After beating the competition on Food Network’s hit show “Cupcake Wars,” Jilly’s Cupcake Bar is ready to combat the competition in Edwardsville: The Cup.

Jilly’s is well known for winning two seasons of ‘Cupcake Wars’ in 2011 and 2013. The bakery started in the St. Louis area and opened its second location in Edwardsville in 2017.

The Cup, the original cupcakery in town, opened its doors in 2009. Three years earlier, their original location in St. Louis began baking.

Each day, Jilly’s Cupcake Bar on the Delmar Loop makes the cupcakes and trucks them to Edwardsville and sold in store. For a bakery, it’s quite unusual to not make pastries in store.

Contrastingly, The Cup makes their cupcakes in store each day. From the front display counter, you can see the workers baking and frosting in the back. The smell from the ovens gives a homey feel to The Cup.

Jilly’s, at the end of each day, throws out and donates some of their cupcakes. Each day, you can be sure that you are picking from ‘fresh’ cupcakes made that morning, whether they were made in store or not.

On the other hand, The Cup freezes leftover cupcakes from the day. They don’t keep them more than a day, donating them after that. Some may see this as a major fault in a bakery’s operations.

In addition to cupcakes, Jilly’s has ice cream, savory food, and many treats that can’t be found anywhere else. Unfortunately, their cupcake variety is lacking. They have only two special flavors that rotate each month along with their classic flavors.

The Cup offers more varieties of teas, coffees, and icing by the pint. While they do not offer savory food, their cupcake menu, most importantly, is quite varied. Along with their classic flavors, five featured cupcakes are rotated monthly. Seasonal specials, limited edition flavors, gluten free cupcakes and other treats are also available.

Jilly’s cupcakes are jumbo size with fillings and intricate toppings. Jilly’s actual cake of the cupcake is dense and full of flavor. A popular flavor is Chocolate Thunder, a chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache filling and layers of buttercream topping it with chocolate shavings. A cupcake averages around six dollars per cupcake.

The Cup has simpler designs and their icing is worth noting; it’s light and tasty. A flavor such as Gold Rush is a yellow cake cupcake with sweet chocolate icing topped with gold accents. They are regular sized, as opposed to the jumbo. The Cup is perfect for getting cupcakes in bulk; one cupcake is about 3 dollars.

While both have strengths and weaknesses, it’s apparent that each bakery caters to different occasions. Jilly’s cupcakes are bigger, more extravagant and more expensive. The Cup has classic favorites as an affordable option that’s been in Edwardsville for eight years.