NYC Round 2

If you recall, the last time I was in New York I tried to hit up several bakeries to give the big city a fair shot.  I had all intentions of doing this on my last trip, but I had a crazy schedule and there wasn't much down time for cupcake testing.  I was only able to get to 2 places, and they weren't even intentional.  

The first, unfortunately, I don't remember the name.  I was staying at the Gansevoort Park Hotel and had just returned from a night out on the town.  My friend Mike and I decided to continue the party at the Gansevoort's Rooftop bar.  As the party died down, we of course, went out searching for late night.  We ended up at a store across the street from the hotel and right in front of my face was a beautiful cupcake counter.  You'll have to remember that this was roughly 3AM so it could have looked like total dog crap and I would have thought it was high quality.

This guy was fantastic, all dressed up in his chef outfit.  He had a great attitude for putting up with the late night crowd.  I went with the chocolate chip cookie dough.  The problem with getting a cupcake at 3AM is that sweets are the last thing I want.  I am 90% sure we also ordered gyros, but for some reason I don't have any pictures of those...

I didn't end up trying the cupcake til mid day the following day.  I remember not liking it very much.  My educated review is to definitely go party at the Gansevoort Rooftop but don't get a late night cupcake at the shop across the street :)

The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind of events, but I was able to run to Crumbs before heading to LGA.  Normally I wouldn't want to go to a chain - especially in NYC, but I had never been and there was one just a couple blocks north of the hotel.  


Upon walking in, the first thing I noticed was that the cupcakes are HUGE.  The second thing I noticed - they put the calories next to each cupcake.  This can't be good for business.  The worst by far as the Blackbottom Cheesecake Brownie Cupcake at 1090 calories.  I would love to know who sees that and then orders one.  

I decided on the white hot chocolate.  

It was a standard yellow cake which was delicious!  It had a light icing with white chocolate chips and marshmallows. I really liked the icing as well.  Overall I found the cupcake to be misleading because it did not taste like white hot chocolate.  It was good, but needs a new name.  There was also something in the middle which I didn't love.  I am not exactly sure what it was, but I am not a fan of fillings.  I also only had about 2 bites.  I couldn't bring myself to eat anymore after such a crazy weekend.

I did pick up a tray of minis to bring back to Chicago to share.  I had a few and really liked the ones I tried.  My friend Katie also said each flavor she tried was great.  

I would definitely go back, but maybe now I will try the Chicago Crumbs to see if it compares.


enjoy!
j

Steel Magnolia-s

Favorite Quote, "If you can't find anything good to say about anybody, come sit by me".  Well, that was not the case for the last stop on my New York road show - Magnolia Bakery (magnoliabakery.com).  Magnolia Bakery has several locations throughout Manhattan, but I decided to go to the one located at Rockefeller Center.  I am assuming this is one of their more crowded locations specifically for tourists like myself.  Normally I would avoid the overly touristy spots, but I had just finished brunch a few blocks away at Norma's.  One of my all time favorite restaurants that is a must when I visit New York City!!

It was pretty busy, but I did not want to make the same mistake I made at Two Little Red Hens, so I stepped back and carefully observed the cupcakes until I was confident I was making the right decision!  I went with an orange cupcake with chocolate frosting.

1) cake - I really enjoyed this orange cake.  The flavor and consistency were just right 2) icing - A-MA-ZING.  it was perfect!  I absolutely loved this milk chocolate icing.  This is the icing I dream of being able to make in my own kitchen someday.  I am positive they are using high quality chocolate, so I guess I will need to splurge next time I am in the mood for chocolate icing  3)presentation - simple and perfect. I love a nice little icing swoop 4) creativity - ish.  Overall they had a lot of creative choices, but this particular flavor wasn't all that creative.  I believe I had something similar in San Antonio.  5) Overall happiness - VERY happy.  It was the perfect way to end the New York cupcake hunt!


The rest of the weekend my time was spent with wedding activities.

The BEAUTIFUL reception

View from ceremony

Well that wraps up the big apple!  Enjoy!

Coffee or Cupcakes

Continuing my cupcake quest in the big city, I headed to the Upper East Side to Two Little Red Hens bakery (www.twolittleredhens.com).  2LRH came in second place for best cupcakes according to Serious Eats (www.seriouseats.com) and is located just down the street from where I was residing for part of my trip so I had to stop in.  It is a teeny bakery just off 2nd Avenue.  When I walked in I was not hit with the aroma of baked goods...instead it was the smell of fresh ground coffee (guilty for going at 8AM).  Now don't get me wrong I love the smell of coffee, but when I walk into a bakery I want to be knocked down by the smell of sugar and chocolate.  After some aggressive nudging I finally made my way to the counter full of delicious baked goods.  

Everything looked delicious!  2LRH was super crowded so I knew I had to make my decision quickly before getting pushed to the side and called a tourist...again.  I decided on 2 minis, the classic american and boston cream.  I ordered to-go since I knew there was no way I would be able to give a full review while being elbowed by people trying to get through and trying to mute out the sounds of the screaming children.  Am I painting a clear enough picture of how pleasant this shop was at 8AM on a weekday? Clearly, I was without caffeine! 

