Lulu's Cake Boutique

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Eating stuff from a "Cake Boutique" makes me feel less fat stuffing my face with cupcakes and upgraded Hostess treats

In college there was a Mexican Bodega in New Brunswick that one of my friends lived near and every time I came to visit, I would usually stop there because they had these knock-off types of Twinkies that were covered in chocolate. Growing up in an anti-Hostess home, these were a guilty pleasure. Now in the “real” world with responsibilities, it is inevitable that you just need to upgrade, Velcro wallet to leather, Natty Ice to Artisan Beer and Hostess cakes to Lulu Cake Boutique. 

Lulu is a bakery that is located just a block away from Chelsea Market can be easily missed in the midst of traffic and cars heading to the tunnel. Stepping into Lulu’s you enter a chic and contrasting white space and makes you think that you mistakenly walked into a cosmetic store and made me do a double take, but the rows of sweets assured me I was right where I wanted to be. 

Lulu offers cakes, cookies, Intelligentsia coffee and of course cupcakes, but they also do an upgrade on nostalgic treats like Twinkies, Yodels and Snowballs. These are not just copies of Hostess treats; they are more like an improved overhaul of these lunchbox treats. They have a couple of Twinkies ranging from the chocolate, red velvet and the one that I picked up, the passion fruit white chocolate, called the passion fruit lulu, which I am assuming is called that due to trademark, but I can safely call it a Twinkie. The snack cake is dense and filled with a luscious tart passion fruit filling and covered in a white chocolate glaze and a sprinkle of coconut. I also tried the chocodiles, which was basically a Yodel or a mini chocolate roll cake. Mini is an understatement, and it is a sizeable confection and it is easily twice the size of a Hostess Yodel and of course tasted twice as good.  Cake Pornage after the Jump!

Recipe Sunday: Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes with a Chocolate Baileys Buttercream

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: There is no such thing of making too much buttercream

Since Hurricane Irene decided to show up like a horrible party guest, it subdued any plans I had of Epic Om Nomzing and hindered any trip to Laudree, I did what anybody else would do if stuck in the house: re-watch the first season of Community and bake and cook. This is a bit of throw back recipe of something I made for a friend’s birthday. As much as I like making an epic layer cake, I decided to make cupcakes because:
 1. easier to transport
2. I was short on time and cupcakes can be made from start to finish within a hour
3. She likes cupcakes. Win situation for me

I decided to go with a recipe I jacked from Baking Bites blog that is great for ideas and recipes, or in my case, perfect for wasting time and reading at work. Buttermilk pretty much ensures the cake staying moist even if you freeze it and defrost it. I topped it with a chocolate buttercream that was spiked with Baileys because the addition of booze never hurts. From the Baked: Explorations I was inspired to throw on some burnt sugar shards that would be a nice crunch and also for people to be like, “whoa” and I comepletely admit it is not really necessary but a nice shits and giggles factor.
I admit, for anyone that enjoys baking sometimes when you are making stuff for others, you step your game up a bit for the ego boost of people being impressed and be like, “dude, how did you do that?” and you suavely responding in the most Cool Hand Luke response, “ehh, it was nothing” and these cupcakes will most definitely get you the response that you want. Also girls like guys that can make cupcakes, GAME CHANGER.

Adapted from BakingBites.com

Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
¼ cup butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ tsp almond extract
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. Place liners in a 12 cup muffin tin.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until it looks creamy. Beat in the egg and the vanilla and almond extracts until mixture is smooth.
Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until almost combined. Add buttermilk and stir, again, until almost combined. Add the rest of the flour and stir until all ingredients are mixed in.
Divide batter evenly into muffin cups.
Bake for 18-20 minutes at 350F, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Let cupcakes cool for 10 minutes and then remove from the muffin pan. Cool completely before frosting.
Makes 12 cupcakes

Chocolate Baileys Buttercream

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
• 3-4 tablespoons of Baileys

Note** the Lush version is ditch the addition of milk or heavy cream and just add more Bailey

Cream butter until fluffy, then sift cocoa into the mixing bowl until thoroughly incorporated. Slowly add in the confectioner the sugar until fully incorporated. Beat in the vanilla extract, salt, and milk/cream and Baileys until smooth and all the ingredients are fully incorporated. Refrigerate for at least 20-30 minutes for easier piping and not having a mess of sloppy buttercream all over the place.

Molly's Cupcakes: Chi-Town Sweets in Nyc

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Do not judge me old lady for eating cupcakes at 11:30am when you are chowing down on a Faccio's Italian Hoagie (though I would not mind eating that either)

Anybody that says that the cupcakes trend is dying is a liar and eats a lot less sugar than I do. With the opening of Sprinkles a couple months ago and according to reports is doing great business from my sister’s frequents visits, it opened up the door for other cupcake operations to see if they go Sinatra and make it in New York. Enter Molly’s Cupcakes, which I found out later is no Molly, but there is a Johnny. 

Molly’s Cupcakes is from Chicago and just opened up recently on Bleeker Street. I can hear the groans from people, another cupcake place? Sigh. The amount of bakeries opening up, if there is ever a ban on sugar, the GDP of New York will drop like a rock within a day.

