Over the past few years the num­ber of cup­cake shops has grown greatly as Amer­i­cans seek smaller, higher qual­ity snacks and desserts. I’ve been debat­ing with myself and oth­ers about whether this was a fad or some­thing here to stay. I fall on the side of here to stay, but going the way of the bagel craze of the late 80’s and early 90’s. At that time there many dif­fer­ent shops, most have closed. Those which remain are those with a good busi­ness model and a supe­rior prod­uct. Since cup­cakes can also be found in gro­cery stores, cup­cake shops have to dif­fer­en­ti­ated from what you can find in the gro­cery store for a 10^th of the price.

Crave is one of Houston’s newest cup­cake shops, located in the upscale Uptown park area just north of the Gal­le­ria. In the past I’ve vis­ited Sugarbaby’s Cup­cake Bou­tique, located on Rich­mond and Shep­herd. Sugarbaby’s color scheme is pink, black, and white. It reminds me of a lit­tle girl’s tea room so I am not too com­fort­able  hang­ing out there. Crave is sleek, mod­ern, and clean. It has a very un-Houston feel to it, although the company’s lone store is located here in Houston.

The cup­cakes are the right level of sweet. Since cup­cakes are gen­er­ally topped with a sweet icing, the cake under­neath should con­tain less sugar to com­pen­sate. I enjoyed the choco­late peanut but­ter and espresso choco­late cup­cakes the most. The ingre­di­ents seem to be high qual­ity — real milk, vanilla, choco­late, and sugar. The cake is moist, and does not fall apart under fork.

The red-velvet is their best seller; it is a very good good red vel­vet how­ever most red-velvet cakes are good red vel­vets. The flavours and tex­tures of Crave’s cup­cakes are not homo­ge­neous. You will not feel as though think you are eat­ing cake bat­ter shaped like a cup­cake. Crave’s cup­cakes are best eaten with a black cof­fee or a dark fresh hot tea. In true small cof­fee house tra­di­tion, their coffee’s are brewed to order , one cup at a time. If you say you will never spend $3.oo on a cup­cake, Crave just might be the first place to go if you ever change your mind.

Hous­ton, TX 77056
713–62-CRAVE
Crave Cup­cakes