Classic American - yellow cake with vanilla buttercream.  1)the cake was slightly dry.  I should mention that I did not eat the cupcakes right away.  My mom had called as soon as I made the purchase telling me she was on her way in from the airport.  I scurried back to the apartment to meet her and we headed out for some light shopping.  The cupcakes probably sat in the bag for a good 5-6hrs.  So, I will give a little wiggle room on the dryness.  I still think a cupcake should stay moist for several hours if not a day or two.  2)the icing - It was very sweet and had a hint of coffee.  I imagine this was unintentional and that the sugar just absorbed the coffee aroma that was floating through the air.

Boston Cream - 1)the cake was a plain yellow cake, again battling the dryness.  I feel it should have had a filling since it was called a boston cream, but maybe it did in the larger size.  2)the icing - a rich chocolate ganache like frosting with white chocolate shavings.  It was decent, but nothing to write home about.


Individually I found the presentation to be pretty standard, but I did enjoy the look of all the Classic American cupcakes on the plate together.  Would be pretty to present at a party.  Creativity - not much.  They had pretty standard flavors, but the Boston Cream was a unique twist.  Overall happiness - eh.  I wouldn't make it a point to go back, but I also wouldn't purposely avoid it.  If I find myself wandering the UES I would give em another shot.


Looking back I think I made a few key mistakes 1) Picking a Boston Cream.  That is something I would never do in the right mindset.  They are okay as donuts, but I don't think they make for good cupcakes.  Especially over a standard chocolate.  2) Not trying their coffee - the smell was so wonderful yet I still walked directly across the street to Starbucks for my standard iced coffee.  The coffee could have changed my whole perspective on the place 3) not eating right away.  I'd like to think that if I had them right away they would have held a much better consistency.  It does leave me questioning if they bake more throughout the day or if the same cupcakes would have been sitting out on the plate all day until sold??


I was able to end my day with a Yankees game!  

 Was hoping to see Jeter hit 3,000 but I was only able to catch 2,998

xo
j

Burgers & Cupcakes sans Burger

Continuing my cupcake mission in New York, I came across a great little shop Burgers & Cupcakes (Burgerscupcakesnyc.com).  Sounds like the perfect pairing if you ask me!  Unfortunately, I had just enjoyed a slice of NY pizza, so it was just the cupcake for me.  They didn’t have a huge variety of cupcakes (surprising since it is in the name of the restaurant), but I ended up with a Strawberry Rhubarb cake. 

1)Cake – It was a plain white cake and it was pretty dry 2)Icing – it was hard.  Weird.  I also think it was just plain vanilla 3) Presentation – I thought the cake looked appealing from the case.  I always love when fresh fruit is incorporated 4) Creativity – not that creative.  It was pretty much a plain white cake with a strawberry on top.  5) Overall happiness – disappointed.  I was really hoping for a good cupcake and this was subpar.  The flavor and consistency were both lacking.  Also, the only strawberry part was the actual strawberry??  That or the rest of the cake just didn’t have enough strawberry flavor for me to even taste it.  Hopefully their burgers are better!

This is a pass for me…

Xo

J

SoHo Delicious

My cousin recently got married in New York.  I decided to take advantage of this event and go up there for an entire week turning it into a little vacation.  This gave me plenty of time to hit up some cupcakeries.  I was initially given a list of close to 40 places in the New York metro area.  I love cupcakes, but 40 is not quite feasible for a 7 day trip.  I was able to make it to 4 based on where I was at the time and if I was in the mood for sweets (which was most of the time).  You will see all of those reviews over the next few posts. 

The first stop I made was at Baked by Melissa(bakedbymelissa.com) in SoHo.  Unlike most places, these ladies were operating out of a window on the side of a building.  That is one way to battle the rent of NewYork!  As always I like to observe all of the flavors for quite awhile so I end up with the best possible cupcake.  Since they were operating out of a window it really cut down my decision making time.  I felt serious pressure when I arrived at the front of the line.  They had a picture of some of the varieties hanging on the side so I could evaluate while in line, but the pictures unfortunately weren't that appealing. 

These cupcakes are super mini, so I ended up with a flight of 3 - PB&J, S'mores, and Chocolate Chip Pancake. 

PB&J - I can't really separate the icing from the cake, because they were so small.  Literally they are a single bite cupcake.  This was a yellow cake topped with obviously, peanut butter and jelly.  Loved it.  The cake was perfect and it had just the right amount of PB&J.  There wasn't any icing at all.  PB&Js are one of my all time favorite sandwiches, so I absolutely loved having it as a bite size cupcake. 

S'mores - Again, I can't really separate the two, but this was a chocolate cake with chocolate icing topped with marshmallow and graham cracker.  So good!  This was the perfect bite sized combination.  Just the right amount of all ingredients.  It was just like having a real S'mores sans fire. 

Chocolate Chip Pancake - I was with my friend, Mike, and he had this one.  As I mentioned above these are so small, so there is no room for sharing.  He did say it was delicious which I don't doubt since the others were amazing.

I go back and forth on the presentation.  They are so small and cute that I love them, but it is hard to present them in an appealing way.  While at the register I was totally skeptical, but luckily it was a pleasant surprise.  Creativity - very creative.  I have never seen cupcakes SO small before which was great and also the flavors were fairly unique.  Overall happiness - highly satisfied.  I would absolutely return to Baked by Melissa.  The flavors were outstanding and I loved that I could try so many due to their small size.  It is like a tapas take on cupcakes!  These would be perfect to take to a party.

I will definitely go back next time I am in the big apple!

Enjoy!
J