Happy hour at the Baltimore Cupcake Company may sound like a nun's idea of blowing off workweek steam, but because of the half-hour restriction it's more like a competitive eating contest with delicious treats in place of hot dogs. Fortunately, there were no professional gurgitators there to crush my cupcake-noshing dreams.

Mondays through Thursdays starting at 5:30 p.m., you have half an hour to scarf as many of whatever's leftover from the day's baking as your stomach will allow. It's sort of like trying to get that last beer in before happy hour prices inflate back to regular rates. For $1 a cupcake, it's hard to beat these tiny mementos of joyous childhood (or covert midnight snacks at fat camp that supplanted your parents affections...depending on your childhood).

This happy hour serves a different type of clientele than the average bar fly. Working professionals in office attire, grannies and kids aged four and below were all in attendance. Don't worry (or maybe you should), there's no liquor involved in the baking process.

Christine Frazier, head baker, serves up chocolate-topped confectioneries to loyal customers and newbies alike. When asked if she has any regulars, her pixie-cut head turns upward in an air of bemusement as she shyly giggles about "a cyclist who comes every week and only ever gets six chocolate cupcakes and never varies, or the old lady who buys them by the dozen and freezes them once every three weeks." After tasting the fruits of her labor, it's easy to see how you could become a helpless addict.

I tried so hard to not play favorites, but the vanilla passion is without a doubt the tastiest thing you could feed your sweet tooth. Prepared with fresh passion-fruit puree, the tart aftertaste perfectly tempers and complements the sickly sweet icing. Good tastes usually give rise to fond memories, and the vanilla passion reminded me of the Puerto Rican jelly roll called brazo gitano (or gypsy's arm, due to the bracelet-like appearance of the jelly swirls), which usually come in a passion-fruit flavor. For the sweet childhood recollections it provided, I enjoyed the vanilla passion with a feeling of gratitude and satisfaction.

Obviously, the Baltimore Cupcake Company and its regular customers share my assessment, seeing as they recently moved this passionate specialty to the daily menu. Another reason to skip out on more beer-based happy hours includes the fudge brownie cupcake, which features chunks of brownie on top of a chocolate cupcake, laced with more chocolatey brownie goodness. (I realize I sound like a 550-pound food addict pleasuring myself with how many times I can say chocolate, but it was just that awesome.)

Surprisingly, their standard chocolate and vanilla cupcakes seem overly sweet, but the strawberry cupcake and cookies 'n' cream varieties help me understand the granny and her freezer hoard. I offered to hold the camera in between bites, so photographer Rob could get in on the action, but he declined what he called cookies 'n' camera. Your loss, buddy. It certainly didn't stop me from trying at least six different flavors of crack cocaine cleverly disguised as cupcakes.

It must've been the cakes' addictive quality that persuaded Frazier to use her Johns Hopkins degree to bake all day, or perhaps she's just seen "Stranger than Fiction" one too many times. Either way, the utter adorableness of Frazier and the atmosphere of the Baltimore Cupcake Company itself are as inviting as the delicious treats they bake fresh daily. These are all good reasons to stop by for one or a dozen next time you're in Locust Point searching out an alternative happy hour.