Cupcake Central (I Heart NY Kitchen) - Kampala, Uganda

Here's a throwback post that I wrote while I was in Peace Corps, exploring the cupcake offerings of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda:

When I signed up for Peace Corps Uganda, I had in mind a life in the village, with no real connections to the first world comforts, like cupcakes. To my pleasant surprise, I was wrong. In a small garage corner of Garden City in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, you can find yourself entering a world full of cupcakes. It is called Cupcake Central by the esteemed patron. Needless to say, I was quite surprised and excited. 

It took me seven months from the time I landed in Uganda to finally get a chance to try the cupcakes. The excitement was built up, I had been missing out on my cupcake fix for so long, and I didn’t care if the taste wasn’t exactly right. What really mattered was I was getting my hands on a cupcake, FINALLY!

Cupcake display at Cupcake Central

Sadly, my excitement was crushed due to the quality of the cupcakes served. Now, I only tried the red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting (and they sell many different varieties), but I was met with a very dry cake. It felt like the cake was almost stale. This could be attributed to the time of day, as I went to the café in the afternoon. Friends of mine who visited and tried a cupcake in the morning had the same experience, however. The cupcake was topped with a very hard frosting. I couldn’t eat the frosting with the cupcake properly; I had to take separate bites out of both to get a combined taste, which was disappointing all the more. The cake flavor wasn’t very reminiscent of red velvet cake, more like an unsweetened carrot cake or brown break muffin. The icing was very sweet, almost too sweet. The texture, being so hard, took away from the sweet flavor. After a few years without cupcakes, I was hoping to be welcomed by a moist, sweet treat. Sadly, this was not the case.

Price: 4,500 Ugandan Shillings (~$1.60 U.S.)

Cake: Too dry

Icing: Too sweet,too hard

Decorations: Simple

Overall Rating: 2/10 Sprinkles