Butterlane Cupcake Shop

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Say what you want, Hostess has got it locked on the frosting and cupcake ratio

New York City is saturated with cupcakes. It is hard to avoid them and I secretly am not actually the biggest fan of cupcakes. If I had to choose between a cake and the cupcake, I will take the cake hands down. My biggest issue that I have with cupcakes is the ratio issue. I like a balance between frosting and cake however it has gotten to that point where their will be more frosting than cake itself. How the hell am I suppose to eat it? I refuse to eat cupcakes with a fork. It was not designed that way. It is like eating a slice of pizza at Joe’s with a fork and knife. That ain’t right. I will stand by my note to self, Hostess gets the ratio right in which they have a great ratio of cake to frosting, and with the injection of frosting in the middle, you actually eat the cupcake without a frosting facial. So when it comes to cupcakes, I am critical because it seems like any place can just churn out cupcakes and apparently get an IPO on the exchange now so in a way, you have too. Only a few cupcakes shops or vendors have so far made the cut in making a cupcake that is superior in inflated market of frosting heavy sweets. In my quest on just being hungry, I finally decided to give Butterlane Cupcake Shop a shot.

Pumping out Cupcakes

Butterlane is located in the East Village, across the way from Porchetta and after eating a whole bunch of pork, you need a bit of sweet to balance it out before you slip back to your apartment for an inevitable food coma. Upon arriving at Butterlane they had a cupcake class in session that was for kids happening next door. First thought that came to mind, “that’s cute” (with a supersized dose of sarcasm). But I will give them credit for cashing in as much as possible on people infatuation with cupcakes, and besides its good for kids to learn how to bake, rather than be on the streets pushing dope (it is never too young to be pushing dope, have you not seen The Wire?). The cupcake shop is quaint and has little space and really just has a counter and a bench to scarf down a cupcake. Many will complain about this, but it is a cupcake, eating it should not be a sit down affair, if you have to sit down and eat it with a fork then you are doing it wrong. 

Thats a lot of Frosting

Butterlane stands out a bit from the competition in which they have a daily offering of cake bases and frosting toppings. This allows one to mix and match as they please allowing a combination of…a lot. I failed statistics so do not ask me. For those that really like cupcakes because it is a vessel for frosting, you can just skip the cake part and get a “shot” of frosting, which I have to say in ingenious.The cakes that they had when I went there was banana, chocolate and vanilla. The frosting toppings…were quite a few. I decided to go with 2 cupcakes and went with a banana cake with peanut butter frosting and wanted a bit of chocolate so I went with the chocolate cake with the salted caramel chocolate frosting. You know, just a smidgen of chocolate. 

Cupcakes- one day they will find a transport device that will guard against cupcake frosting box shmear

The cupcakes were piped on fresh, which is always a good thing. The frosting is a straight buttercream, I mean with a place called Butterlane it better be. The buttercream is an American-style buttercream in which there is a heavier usage of confectioner sugar which gives it a stiffer appearance rather than a French buttercream that has a higher butter to confectioner sugar ratio that makes it richer, obviously buttery and a glossier finish. First up was the peanut butter frosting and banana cake. To start is the cake, it was a bit dry but the banana flavor came all the way through. The peanut butter frost was good; it was thick and creamy and did not have any of that chalky taste that you get from inferior butter cream. The peanut butter frosting had a good dose of salt and was similar to eating the dry roasted peanuts and the combination I picked, worked well.

Banana cake and peanut butter frosting

Chocolate cake and salted caramel chocolate frosting

 Next up was the chocolate cake with the salted caramel chocolate frosting. The frosting was heavier on the salt that was extinguished by the caramel. The salt and caramel almost overshadowed the chocolate, but the richness of the chocolate broke through, making the frosting a worthy topping on anything. The cake however, was a bit of a letdown; it was dry and lacked any moisture. Even the rich topping could not mask or salvage the dryness of the cake. Although Butterlane lived up to the expectations of having tasty frostings, the cake bases were not up to the level of the frostings.

Butterlane Cupcake Shop

123 East 7th Street

New York, NY 10009

www.butterlane.com/