Phantom Gourmet: The Queen's Cups In Worcester
WORCESTER - Located in the historic Canal District in Worcester, The Queen's Cups is an ultra-creative bakery specializing in all things yummy according to owner, Renee King.
"The Queen's Cups is my baby. It's a handcrafted bakery where we specialize in cupcakes of all different kinds, cakes, and all different types of treats. Our cupcakes are made fresh every day. We bake all day long, hundreds of cupcakes, and I think what makes them so different is that we come up with all different kinds."
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While Renee may be queen, there is a whole kingdom behind this fearless frosting leader, including her parents Barbara and Paul.
"Everyone always calls me the queen, and I secretly hate it because I couldn't run my business without first and foremost, my parents, but my staff, because if I had to do this all by myself again, we wouldn't be here today," Renee said.
Cupcake flavors change all the time, so depending upon when you visit, you may find the sinful Strawberry Milkshake, or that campfire favorite, S'mores, stuffed with fluff and topped with chocolate frosting, mini marshmallows and graham cracker. For some breakfast by way of dessert, treat yourself to a Blueberry Pancakes with Bacon cupcake.
"The Blueberry Pancakes with Bacon is a blueberry cupcake with cream cheese frosting, homemade blueberry reduction, maple syrup, bacon on top and then we normally sprinkle it with some confectioner's sugar," Renee listed. "It tastes like a blueberry pancake that you'd get at your local diner, with bacon on the side."
For two great tastes that taste great together, order the Peanut Butter High Hat.
"The Peanut Butter High Hat is a chocolate cupcake. It has peanut butter inside with peanut butter buttercream, and then we dip it in a chocolate shell, and put a peanut butter drizzle on it. If you love Reese's Cups, that's exactly what it tastes like," Renee said.
Beyond cupcakes, the Queen's Cup offers many other sweet treats, from housemade Whoopie Pies and Apple Crisp, to Lemon Bars made with real lemon juice.
If you are looking for Renee's mom, you will probably find her piping her famous push pops. This layered labor of love has Barbara filling cylinders with cake, frosting and other goodies for the ultimate hand held snack.
"You just push it up from the bottom so that it just comes above the edge, and you just take your bites out of it that way," Barbara explained. "If you don't want to eat it all at once, there's a cover. You can just save it for later."
Other creative Queen's Cup sweets include the Dunkeroos, featuring homemade graham crackers served with Funfetti Frosting in a cup, and their signature Matilda Cakes made with love by baker, Felicia.
"One of the first things that we do in the morning here is we get the flour ready for the Matilda," Renee said. "We don't use a mixer; you don't want to over beat it. So then she bakes it, waits for it to cool, cuts it in half, then she takes our homemade ganache and does this little swirl thing, fills that middle with it, puts the other half on top, and then pretty much drenches the entire thing with ganache."
At the end of the day, it isn't easy being Queen, but ruling this sweet empire is something Renee truly enjoys.
"I want our customers to know that whatever cupcake they're eating took a lot of thought and a lot of pride, and a lot of love."
You can find Queen's Cup at 56 Water Street in Worcester, and online at thequeenscups.com.
Watch Phantom Gourmet on Saturdays and Sundays at 10:30 and 11 a.m. on myTV38.
