Capital Cupcake Craze: Where to Get Them

The cupcake has been unstoppable in 2010. Only 12 months ago, the only place you'd have gone looking for a cupcake would have been a Shunyi bake sale, but walk through Sanlitun now and they're everywhere. We knew The Village North would be all about high-end designer brands; what we didn't expect was that nobody would be seen dead buying Armani or Diesel without a cupcake store just around the corner to sneak off into once the shopping was done. Cupcakes aren't just the new black; they're pretty much the new everything, so before you get tired of them we thought we'd round up the cupcake offerings currently around town.

CCSweets

Carol Chow is an artist, jewelry designer, chocolatier and cake designer. Carol’s family ran a famous bakery in Singapore, and she has traveled and tasted desserts around the world and lived in New York for 20 years. She uses only the best gourmet imported ingredients to make her cupcakes. The cakes aren’t too sweet to taste, but they’re sure to leave you with sweet memories of your celebrations.

Flavors: Cupcake body: Banana, chocolate, carrot, red velvet or vanilla. Frosting: chocolate ganache, cream cheese or and butter cream (Madagascan vanilla, peanut butter, ginger chocolate, chocolate, caramel, mint or rum). You can also order customized flavors such as baijiu and green tea. They even have sugar-free options, and custom-created cupcakes for baby showers, weddings, birthday parties and even Halloween.

Price per cupcake: RMB 15/22/28 (mini/regular/giant)

Available at CCSweets’ Central Park store. For orders of six cupcakes or more, place the order in the morning for afternoon or evening pickup.

Free delivery with orders above RMB 460 around the Third Ring Road

For more details, check: http://ccsweets.cn/

Colibri Cafe

Nestled in trendy Sanlitun Village North, alongside creative labels and high-end boutiques, Colibri offers handcrafted cupcakes with fine ingredients, topped with soft butter cream. The interior was designed by award-winning San Francisco-based studio Eight Inc. Sandwiches and coffee complement the colorful spread of mid-day snacks.

Price per cupcake: RMB 23. Buy five, get one free.

Flavors: Ten flavors in total and seven flavors for each day, including green tea & chocolate, double chocolate, mango & passion fruit, carrot & squash, raspberry & lemon, mocha, etc.

Free delivery with orders above RMB 220 within 5km of the store

Gourmet Corner

China World Hotel keeps up with the cupcake craze with this popular takeaway counter in the hotel’s west wing, which has recently launched a collection of cupcakes. Grab some when you’re around Guomao.

Flavors: raspberry onyx, blueberry cheese, black forest and pistachio

Price per cupcake: RMB 20/30 (with/without packaging)

Gu's Cake Shop (古氏蛋糕专卖)

Averse to overly sweet or salty food, chef Gu makes less sweet mini cupcakes with quality natural ingredients at reasonable prices.

Flavors: red velvet, chocolate chips with caramel frosting, devil chocolate with chocolate butter cream

Price per cupcake: RMB 4 (minimum order five cupcakes; buy five get one free)

Free delivery within 3km of the shop or for orders over RMB 60; otherwise, RMB 15 delivery cost applies

For more details, check: http://shop61972564.taobao.com/

Homaroma

Delivering homemade healthy and natural baked goods, ranging from nut cakes and light cheesecakes to tarts, cupcakes and cookies.

Flavors: simple fruit, iced fruit, chocolate caramel

Price per cupcake: RMB 10-12 (minimum order 12 cupcakes)

Free delivery within 3km of Gongti Beilu; otherwise, round-trip taxi fee will be charged

For more details, check: http://www.homaroma.com/

The Lollipop Bakery

UK cupcake connoisseur Lexie Morris bakes fresh cupcakes with swirls of butter cream frosting. They are meticulous about every last detail, from the handmade sugar flower atop each cupcake to their attractive packaging.

Flavors: Cupcake body: chocolate, vanilla and red velvet, Earl Grey, spiced carrot, cookies & cream, red bean, black sesame, and monthly specials (a recent example is pumpkin cupcake with pumpkin frosting). Frostings: cream cheese, chocolate, vanilla and lemon

Price per dozen: RMB 110/220/390 (mini/regular/giant). Minimum order 12 cupcakes

Available at Crepanini, Fisheye Café and Secrets From Africa.

For more details, check: http://www.lollipopbakery.cn

Pie House

As a special festive treat, American pie enthusiast Mark Huetsch is also selling cupcakes from Dec 1-Jan 1.

Flavors: Lemon (with lemon icing and lemon curd filling), red velvet (with cream cheese icing), chocolate (with 72% dark chocolate ganache icing and filling), banana (with honey cinnamon icing and vanilla cream filling) and coconut cream (with whipped cream and baked coconut flakes on top and coconut cream filling). The specialty lies in their fillings, but we were also impressed by the extra moistness of the cake body. They even accept orders for wedding cupcakes. Check out their online gallery.

Price per cupcake: RMB 25 (five cakes per box),

Free delivery within the Fourth Ring Road

Available at Jenny Lou’s

For more details, check: http://www.piehouse.com.cn/