Cupcake Royale has always held a special place in my heart. Their first shop opened its doors shortly after I moved to Seattle from New York City; in my first few months on the West Coast, it soothed my incredible homesickness for all of the great cupcake shops I had left behind. They've grown a lot in these four years, and now boast three locations in the Seattle area; during that time I've grown too--I've gone from working at a refrigerator magnet company to running my own business, and have been able to achieve so much growth, both artistically and personally, through running Cakespy.com. This in mind, their flagship Ballard location seemed like the perfect venue for a celebration. The Cupcake Royale crew was very amenable to our request, even offering to debut their super-secret September flavor a little bit early in Cakespy's honor!

Of course, I put myself toward my task of Cupcake hostess with the dedication of an Olympiad. I worked myself into shape by eating Cupcake Royale cupcakes for breakfast nearly every day the week before the party. This was easy to do--perhaps too easy--because Metropolitan Market, which is right across the street from Cakespy headquarters, now carries their cupcakes in their bakery. And the frosting on their August flavor of the month, the Skagit Valley Strawberry cupcake, is simply amazing.

And man, do those Cupcake Royale kids know how to party. The September flavor turned out to be the Royale with Cheese (pictured at top). What is a Royale with Cheese, you ask? Well, aside from an homage to Pulp Fiction, it's a gorgeously decadent chocolate cupcake topped with a cream cheese frosting which added the perfect rich complement to the sweet cake. Now, I will usually go for vanilla against chocolate cake any day, but even I recognized that this cake was something special. I was told the baker had just changed the recipe for their chocolate cake--apparently the secret ingredient is crack, because based on what was left after the party--an array of empty cupcake wrappers--they were deemed delicious and highly addictive by all in attendance.

As for the event itself? The party was like a who's who of complete awesomeness: the crowd included members of local bands Speaker Speaker and Huma; the talented and amazing writer Megan Seling; artist Kris Garland; esteemed foodies Peabody, Mango Power Girl, Frantic Foodie, Winewall, and Ronald Holden; Cake Gumshoe (and cookie-maker to Remedy Teas) Chris Jarchow; chocolatier Ivy Chan; Cakespy readers and buddies Janis, Katrina, Tasha, Ingrid, Amalia, Cynthia, Jamie and Carrie...just to name a few! If not there physically, certainly I knew that my buddies at Cupcakes Take the Cake were certainly there in spirit!

Of course, there were a few surprises in store, the sweetest of which were a special birthday cake provided by Cupcake Royale (white cake, strawberry buttercream filling, and chocolate frosting!), the wonderful cupcake drawings and art pieces done by all of the awesome guests.

And as if it couldn't get any better, after leaving Cupcake Royale we even got to play a few rounds of my favorite game from childhood (and still), skee-ball!--at the nearby King's Hardware.

Yes indeed, this was the best birthday ever! Thank you so much for making Cakespy.com's first year a super sweet one!