes me want to experiment. And with the cream cheese frosting (that hubbie ate all of), it was good.
Pass on: Both salted caramels. I know these are “fad” flavors, but if you are going to call something “salted caramel”, I want to taste salt AND caramel, and the chocolate needs to be rich and dark to work.
Completely gross: Both lemon flavors. 100% artificial flavor. They top them with those fake gummy lemons and manage to make the entire cupcake taste like it. Complete mystery how they do it, but one I’m not willing to try and figure out. Also, if I would have known they added so much pink food color to the frosting of the lemon berry cupcake, I never would have ordered it. Bleach.
So there you go!
Have you had Georgetown Cupcakes? What’s your favorite flavor? Post a comment!
Thanks for sharing – I have always wondered how they ship across the country as well. I have a son away at college and he and his friends were begging for me to send cake. I told them I could send them a baggy of it, lol! Perhaps, I should revisit the whole shipping thing and surprise him.
Thanks for the review! I watch this show occasionally but like you, with all of the drama, find it diffifcult to stomach most of the time.
I love your scratch white cake/ yellow cake recipe. Have you ever tried to double it for larger- say 10 or 12″ cakes?
Yes, you should have no problems doubling the recipe!
I don’t want to sound as though I’m just jumping on your bandwagon, but I 100% agree with everything you said! EVERYTHING, from the show to their flavors! And it might make u feel better to know that you had actually gone to the Georgetown store front, you would have easily paid $10+ for parking along with the ridiculous wait in line!!
Great post, thanks for sharing!
Maybe the sticks in the cupcakes are used for handling them frozen, so not to leave fingerprints?
I’m from DC origially, but I’ve been living in SF for over a decade now. When the cupcake craze hit the DC Metro area, I remember my sister insisting I come try both CakeLove and Georgetown cupcakes. CL was terrible, Georgetown was passibly good but a bit too sweet for me. Plus I always pick cake over cupcakes, so I might have been biased from the start. Georgetown Cupcakes I think was good, but it won’t be a destination trip for me when I go back home. I just found your site and love it; hope you get chosen for CC Wars and win it for SF.
From the DC area here…people go absolutely ape-shit for Georgetown Cupcakes here. We are inundated with cupcake bakeries in and around the DC area but people will still go back and wait in massive lines for Gtown Cupcakes. As someone who has had these things on multiple occasion (because, to reiterate, everyone and their sister loves them) they’re just plain blah. The cake is always DRY and the frosting is massively sugary but never in a good fluffy waym. There is nothing special about their cupcakes. There is a Sprinkles down the street from Georgetown Cupcakes IN Georgetown and there is always a line there too. At least some of us won’t settle for sugared pieces of cardboard.
WOW… I can’t thank you enough for this post! I’ve been trying to figure out how to ship cupcakes as well. And as for shipping across state lines and what not… i’ve sent brownies, cake balls, and a few other sweet treats across state lines and never had any problems. I just saw someone else on CakeCentral post about how you can’t ship them too. I have no licensing and i’ve never had an issue.
You are welcome! I have seen the claims on CC about needing special licenses, paying special taxes etc. and I respectfully disagree. I, of course, am no authority and I encourage everyone to do their own research, but… I have beaten this issue to DEATH and have never found a link, article, or a form number for getting a kitchen inspected and approved by the Federal Government for shipping cake domestically. Calls and emails to the FDA have given me the run around – they have no idea why I’d be contacting them unless I want to ship overseas or import food from a foreign country. They don’t license kitchens – that’s the job of your local government or the USDA. And since I don’t sell raw meat, fish, poultry or eggs, I don’t need a USDA license. And, the claim you have to pay taxes to the state you ship to is unconstitutional under the commerce clause in the constitution so that’s totally bogus – otherwise Amazon would be paying state taxes in every state they do business. So yeah. It’s crazy there are no regulations that I can find, but it is what it is.
Having said that, if someone can post a source contradicting what I’ve said that would be awesome, because I’ll be the 1st to jump in line to make sure I am totally legal and correct on this. And I mean a link to the FDA, USDA, Department of Ag or other government authority’s website, a form number, or article posted on one of the mentioned websites.
TFR!
Hi, I haven’t had Georgetown Cupcakes before as I’m from a different country called Malaysia but I have heard of it before so if I may ask, can you please tell me what are the size of the cupcakes that they made and you ate?
Thank you so much for this information. I shipped cupcakes last week and they were all over the container. I was going to try royal icing on the bottom of the cupcake liners for test #2. I wil try the sticks for test #2 instead
So let me get this straight…you shook your head in regards to the wasteful packaging but you are throwing away an entire dozen of cupcakes that you spent $60 on, and that doesn’t make you shake your head?
I guess you missed the part where I said I got them ON SALE WITH FREE SHIPPING for $30, which is the same price as if I lived around the corner from them (and FYI, that’s $6 cheaper then I sell my basic dozen cupcakes for), and yes, I chucked the majority of them. I recycled the cardboard and plastic, and the cake went in the compost. I feel pretty OK about that. And yes, the packing is way over the top. Thanks for reading.