Neapolitan Cupcake Shoppe

This is the best little shop and I am so happy they brought it to Aiken!

I LOVE cupcakes. A cupcake place in Aiken? The thought made me giddy. I planned which day I wanted to go according to the daily flavor menu. I chose to go on a Wednesday. First impressions: The shop is narrow, the cupcakes look great– they are very generous with their frosting. I told the girl behind the counter I wanted a box of six. They had 2 samples out, so I took one of each. 1. was a decorated sugar cookie, the other a mini pumpkin cupcake. I purchased a Key Lime, a Lemon, a Strawberry, 2 Red Velvet, and Chocolate with Chocolate frosting. Let’s get down to business.
1. Key Lime– Let’s talk about truth in advertising. If you are selling a KEY LIME cupcake is better damn well taste like Key Lime. NOT Persian Lime. If you want to do a LIME cupcake you need to advertise it as a Lime cupcake. In addition to the fact that the flavor was incorrect– the overall lime flavor was artificial. You know what it tasted like? A lime lifesaver. Not so yummy.
2. Lemon– the cake had very little flavor, in fact I would not be surprised if the same better was used for the «Key Lime» and Lemon cupcakes– then each topped with a different icing. The icing on the Lemon had that artificial flavor as well, but not as much as the «Key Lime» The icing seemed creamier. I don’t know that it actually had cream cheese in it– maybe some cream cheese flavoring.
3. Strawberry– I hoped that the strawberry would be better– and I guess it was. KindaSortaNotReally. There were actually strawberry pieces in the cake and frosting. About 5 very tiny ones in the whole cupcake. The frosting was very much like the lime frosting in that it was overwhelmingly artificial. Ick.
4. Red Velvet– These were the best, and that is not saying much. I did not love the texture of the cake– it tasted okay. The cream cheese frosting was SO tangy. I ate a red velvet first, so I just thought OH! Tangy. After I had tried the others and then gone back to the red velvet, I realized that frosting was tangy because it had artificial flavor in it!
5. Chocolate– Okay. There are 2 ways to do a Chocolate cupcake. The cheap way (with only a bit of cocoa powder), or the rich delicious way (where you melt actual chocolate). Wanna guess how this cupcake was made? Yeah, the cocoa powder way. The cake really lacked the chocolate flavor, and even in color was not very rich looking. Same with the icing.
6. The Free samples– The sugar cookie was hard, and not super delicious, but the icing on top masked that somewhat. The mini pumpkin cupcake? It was actually the best thing I tried. However– I am not going to waste my money at this place again.
Overall– The cupcakes were very pretty, and well presented. Unfortunately they were also pretty nasty. Thank goodness I had a coupon. There is no way I can be the first person to say this, if this is their second shop! COME ON! The owner and bakers need to line their product up and taste it against say, Cupcake in Columbia. They would be embarrassed.
You would get better tasting cupcakes from ANY grocer in town, and you would pay less.