Our journey began on a warm, sunny day in January. We decided to compare two cupcake shops in downtown Lawrence: Cupcake Construction Company vs. Billy Vanilly. Let the cupcake war begin.

First we went to Cupcake Construction, located at 727 Mass. St,  to taste their version of a cupcake. Cupcake Construction allows you to make a personalized cupcake. Customers choose the flavor of their cupcake, their icing and a choice of two toppings.

Mara ordered a red velvet cupcake with orange-zest cream cheese frosting, drizzled with caramel and topped with rainbow sprinkles.

Maddie ordered a vanilla flavored cupcake, with peanut butter frosting, drizzled with chocolate and topped with rainbow sprinkles.

Each cupcake cost $2.99. The cupcakes were interesting to say the least.

If you go to Cupcake Construction I hope you like frosting, because that’s all you’ll taste. While the frosting is good, it is overwhelming. The flavor of the cake disappears beneath the frosting. Be warned, the peanut butter frosting is STICKY. Maddie wasn’t a fan, although she did love the orange-zest frosting.

Even though the cupcakes were sub-par, the employees were super nice and helpful. The building was a long rectangle painted to look like a construction zone. Strange.
Overall Grade: B

Next stop: Billy Vanilly, a few blocks down at 914 Mass St. We were really excited for this one because we read that they were featured on Cupcake Wars. Cupcake Wars is a television series on the Food Network in which different cupcake bakeries compete in a cook off.  So we eagerly skipped down to Billy Vanilly and left Cupcake Construction behind.

Our first impressions of Billy Vanilly were the level of professionalism and style that the building exhibited. Maddie took a risk and ordered one preemie (mini) strawberry shortcake cupcake, and also ordered a preemie grasshopper (chocolate and mint) cupcake.

Mara ordered a preemie Billy Vanilly (vanilla) cupcake and a preemie peanut butter cup cupcake.

Two preemie cupcakes cost $2.00.

We were really pleased with the taste and appearance of the cupcakes. The cupcakes were so pretty! Being the indecisive people we are, we were happy that we didn’t have to make as many choices as we did at Cupcake Construction. Plus the flavors of the cupcakes were more unique. Our only complaints were lack of napkins, Maddie is obsessive about napkins, and the strawberry shortcake cupcake and peanut butter cup cupcake had a little bit of a weird, though not terribly unpleasant, after taste.

Go to Billy Vanilly, you won’t regret it. The grasshopper cupcake is heaven.  We will be back for more cupcakes!

Overall Grade: A