Hello Cupcake

Penny Karas, owner of Hello Cupcake in Dupont Circle, grew up in central Indiana surrounded by food and her Greek family.

“My dad was a chef and owner, so it’s always been in my blood,” she said. “The concept I wanted to create with Hello Cupcake was creating a more modern feel on a typical bakery situation.”

Karas got her wish after 20 months of working to create Hello Cupcake, a brand-new bakery that opened Aug. 25 in Dupont Circle. The cupcakes may just rival the famed Magnolia Bakery in New York City. The aesthetics of the bakery are quite modern, decorated in a pink and brown floral motif, with plenty of seating, both indoors and out.

“We usually get a lot of people eating in,” Karas said. “On Friday and Saturday nights it’s definitely got a café feel to it. People come in to have some coffee and a cupcake and good conversation.”

Hello Cupcake is open Friday and Saturday until 9 p.m., and Monday through Thursday the shop closes at 7 p.m. It’s open six days a week at 10 a.m.

Karas looked all around D.C. for the perfect location for Hello Cupcake and finally settled on its current Dupont location in late 2006. “I wanted to find the perfect mix of urban and suburban,” she said. “We’re close to neighborhoods and businesses and we’re also environmentally friendly, being located so close to a Metro and so bike accessible.”

Right now, Hello Cupcake has about 15 cupcake flavors they rotate through per day, including vegan and gluten-free versions of their favorites. When I attended, I had the “24 Carrot” flavor, which was some of the most moist carrot cake I’ve ever tasted, chock full of vegetables and walnuts. The vanilla cream cheese frosting was sweet and just a little tangy. I also brought home the “De Lime and De Coconut,” which was just as tasty. It was fluffy lime cake that tasted absolutely incredible, combined with a sprinkling of shredded coconut and coconut cream cheese frosting.

Other flavors Hello Cupcake offers include the Velvet Elvis, which pays homage to Elvis’s favorite sandwich, peanut butter and banana. The cupcake includes banana cake and peanut butter frosting. There’s also the Lucy, which is lemon cake topped with a sweet-tart raspberry buttercream.

Karas plans to have seasonal flavors, most of which she experimented with and developed well in advance of Hello Cupcake’s late-summer opening. August’s flavor was the “Root Beer Float.”

“For the fall, we’ll be having a pumpkin cupcake, rustic caramel apple and a spice cake flavor I think we’re going to call ‘Scary Spice,’” she said. “For the holidays, we’ll probably have gingerbread and candy cane flavors.”

Some of Karas’s long-term goals include selling small cupcake-shaped dog treats, inspired by her own dog, Lola. She already has begun selling small retail items such as candles in the bakery, and also plans to sell T-shirts, caps and cupcake carriers. The company website, www.hellocupcakeonline.com , advertises that cupcake-decorating classes are coming soon.

Karas’s best advice to aspiring pastry chefs are that you’re going to have your good and bad days. “Just focus on your goals and keep moving forward,” she said.