Polka Dot Bake Shop

Who: Polka Dot Bake Shop

Who Recommended: DishTip and Charlotte Magazine’s Battle of the Cupcakes

For: Chocolate Cupcakes

Ratings:

• Chocolate Cupcakes: 7/10
• Red Velvet Cupcakes 8/10
• Salted Caramel Cupcakes 9/10

I prefer my bakeries to be in a quaint little house with the smell of vanilla wafting out of the door when each customer leaves with their bags of delicacies.  Polka Dot Bake Shop isn’t like that.  It’s in a strip mall, but I can forgive that because the cupcakes were so yummy!

Inside is a smallish space with the baked goods case front and center, as it should be.  They had a modest offering the day we were there, but that’s just fine.  You don’t want a lot of mess just sitting around getting stale.  We went on a Friday about 1:30 and we had a line behind us out the darn door.  People love this place!

We sampled 3 varieties on our visit.  The first was a salted caramel cupcake.  The cake was moist and delicious, the buttery frosting just sweet enough to balance the little bite of salt from the caramel.  Topped with a dollop of caramel and a salty cashew makes it the perfect dessert.  This one has very little that isn’t perfect.  We gave it 9/10 stars!

Next up is the chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting.  This one was good, but my least favorite of the three.  The cake itself was a little on the dry side and the buttercream, while rich, was pretty overpowering.  A nice contrasting vanilla buttercream might have been a better choice.  And I could have done without the sugar crystal sprinkles altogether.  Don’t mess up my creamy dream. 7/10 stars

Back to the good stuff…Red Velvet cupcake was moist and delicious and we loved the bite from the cream cheese icing.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t too sweet.  Red Velvet cake can be either Ronald McDonald red or cloyingly sweet and be messed right up, but not so with this cake.  It was perfect.  nearly. I gave it 8/10 because it just wasn’t as luscious as the salted caramel.  I’m the customer, I can do that.

If you love cupcakes, and nice people, stop by Polka Dot today.