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Competition to create — and sell — the ultimate cupcake is heating up in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region, as the culinary craze gains steam in metropolitan areas, driven by the recession.

Georgetown Cupcake, which jump-started the movement locally in 2008 when it opened a location in Washington, is preparing for its second location in Bethesda this fall.

"We are opening our second shop in response to the overwhelming demand we've had from our customers in Montgomery County," said Sophie LaMontagne, who owns the high-end Georgetown bakery with her sister, Katherine Kallinis. "We think cupcakes have, and will continue to be, an affordable treat, even during recessions."

Meanwhile, in Potomac, Paola Domenge is renting a commercial kitchen to whip up Couture Cupcakes for her Blushing Bakeshop.

And Rhonda Waller, who has a doctorate in nonprofit management, has ditched her executive job to launch Rhonda's Cupcakery in Greenbelt, which offers gourmet cupcakes, and cupcake-making and cupcake-decorating parties.

These ventures are part of the growing national interest in cupcakes and boutique bakeries.

"Today's customers — perhaps more than anything else — are seeking out a sense of community, belonging and expression like never before," John Unrein wrote in the May issue of trade publication Baking Buyer. The customized baking in boutique bakeries meets this need, he said.

Cupcake businesses are doing better than most bakeries during the recession because smaller treats tend to sell better during hard times, said Paul Sapienza, vice president of operations for Retail Bakers of America in McLean, Va.

"People like to award themselves with little treats that don't cost much," Sapienza said.

Having baked custom cakes for friends and family, Waller had long been in search of the perfect cupcake in the Washington region. After years of "disappointment" from chains that favored mass production over "quality," Waller said she finally decided she could do better. Allying with a friend and a fellow Rhonda, Rhonda Pope, Waller began selling her own brand.

Armed with gum paste flowers, fondant frosting or just creatively shaped frosting nozzles, Waller and Pope bring their treats to parties of all ages.

"I enjoy stuff that tastes good, not just looks good," said Waller, former executive director of the Healthy Babies Project, a nonprofit in Washington. "I want people to taste the quality and realize there's much more to cupcakes than mass production."

Waller left the nonprofit in 2006 to start her own businesses: Adura, a nonprofit consulting firm, and Rhonda's Cupcakery in 2008. Twenty-five percent of Waller's consulting income supplements her cupcake business, allowing her to deliver about 40 dozen each month. Her cupcakes range in price from $18 per dozen for regular deliveries to $24 per dozen for custom orders and $30 per dozen for gourmet varieties such as sweet potato cheesecake and pineapple upside-down cake.

Domenge launched The Blushing Bakeshop after she was laid off from her jewelry marketing job. There, she had used cupcakes to sell 9-karat diamond rings, using the phrase "just a little frosting."

"It's not a cakewalk," Domenge said of the bakery business. "If it was a cakewalk, then everybody would be doing it. But if you really love something and can figure out a way to market it to a local or regional area, it doesn't hurt for you to just try … sometimes, being laid off is the perfect opportunity to just try."

Unlike many aspiring cupcake entrepreneurs, neither Waller nor Domenge has her own commercial location, instead making most sales online or through word of mouth.

Waller said she wants to wait until the economy stabilizes before opening a location. Her long-range dream is having a dessert bar.

Domenge is seeking investors and hopes to open a bakery in Bethesda.

But competition in Bethesda is growing stiff with the arrival of Georgetown Cupcake, which sells thousands of cupcakes each day and employs more than 60 part-time workers at its current location, LaMontagne said.

The renewed interest in cupcakes has brought in many customers who order cupcakes in lieu of traditional wedding cakes, she said.

Not too far from Georgetown Cupcake's proposed site in downtown Bethesda, Leslie Goldman-Poyourow is using the cupcake allure to supplement her creative cake shop, Cakes by Leslie. She said customers are often coming in to sample the miniature treats and then buying party cakes, too.

"I think that people are so used to eating very low-quality food in general, and around here, there's not that many great bakeries. Some of these new places actually have a great taste, but they have to keep the quality up," she said.

Goldman-Poyourow, who has owned her cake shop for 14 years and just moved it from Gaithersburg in October, said the cupcake market is becoming oversaturated, with many people "hyper-focused" on them. She suspects the trend may die down soon, with Maryland on the tail end of the craze.

"There will always be something new," she said.

Staff Writer Erin Donaghue contributed to this report.