The Sweet Spot: Dear Gigi's Cupcakes, You Have WAY Too Much Frosting

The Sweet Spot is a weekly Bites feature where sugar addict Megan Seling reviews some of the best, worst and weirdest sweet treats sold here in Nashville.

What it is: Gigi's Cupcakes vs. Cupcake Collection

Where I found it: Gigi's Cupcakes in Midtown, Cupcake Collection in Germantown

What it tastes like: I've eaten just one Gigi's cupcake in my life — it was years ago, long before I moved to Nashville. They looked cute, like real-life cartoon desserts. All I remember from the experience was the frosting — it was sugary, way too sugary, and there was a LOT of it. As I walked in slow circles around the lake at Centennial Park, I felt increasingly shaky and sick. My husband did, too. We were getting hit with a sugar overdose, and we were getting hit hard. I am not a sugar amateur, either — sugar and I have a long, sordid relationship, and my tolerance is embarrassingly high. But not high enough for Gigi's, it seems. The sight of cupcakes sickened me for days and I haven't been brave enough to attempt climbing their frosting mountain since.

After discussing my displeasure with Gigi's Cupcakes dozens of times, only to be met with total agreement again and again, I wanted to get scientific. I wanted to see exactly how overboard Gigi's goes with their frosting. Of course it's a personal preference — some people like a lot of frosting, some people like a little — but I chose Germantown's Cupcake Collection as the control cupcake, as it has long been voted Best Cupcake by Scene readers.

Cupcake Collection's product is delicious — the cake is so fluffy and the frosting is soft and light. And they don't skimp, either. While the cupcakes are compact enough to be easily consumed by hand, there's enough frosting swirled on top that you still make a bit of a mess while you eat it. Gigi's, on the other hand, should never be attempted without a plate and fork.

We used a food scale to measure the weight of the frosting on each cupcake in grams. So how did the two cupcakes stand up? Even though Gigi's cupcakes aren't all that much bigger than Cupcake Collection's, Gigi's still, in one case, had packed nearly twice as much frosting on top. Here are the numbers:

Gigi's Pink Birthday: 87 grams

Cupcake Collection's Pink Strawberry: 53 grams

Gigi's Lemon: 96 grams

Cupcake Collection's Lemon: 60 grams

Gigi's Chocolate: 91 grams

Cupcake Collection's Chocolate: 46 grams

You're seeing that right. Ninety-six grams of lemon frosting. That's 3.4 ounces! Of just frosting! That's about the same weight as a whole Cupcake Collection cupcake, including frosting! WHAT?

You know what else weighs 3.4 ounces? The average human pancreas. You're eating a pancreas of frosting.

It'd be one thing if the frosting was light, like a fluffy meringue or a silky Swiss buttercream, but it is not. This frosting is thick enough that one bite will adhere to your mouth more ruthlessly than the smoothest peanut butter, and it tastes like you're licking a sugar cube. I'd be curious to see how much frosting ends up in the trash vs. customer's stomachs.

My scientific conclusion: Cool it with the frosting, Gigi's. I get it, you have have "your thing" to be successful in the cupcake world. You have to stand out somehow. But is this really the mark you want to make? Ugh. My stomach hurts again.