Like all good Americans I believe the cupcake to be the perfect dessert. It is supposed to be sweet and creamy with a touch of whimsy that perfectly fits in your hand. In Hong Kong the search for a girl's perfect cupcake is a very personal ones as different people have different needs in their cupcakes. Some people like toppings, some people like tons of frosting and some people want modern flavored cupcakes!
Being a Georgia girl I love red velvet cake so the number one cupcake goes to the bakery with the best red velvet in town!
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| Red Velvet Cupcakes! GIMME! |
1) Best Red Velvet Cupcake
SWEET SECRETS
35 Graham St., Central
Located near SOHO in between Elgin St. and the Market is a little hidden away bakery with super yummy cupcakes! I also highly recommend their classic Vanilla as they made this for us in mini form for our theatre company and they were a big hit. The owner is very nice and gave us a small discount for being a non-profit which I appreciated greatly! She also does pies and cakes, and every day in the shop there are two off the rack flavors available. Go on a day with Red Velvet. It's the perfect frosting/cake ratio and the central shop has stools and a counter for you to sit at and chat with your girlfriends! They also have a second shop in Causeway Bay near Times Square but don't ask me for the address as I have no idea what it is. Also Sweet Secrets is a nut free environment which is handy for people who have kids with allergies or people like me who love desserts but often get hit by secret nut attacks!
2) Best Avant Guarde Cupcakes
COCO in TST
The Mira Hotel, 118 Nathan Rd, TST
COCO's cupcakes are HUGE! They are require forks to fully enjoy but come with great modern flavors and a good frosting. They are also the only cupcake boutique on Kowloon side for those Kongers like me whom don't want to treck to Central to get a decent cupcake. Try the Kalamansi Chocolate as it's a spanish style chocolate cupcake with chili in it for that extra kick!
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| The cupcakes at Coco. Fork necessary! |
3) Best Location
COMPLETE DEELITE
LKF- 3167-7022
Conveniently located in LKF, party central for many an expat. Complete Deelite is the perfect place to pick up some cupcakes for a birthday party in Central. Their lemon cupcake and vanilla cupcakes are great but the other flavors are standard. Be careful of their boxes as often times the cupcakes fall out and smash into each other. (Messy and annoying!) You can get sprinkles or not but due to their convenient location if you must have cupcakes from them you must pre-order as they go really fast!
4) Best ingredients
SIFT
51 Queen's Rd. East, Wanchai, 2528- 0084
or their dessert bar at 46 Graham St. Central
The Wanch location is their bakery and a place for you to sit and enjoy your cupcakes is in Central. Don't get them mixed up if you are picking up an order! Sift uses all natural organic ingredients and comes up with gourmet flavors to compliment the classics. You can taste the difference in the cake as they use French Butter and vanilla imported from Madagascar. They don't scrimp here on the fixings so expect to pay more. They also use a 3/4 cake 1/4 frosting ratio which might not be what some of you people like. The cake here is better though than the frosting, in my opinion.
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| Cupcakes at SIFT, can you see the difference? |
5)Biggest Size
CAKEALICIOUS
11 Lyndhurst Terrace Central
Located near Flow, the most amazing used bookstore in HK is Cakealicous. Whose cupcakes are massive. (You need two hands to eat one or a fork.) They smell great and the smell leaks out into the road which will draw you in for a hit. I recommend going to Flow to buy a used book and use the money you saved by rewarding yourself with a cupcake! Perfect Pair!
Runner Up: Baking Maniac: They are super cute but they taste terrible!
I didn't have 'red velvet' cupcake before but I really want to. I don't do sweet things much, but it's refreshing sometimes. Maybe next time I go to Hong Kong, you could show me some of the best places!!
ReplyDeleteOh man, I'm hungry. It's Eat, Pray, Love moment all over again!!
Red velvet is a very famous southern cake. you can see it in the movie, Steel Magnolias
ReplyDeleteHey are you allowed to take pictures in these shops cuz i am doing IGCSE art at the moment and im going to do a painting on cakes so I need quite a lot of pictures on cakes. Therefore, i wanna ask if im allowed to take pictures of the products but not buying them? ( cuz they r expensive;P)
ReplyDeleteYou can always ask the baker to take pictures. These pictures I got off their websites.
ReplyDeleteHi, I was wondering if you could help me. If you had to choose cupcakes between Sift or Complete Deelite, who would you pick?
ReplyDeleteAlso, when you went, who do you think had better customer service? Reason I'm asking is because I want to order some cupcakes as a thank you gift for a friend, but I'm located in Australia..and wanted to find out who might be easier to deal with when ordering.
Thanks,
Jo.
I would go with Deelite if it's for delivery. They have much better service and you can order online through their email. Sift is really good though but I believe you have to call them.
ReplyDeleteHi Meaghan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your fast response. I don't mind having to call through, since I was planning to do that anyway. So from what you're saying, Sift has the better cupcakes overall, but the service was so so, whereas Deelite had better service?
Thanks,
Jo.
I prefer Sift to Deelite because it's not as sweet.
ReplyDeleteGreat.. thanks Meaghan!!
ReplyDelete=)
Try www.kissescupcakes.com @ Gough Street Central .. pretty amazing. Unique, rich and not that sweet buttercream topping - delicious
ReplyDeleteI might need to redo this article at somepoint in the near future, like 20 new cupcake places have opened.
ReplyDeleteHi, I am doing a project in which I need to expand a company internationally. I was thinking of expanding a successful cupcake franchise from the US to Hong Kong. Would the business be successful in Hong Kong? From the looks of your article it seems it would face lots of competition from already well-established cupcake places.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of cupcake places in HK right now, many more have started since I wrote this article. You might want to consider a patisserie or a donut shop instead as we don't really have one of these and macaroons and donuts are becoming the it thing in the US, so therefore in about a year they will boom in HK. We are about a year behind in trends.
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