NYC cupcake crawl

So, last weekend we went on a cupcake crawl in the Soho/West Village area of Manhattan. It was organized and put on by the website: http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com. Check them out they are really cool and they post a ton of recipes and pictures!!

We started at Little Cupcakes Bakeshop. This is what the inside looked like:

It is a super cute bakery that has glam and goodies!! Here is a quick look at the display cases:

They had soooo many things: cupcakes, cakes, pies, cookies, and drinks.

We ordered a lemon cupcake:

It was delicious and super moist! It wasn’t overpowering lemon flavor, either. It tasted light and fluffy and naturally lemony.

Oh, and we also saw the comedian Jim Gaffigan there buying cupcakes with his kids. Hot Pockets……. : )

Next up was Baked By Melissa.

This particular location was like a walk up situation where there is a girl inside and she hands the cupcakes to you through a window. Like a drive through but you walk! (and wait in line…) Baked by Melissa features only mini cupcakes that you can buy in quantities of 3 to 100. They feature 10 flavors plus a “mini of the month.”

We ordered 6:

Starting from the top left going clockwise they are: cookie dough, peanut butter and jelly, red velvet, cinnamon, and 2 smores.  My personal favorite was the cookie dough.. Adam liked the cinnamon.

Now you may be wondering just how “mini” these cupcakes are. Let me help you

My husband Adam has a half dollar and a mini cupcake in his hand. (Yes, he collects coins and apparently keeps them with him at all times lol ). They were literally that tiny!! They were bite size morsels of joy.  I wanted more! I could’ve eaten like 6 of each flavor!!!

(if you’re interested in ordering some online: http://www.bakedbymelissa.com)

Next up was Ivy Bakery

This is the outside.. it’s on the lower level of a building in the west village.

What I liked about Ivy was that it was very natural looking and simple. The tables looked like carved wood, and all of the desserts were homemade looking.

Unfortunately we hit them at a time when they weren’t quite ready and hadn’t prepared everything for the day. That’s why the case looks a bit empty… but the counter was stocked!

We ordered an apple cinnamon bar and it was delicious

It was crumbly and moist, and tasted like apple pie in bar form. Very lovely.

Sweet Revenge was the next stop on the crawl. This is a place where they sell cupcakes and BEER AND WINE.  All day. Everyday. They are the ONLY place in NYC to offer this genius pairing. Here are the troops lining up to get in

Inside, they have a bar on left and an open kitchen on the back right, so you can see the chefs preparing the cupcakes and other foods they offer.

These were the cupcakes they offered that day. They feature four cupcakes daily, plus a specialty one every week.

We ordered Crimson and Cream

This was a raspberry red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Think about that for a second. Raspberry red velvet. Yes, your mouth will water– its natural.

Look at this masterpiece!!! It has a mohawk!!! How kick ass is that???

Also, its hard to see but they put fresh raspberries on the bottom of each cupcake before they pour the batter in.. that makes it extra tasty and moist

A really awesome place. Definitely will be back.

The last stop was Molly’s Cupcakes.

The look of Molly’s is very playful and kid-friendly. The owner was inspired to create Molly’s after his third grade teacher who used to bake for students on their birthdays. Precious!

They had some amazing flavors:

I loved the hand drawn cartoon display signs. Everything looked soo good but I decided to make my own with vanilla cupcake and brown butter icing. Brown butter is amazing. If you haven’t tried it yet, you really should because you are missing out on one of the tastiest things butter can do!

But, since Molly’s was the last stop after a whoooooole day of sugar and blisters I decided to save it for later. Here’s what it looked like by the time we got home (after walking and taking the subway)

FAIL PAGE!!! I still ate it though (are you surprised?) and it was still delicious. Super moist and super good. Again–brown butter icing. I shouldn’t have to tell you twice!!!

PS I went to Chelsea Market

I will write more about that in a future blog post. All I will say is that’s where the Food Network lives…..

UP NEXT: I finally make cookies n cream cupcakes!

rainbows+robots+unicorns oh my!

Hello hello! I know its been a little bit of a while (ok at least a month) but this summer was crazy!! We moved to NYC! It’s exciting but kinda scary at the same time… Anyways, I made rainbow unicorn robot cupcakes for my sister’s birthday last week!

 

 

 

 

 

So, my sister asked for rainbow cupcakes. Sure I said, I’ve been wanting to make them for a bit and I figured this would be a great opportunity. Then she said with robots and unicorns!! Ok let me just say that I love my sister very much and she was very deserving of these cupcakes but they took fooooorrreeeevvveeerrr. : )

 

First you have to color the cake batter the colors of the rainbow:

 

 

THEN you have to somehow layer the batter according to rainbow colors in each cupcake liner. Think ROY G BIV (red orange yellow green blue indigo violet) but backwards because you’re starting from the bottom of the rainbow and working up. And I just did blue and purple-no indigo. What is indigo exactly?…..What I did was transfer the batter from the bowl into piping bags and then piped each color into the cups. However, I stupidly forgot to take pictures of this step so just imagine it for now: put purple into a piping bag and squirt a small amount onto the bottom of each cupcake liner, then try to spread lightly with a knife or small spatula. Then do the same with blue, then green, and so on. REMEMBER THE ORDER!!! I got confused and put orange before yellow so that red was next to yellow instead of orange (fail!). But it didn’t matter because the levels were so thin that they sorta blended anyways, as you will see from following photos. This went surprisingly quick because you basically just squirt a little dollop into each cup.  Also, I ran out of some colors by the end of it so some cupcakes only had like 3 colors!!

This is how they  looked right out of the oven

 

 

Tie dye!!! But still pretty cool I think. Ok so then I got to work on the fondant robots and unicorns. I modeled the robots after a robot cupcakes pictures I found online. If you google robot cupcakes it is the most popular picture. You’ve probably seen it before. This part was tedious because robots are in parts. And all the parts have to fit on a small circle that fits onto the top of a cupcake.

 

Here they are waiting to be pasted to a cupcake

 

 

 

Precious.

Here is my mess!

 

 

 

 

The unicorns came out cute as well but I had trouble making them look sweet and childlike. I feel like they came out a little mean looking???

 

 

 

 

Trick! I used toothpicks that I cut to secure the ears and horn to the head, and the head to the heart and cupcake. Just remember to tell people that when they eat it otherwise they get mad at you……

For the frosting I tried a new recipe that was given to me by a family friend. And it was delicious!! It was a buttery whipped frosting that I really want to use again but it is a top secret recipe!!!

 

Here is the finished product

 

 

 

Like butta. Gorgeous! That’s a picnic table in the background : )

 

 

And the inside

 

 

 

Thanks cuz!! As you can see, the inside is inverted instead of in a half moon shape. Hmmm. Still working on this one. Any advice is appreciated!!

 

Did I mention that she turned 21…….                  Happy birthday Jennie!

 

 

 

UP NEXT: a cupcake crawl in NYC