We are excited to share this guest post from fellow cupcake addict Kim of Kimberlyloc.com. Every Tuesday for the month of November, check out Kim’s guest posts as she names her top five favorite cupcakeries the Kansas City suburbs. Visit Kimberlyloc.com every Tuesday in November to see our top five picks for our favorite cupcake shops in Baltimore City.

Kansas City is known as the “City of Fountains,” but pretty soon, KC and the surrounding suburbs could become know as the “City of Cupcakeries.”

When the Cupcake Crusaders and I decided to guest post about our favorite cupcakeries in our respective areas, I bit off more than I could chew. My Kansas City cupcake hit list grew to more than 20 bakeries, mobile units and traditional cupcakeries that I knew I would need a little more time (and some bigger elastic waist pants) to eat my way through all this frosting and cake.

Because I live in the KC suburbs (hello, Overland Park!), I thought it’d make sense to name my top five suburban cupcakes to narrow it down a bit.

The basis of my very-scientific methodology stems from reviewing only cupcake shops that call the suburbs of Overland Park, Leawood, Lenexa, Olathe and Prairie Village, Kansas, home. That means that if the shop’s original location is in Kansas City proper, and then opened up another shop outside of KC, the cupcakery was denoted as “Kansas City” and was not included in this lineup.

Number five in my lineup, Best Regards Bakery in Overland Park, Kansas, is tucked away at 119th and Glenwood, just west of the massive Cheesecake Factory and Whole Foods Market.

A traditional bakery serving fresh-made breads, breakfast pastries, cookies and cupcakes, Best Regards’ main focus isn’t on its cupcakes — which is a shame, because the little cakes I tried were tasty, but there’s a little bit of room for improvement that could really take this local bakery to the next level in the competitive Kansas City-area cupcake market.

Though Best Regards offers about 10 different cupcake flavors a day, I chose to sample a few traditional flavors — chocolate decadence and red velvet — in addition to the rockstar raspberry limoncello that made Best Regards’ own “Top 5 Goodies” list.

At the shop, I dug in to the chocolate decadence cupcake, a chocolate cake topped with a dreamy chocolate frosting made from high-quality European cocoa and a few chocolate chips.

(Chocolate Decadence. Photo courtesy Kimberlyloc.com)

For a frosting fanatic like myself, I can attest to the deliciousness of the icing on this cupcake. It was smooth, velvety and rich — yet not overpowering — and really made the chocolate decadence cupcake a gem. The cake, however, was a tad bit dry. Nothing that a glass of milk couldn’t help, but I think the amazing frosting on this cake seriously made me consider Best Regards Bakery for my top five list.

The next cupcake I sampled, the time-honored red velvet, had a reverse problem from the chocolate decadence cupcake. While the cake was extremely moist, the frosting was so sugary sweet (and I’m addicted to sugar) that it was just too overpowering for even my taste buds to handle.

(Red Velvet. Photo courtesy Kimberlyloc.com)

I’d be willing to give this red velvet another shot if the sugar content of the frosting tones down so that the cream cheese can really shine through — and those sprinkles can stay, too.

After sampling two just-fine cupcakes with minor, easily fixable issues, I moved on to the much-anticipated raspberry limoncello cupcake. This sweet and sour cupcake reminds me of sunny summer days and fresh fruit from the farmer’s market.

(Raspberry Limoncello. Photo courtesy Kimberlyloc.com)

If the frosting from the chocolate decadence cupcake is what made me put Best Regards into my “to consider” slot, the raspberry limoncello cupcake is what secured the bakery a slot on my top five list.

The combination of perfectly moist tangy, tart lemon cake with a dollop of slightly sweet raspberry frosting had me smacking my lips and scraping the bottom of the cupcake wrapper for every last bit. The lemony cake, made with real lemon juice, tasted like summer. I imagined fresh-squeezed lemonade and sugar cubes when I bit into this cupcake. The raspberry frosting added a subtle sweetness to really balance out the tart cake. Bonus points for the dash of glitter on the frosting

How do you judge the perfect cupcake? Are you a frosting freak? A cake connoisseur? Tell me what makes or breaks a cupcake and a bakery in the comments section.