Please welcome Guest Blogger, my husband Bill…

I thought it was my civic duty to contribute to Janis’ blog in my area of expertise: cupcakes (and other assorted snacks). This is just a preliminary report and I will continue looking for cupcakes wherever I may find them…whether or not Janis continues to post my guest entries.

So far I think I have just hit the tip of the iceberg. There are tons of places downtown to get cupcakes and snacks. Just within a couple of blocks of our apartment there’s a cupcake store, one smoothie place, and one frozen yogurt place. Another yogurt place is about to open in the Austonian. But for now, let’s focus on cupcakes.

A word of warning: if you are looking for critical reviews of cupcakes, you will probably be disappointed. I rarely find cupcakes that I don’t like.

Delish is closest to us on Third Street between Colorado and Lavaca. They focus on, and have, a wide variety of cupcakes. The staff is friendly and the cupcakes are delish-ious.

1886 Cafe and Bakery is in the Driskill Hotel. Janis thought I was joining her so she could take pictures for her O Christmas Tree blog entry, but my real purpose was to check out this high-end bakery. They make an excellent cupcake. It was huge and took two sittings to eat. Very good – especially if you get hungry while hanging out on Sixth Street. And the “D” in the cupcake below was edible!

Hey Cupcake! has become an Austin institution with several trailers around town and one store on Burnet Road. I’ve tried the trailer on South Congress and also at Fun Fun Fun Fest. They have excellent cupcakes. A must-have if you’re doing the SoCo thing.

Sweetish Hill Bakery has great cupcakes on Sixth Street west of Lamar. We also enjoyed their sandwiches and cakes. The ones pictured here have a holiday theme but I just stuck to the basics for an excellent cupcake. I got excited when I heard of another Sweetish Hill Bakery near The Four Seasons Hotel (which is much closer to us), but was disappointed to find out it’s mostly a sandwich place and doesn’t focus on the desserts. Bummer.

 Whole Foods flagship store is on Lamar between Fifth and Sixth. I’m sure many of you are surprised to see a grocery store on this list but this store is truly amazing for desserts and eating in general. Whole Foods has several things going for it: 
1. It’s a good 15-minute walk from our apartment so I feel like I’m working off the calories before and after I eat. 

2. They have full sized and mini-sized versions of everything (and we’re talking more than just cupcakes here). Having the minis is another way not to feel guilty with my increased dessert’ing being done in support of this blog.  

3. There is a variety of different desserts. Last time I had an excellent mini-sandwich of two chocolate chip cookies stuffed with cream. An excellent value at 49 cents! I could easily have a different dessert here every day, no repeats, for a long time.  

That’s it (for now) for the downtown Austin cupcake scene. For those who don’t make it to downtown or to Austin, here are a couple of other places you might want to check out:

Lick It Bite It Or Both wins the prize for best double entendre name of a cupcake/ice cream store. This is the closest cupcake place to where I work on Burnet Road. My co-workers know that any celebration at work is worthy of a cupcake run.

The Upper Crust Bakery on Burnet Road and 45th Street (I guess Burnet is a hot bed of cupcake places) has been my cupcake of choice for a long time. Either the chocolate ones with cream cheese filling and piece of chocolate on top or the regular chocolate ones are excellent!

Martha’s Country Bakery on Austin Street (sticking with the Austin theme!) in Queens, N.Y. has a great assortment. If I were really to review N.Y. bakeries, I think I’d need to focus on black and white cookies as well as cupcakes.

The Pie Shoppe which is somewhere in Pennsylvania and is highly recommended by the rest of my family!