Sweet Revenge Cupcakes

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Bathrooms that look like you stepped into someone's apartment kind of freak me out

Booze and Cupcakes together...as well as soup too according to the board.

I hate these credit card commercials because apparently, according to them no one carries cash. Seriously, start carrying some cash people! Chase has the small business card commercial and one featured the bar/bakery Sweet Revenge. Sure they have gained popularity for the “omgzyourontv” factor but that will only get you so far. Sweet Revenge, located in the West Village is a bit of everything. The core of Sweet Revenge is that is a bar that serves food but has a big sweets menu and mainly known for their cupcakes.

 The Bar at Sweet Revenge

One of the interesting things that Sweet Revenge does is that they are somewhat elevating there sweets by pairing them with drinks, which is a cool concept. If Jean Georges has a wine pairing for the molten chocolate cake, why can’t the strawberry cupcake get a booze pairing? Unfortunately, given that I already had a good amount of booze that morning I decided to forgo the booze pairings for another time and see how their sweets stacked up. I mean if your place is called Sweet Revenge, does not matter how well you pair your booze with cupcakes if your cupcakes are not up to par.

 The Cupcakes

            Sweet Revenge has their four signature cupcakes everyday and generally two other flavors that they rotate on the daily. Their four signature cupcakes are the self titled, Sweet Revenge, the Pure, the Dirty and the Crimson and Cream. The two other cupcakes that were being offered that day were the Not So Dirty and the Very Strawberry. I did not partake this quest for food alone, so I was able to try out all six of their cupcakes. Overall the cupcakes were quite good and the cupcakes were big. Light and moist and were not dense at all the frosting were rich and creamy balancing out the cupcakes. The cupcakes were big and were like eating a piece of cake, a utensil is required unless you to look like a sloppy mess and you tried to make out with the cupcake. But not a spork because sporks are stupid.

From Left to Right:  The Sweet Revenge, The Not So Dirty, The Pure, the Crimson and Cream

The Sweet Revenge: it is a peanut butter cake, ganache filling with peanut butter fudge frosting. I think there is peanut butter in this cupcake but I am not sure. With this much peanut butter, the peanut butter flavoring came through very much and the flavors were reminiscent of eating a peanut butter cup. The ganache filling was a nice touch and the frosting rich and thick and had a truffle like quality to it. 

The Very Strawberry: consists of a Mexican vanilla cake with strawberries and strawberry cream cheese frosting. I am unsure where the Mexican part of the cake really comes from but the cake itself had a light genuine strawberry taste to it. I liked it did not have that weird artificial strawberry taste that taste like those cheap Grandma strawberry sucking candies. The cream cheese frosting was creamy and unlike the fudge frostings had a lightness to it which characteristically paired well with the cake.

The Not So Dirty: comprised of a Valrhona chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache. The usage of a high quality chocolate ensured that the chocolate indulgence of flavor came through although the cake had a hint of dryness. The milk chocolate ganache gentle chocolate flavor and sweetness stabilized the Valrhona cake’s distinct chocolate bitterness.

The Crimson and Cream: Sweet Revenge take on Red Velvet Cake was a raspberry red velvet cake with a cream cheese frosting. The frosting was smooth and creamy like the Very Strawberry but the cake was least successful of all the cupcake offerings. It was a bit dry and had a single raspberry in this big cupcake which does not really qualify or impart any berry flavor or raspberry tartness to the overall cake.

I got two cupcakes to go, the Pure and the Dirty, I did not plan for the playful adjectives on this one. The takeout containers that they put them in are quite smart in which they are shoved into a clear takeout cup which the cupcake fits perfectly inside. Although it does not win points on keeping the visual integrity, it wins on convenience and awkwardness of carrying around and trying to keep a box level while running around the city.

The Pure was a Mexican vanilla cake with a vanilla buttercream. The name fit perfectly with this cupcake. The light cake matched perfectly with the refreshing sweet buttercream. It pushed the envelope on being too sweet but stayed within bounds. Flavors were clean and distinct and made me think I would be eating this in a Downy fabric softener commercial where they teddy bear is in the middle of a field.

The Dirty was the polar opposite of the Pure with its Valrhona chocolate cake with a dark chocolate truffle topping. If the Pure was the Prom Queen, then this was the Biker Chick and was pure decadence. Eating a plain chocolate bar does not compare to the intensity of chocolate in this. The cake itself was in this case moist and the thick truffle topping made me think that this was almost a deconstructed version of a fudge brownie. This is like an 8 ball for a chocoholic and a must get for instant chocolate gratification.

Sweet Revenge was a great place to hangout and a place to get an after dinner drink and dessert for an after dinner or walking around the West Village. Any alcoholic with a sweet tooth should be cautious of this place because you may wake up the next morning in a gutter off of Bleecker with a hangover and a cupcake wrapper hanging out of your mouth.

Sweet Revenge
62 Carmine Street
New York, NY 10014
www.sweetrevengenyc.com/