Walk into the newly expanded Baked & Wired and you may feel as if you’ve died and gone to cupcake heaven. Dozens of cupcakes perch on cake stands along a Carrera marble bar, waiting to be whisked home or eaten in the shop’s new lounge.
“We’ve gone from making a couple dozen cupcakes a week to 100 a day,” says owner/baker Teresa Velazquez. Current favorites are strawberry (“We mix fresh strawberries in the batter,” she says), Karen’s chocolate cake (named for Velazquez’s grandmother), and birthday cake (classic yellow cake with white icing and sprinkles)—all $3.25 each. Every Friday there’s a raffle for a giant cupcake (enough to feed six and available for $40 by special order).
Other baked goods such as the popular bee-sting bars, banana-chocolate-chip cake, and cookies are still available. The cafe has also upgraded its coffee-roasting equipment and switched to beans from Counter Culture, a fair-trade company that sources coffee from all over the world. You’ll always find the house blend plus a flavor that changes monthly (currently French roast). Velazquez also says that B&W baristas are getting more intense training, so you might find a heart or leaf design swirled into your latte’s steamed milk.
Now that there are leather lounge chairs for hanging out, hours have expanded to include weekends. The shop is open Sunday through Friday 10 to 6, Saturday 10 to 8.
Baked & Wired, 1052 Thomas Jefferson St., NW; 202-333-2500; bakedandwired.com.
