Photo by Deb Jacques The Cupcake Station owners Kerry Johnson and his partner Tom Holleman of Sylvan Lake opened the store last August.

The icing on the cupcake

Cupcake Station rated
‘best overall’ after Web site’s
cross-country cupcake crawl

By Mary Beth Almond
C & G Staff Writer

BIRMINGHAM — The Cupcake Station quickly became a community favorite after opening in Birmingham last August, and now the bakery’s delectable little cakes are popular throughout the nation.

The Cupcake Station recently received the “Best Overall Cupcakes” and the “Best Individual Cupcake” rankings from the Web site CupcakeFetish.com following a nine-day, cross-country cupcake tasting crawl.

Before embarking on the voyage, Web site creators Seema Patel, 26, and Evan Tahler, 23, set three rules to make sure their reviews would be as accurate as possible — to purchase a maximum of two cupcakes at each shop, to consume a maximum of one cupcake every two hours, and to purchase one vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting to serve as a baseline whenever possible. The team traveled 3,707.8 miles from Los Angeles to Pittsburg — where they both reside — tasting cupcakes from as many different shops as possible.

After indulging in 56 cupcakes from 32 specialty bakeries across the nation, Patel and Tahler agreed there was “no contest” in their choice to rate the Cupcake Station’s cupcakes as the best.

“Their cupcakes were excellent,” said Patel. “The cakes were really moist, the frosting was really creamy, and they had a good balance of flavor. They were just really, really well constructed cupcakes, and as we were leaving the store we kind of joked with each other, ‘Should we even keep going on this trip? We just found the perfect cupcakes.’”

When Patel first walked into the Birmingham bakery she said she was immediately “blown away” by how big the shop is and the variety of cupcakes offered.

“Most places typically only offer around six-10 flavors. The day we were there, they had 26 different flavors in their display case, which is just unheard of,” she said.

While eyeing the many frosted treats, storeowners Kerry Johnson and Tom Holleman suggested that the two try the What’s up Doc, a carrot cake cupcake, and the Strawberry Delight — which Patel and Tahler named the “Best Individual Cupcake” on the crawl.

“We had them in the store and we were just immediately blown away. Both of the cupcakes were fantastic. We gave them both perfect ratings, and that’s never happened to us before. We were just completely delighted,” said Patel.

Excited to see what the two were going to write about the Cupcake Station, Johnson checked the site daily, looking for a review.

“They don’t just write a good review because they think you are nice people, they are honest about the cupcakes,” he said. “Our jaws hit the ground when we saw that we were rated as the best overall cupcakes on the crawl. We were thrilled.”

Whether you’re nostalgic for the chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles of your childhood or you want to reward yourself or someone special with a sweet treat, the Cupcake Station is the place. Serving up homemade-style, gourmet cupcakes that are baked fresh daily, the Cupcake Station offers a variety of flavors, including Red Velvet, Cookies and Cream and Chocolate Cheesecake.

“We started out with eight varieties and now we’re up to 26 … ,” said Johnson.

Holleman said they come up with new cupcakes every week.

“We just changed a few of our cupcakes, we have an apple pie, a pumpkin, a spiced cake and a chocolate mint that we brought out for the fall,” said Johnson.

The Cupcake Station also offers a variety of cakes, cookies, mini-pies, brownies, old-fashioned puddings and fresh-made deli sandwiches, salads and soups.

“We really want to be known for everything we do because we work so hard at all of the baked goods that we have here — not only our cupcakes,” said Johnson, adding that the shop sells almost as many baked goods as cupcakes.

The Cupcake Station is located at 136 N. Old Woodward in Birmingham.

For more information, visit www.cupcakestation.com or call (248) 593-1903.

CupcakeFetish.com is a cupcake directory and review Web site that features a database with 375 stores in seven countries and about 250 reviews.