Georgetown Cupcake — Restaurant in Bethesda

Feb 2021

I think it says something that I ordered from this place 3 separate times before I got around to writing this review. The cupcakes are AMAZING, totally worth the money! They have classic cupcakes that they make everyday, but also daily and monthly cupcakes too. It encourages you to order year round 😉.

The people are friendly too, but I think they need to work on their organization for pickups. Usually they can find the correct order almost instantly, but sometimes it takes them a number of minutes to find the right order.

Their online ordering system is very good, easy to use. They have descriptions and pictures of their cupcakes right there when you're ordering, so no need to look at the separate menus. As a bonus, you can order up to 4 weeks in advance.

And now, some cupcakes of note:

Coconut (Tue, Thu, Fri, Sat; Dec): coconut goodness! It could only be improved if the cream cheese frosting also somehow incorporated coconut.

Chocolate Hazelnut (Wed): as someone who loves the combo of chocolate and nuts, this is an instant favorite. Yummy chocolate cake topped with a delicious hazelnut crunch. 👍👍👍👍👍 Will definitely get it again. Sad that it's only available on Wednesdays.

Peanut Butter Fudge (Daily): the frosting most definitely uses real peanut butter, very strong peanut taste. Good, but I personally think the cupcake would have been better without the chocolate fudge core. Eaten overall, it was too sweet and chocolatey, and the peanut butter was struggling to make it through.

Strawberry Lava Fudge (Feb): a variation on their Lava Fudge cupcake, replacing the vanilla buttercream for strawberry buttercream. Good, but sadly the strawberry flavor in the buttercream is very faint. The buttercream itself is also a very faint pink. The cupcake mainly tasted like chocolate, no strawberry.

Strawberry Cheesecake (Feb): this one is phenomenal! There is a graham cracker crust (about 1/3 - 1/2 of the cupcake), cheesecake made with REAL cream cheese and strawberry bits, and strongly flavored strawberry buttercream with strawberry bits. Delicious! But it does puzzle me that this buttercream has a strong strawberry flavor but the Strawberry Lava Fudge does not. The buttercream is also more distinctly pink than the Strawberry Lava Fudge.

Red Velvet Swirl Cheesecake (Feb): also delicious (you can tell I love their cheesecakes). The cheesecake had a good blend of cream cheese and red velvet.

Raspberry Chocolate Chip (Feb): very chocolatey, not enough raspberry. Eating just the cake portion, I could taste the raspberry just fine. But paired with the chocolate topping and I just tasted chocolate. Perhaps increase the amount of raspberry bits and decrease the amount of chocolate chips.

Ruby Chocolate Raspberry (Feb): kinda disappointing. For those that don't know, ruby chocolate is a relatively new chocolate that is naturally pink and has a tangy, sour, fruity taste. I'm not a huge fan (too sweet for me), but I find the flavor profile interesting and I'm always eager to taste how people use it in their foods. The raspberry cupcake was delicious, with plenty of raspberry bits. But the ruby chocolate buttercream did not taste like ruby chocolate. It was completely missing that sour fruity flavor and just tasted sweet. Very disappointing. I'm hoping they can improve their recipe...

I do really like Georgetown Cupcake but felt like my last experience wasn’t so great. I have gestational diabetes & if I am going to splurge once it’s well thought out in advance. I think it was 5:30 on a Friday, so about 3.5 hours before closing. I wanted red velvet, which I assume is a popular flavor, but they were all sold out of it (again think this is a little surprising with 3.5 hours left of store time but maybe that’s the norm). I asked if they had other cream cheese style icing cupcakes, and the girl at the register didn’t know, so she asked the guy working the back, who also just confirmed no. I picked alternate flavors and only to be told there weren’t sufficient of the flavor I picked (I asked for 3 of the birthday flavor and there were 2 - fine I get it)…BUT what kind of annoyed me is, I had a free moment to look at the menu after leaving (in store the line was long and I was relying on the in store associates to help me find something similar which they told me didn’t exist) and I see there are several other flavors that also have cream cheese style icing - at least 3 other ones (a chocolate one, a vanilla one, and a gingerbread one). When I was at the store, I literally asked the girl at the register “so no other cupcake made here has cream cheese style icing?” and the answer was “no”. Kind of disappointed - the staff should know the product and alternatives, or at least be helpful “if you like this, try X”.

There were also cupcakes on display which I was willing to purchase but she said they don’t sell those cupcakes; however, when I got to the store and stood in line there were two red velvet ones that suddenly were not there when I got to the front of the line. Idk, it wasn’t a great experience and I would expect better for $4 a pop on cupcakes. I was excited to have a cupcake but the experience sucked, and what I ended up with...

Cupcakes are way over overhyped and sickly sweet with a mound of frosting. The cake is very dense and not light or airy, I scrape off most of the frosting. Not worth the long lines.

No walk-ups - you need to order online in advance. I drove all the way from McLean and turned away inside with a smug look from a staff member, so I got delivery (dozen minimum). It's nice that Georgetown delivers outside the DMV area to McLean for only a small $10 delivery charge.

While it was nice to sample different flavors of the Thanksgiving dozen, the assortment was very heavy on maple. The cupcakes had similar sickly sweet salted caramel or vanilla frosting on a chocolate or vanilla cupcake with different combinations. The cake portion of the Maple Chocolate Chip cupcake was nice, but the sugary maple through it off. Would have been nice to see toffee, mocha, peppermint or more savory flavors added to the mix.

Among the Thanksgiving dozen, the Caramel Apple, the Chocolate Ganache vanilla cupcake, and Chocolate Caramel Swirl were my favorites. The rich decadent chocolate ganache frosting balances out the sweet savory caramel frosting and marbled cake. The Chocolate Ganache vanilla cupcake tastes like a chocolate chip pancake. While the Caramel Apple was quite sweet and tasted like a sugar cookie, the chunks of apple elevated the flavor.

I wish there was a key to help distinguish the flavors as the adorable fondant toppers didn't help and mixed up the Salted Caramel with the Apple Caramel.

Over the years, I've dabbled through Georgetown Cupcake's menu and after a dozen, I'm set with just one. I'll stick to my favorites with the cream of the crop monthly specials - Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip, Caramel Apple, Santa's Chocolate Chip, and Sticky Toffee Pudding, and Chocolate Salted Caramel...