There are so many places that are established, Molly’s Cupcakes needs to bring their “A” game and if it is like AJ Burnett’s pitching, they are screwed, they need like, a Cliff Lee kind of a game to stand out and yes, I am purposely making sports references in order to pretend I know a good amount of sports and to make me seem manlier when talking about sugary and colorful confections. Cavity Induced Sweets after the Jump

Great box design, cubby holes for cupcake

Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: I cannot say “Sugar Sweet Sunshine” 10x fast

For a person that prefers cakes over an actual cupcake, I sure write and eat a lot of cupcakes but that is mainly because the reality is I do not have a discriminating palate and I will basically eat anything that tastes good…and sugary. I remember a few years ago, the first time I visited Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery in the Lower East was also the first time I went to Clinton Street Bakery, one I have never been back to and the other I stop by any chance I get and I think you can guess which one I am talking about. 

Pumpkin Cupcake

Before Sugar Sweet Sunshine, I had no faith that cupcakes could taste good because prior to that all I had sampled were ones from Magnolia and Crumbs were the definition of mediocrity and below average. They were like the Paris Hilton of cupcakes, wait, is she still relevant? Anyways, basically both these places are making cupcakes and bake goods that are not really anything special but due to a bit of fame (thankfully the cupcakes did not involve night vision) they gained popularity and a groupon-zombie horde following. More Cupcakes after the Jump!

Sprinkles Cupcakes: West Coast Cupcakes in NYC

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: I am over Red Velvet anything; it’s a red Cocoa cake people!

Wow, so uhh sprinkles huh?

Recently Papaya Dog opened its first outpost all the way out in Los Angeles. Interesting enough, Sprinkles Cupcakes, a West coast establishment, opened their first New York outpost at the same time. Coincidence? Yes, but interesting. Sprinkles Cupcakes originate from San Francisco and have been slowly opening locations all over California, DC, Chicago, Dallas and has finally made its way here. To say that cupcakes are popular in New York is an understatement. I was in a bodega and they had cupcakes. I never had the combination of Modelo and cupcakes but I guess it could work. Besides a Crumbs bakery located every 5 blocks, there are numerous other cupcake shops all around the city. So for a newcomer to come in and start solely doing cupcakes, it is going to be a challenge.

Sprinkles is located in a somewhat odd location by the Bloomingdales on the Upper East Side. The food options in that area is bare and upon walking in, it seemed like their target clientele was those that shop at Bloomingdales. It was filled with adolescent teens with their parents credit cards dressed vicariously making me feel creepy, 30-something women that most likely had sugar daddies and weird trendy dressed people with thick black glasses. Sprinkle in (haha get it?) the cheery, colors and poppy music I felt very out of place.  

 The place is small and only seems bigger because it is high but cupcakes is pretty much a grab and go kind of deal so I guess it works out for them. I was suspicious of Sprinkles because the place looks too clean and sterile. Most of the cupcake places that I enjoy such as Sugar Sweet, Sweet Revenge, Babycakes there is a transparency in which there is evidence that baking does go on there. Not necessarily a pre-requisite for having good cupcakes, but I Sprinkles goes for the very sterile look here. It does not seem like a bakery, it feels more like I am at a Sharper Image or an Apple Store. The Cupcakes are lined up in neat uniform rows, each with its own little holder. Sprinkles has worked out an efficient system in which one of their overly happy counterperson take your order and your name and while they get it ready for you, announces your name and rings you up so by the time you are done paying, your cupcake order is good to go. Oh and just a for your information, nothing makes you look like a bigger tough guy than a person shouting, “Cupcakes for Joe!” 

They have seasonal cupcakes and rotate flavors throughout the week. I decided to go with four cupcakes; I went with the strawberry, the key lime, the black and white and just for giggles, red velvet. First thing I notice about the cupcakes in that they are insanely uniform and each have this weird, sugary, fondant token button on top. Here is a tip, do not eat it. It tastes like stale Grandma Candy left out to dry and taste like…well a button. The cupcakes look like play food, the plastic food that you give to ages 5 and up to play within their Playtime Kitchen. Cupcakes after the jump!

Black and White- thankfully no weird token on top

Aside appearance the cupcakes are good. The ratio of frosting to cake is perfect. The frosting is an American buttercream which is sweeter than and not as smooth as meringue or French buttercreams. Since the ratio between cake and frosting is perfect, the buttercream balanced and works well with the cake. The first one I tried was the black and white cupcake, which was thankfully lacking the colorful token looking thing. The cake was moist and springy and was the right amount of sweetness. The next ones were the fruity cupcakes, the key lime and the strawberry. Of the two, the key lime had a nice tartness to it and balanced the sweetness of the cupcake. 

Strawberry- sadly does not taste like Snozberry

Key Lime

The Strawberry was fine, but was heavy on that artificial strawberry flavor which is a bit of a turn off for me. Lastly, I had the red velvet cupcake, which I used as a guess a control, attempting to use it as an assessment and comparison to other cupcake shops. The cake was fine and they used a regular vanilla buttercream topping. Red velvet cake, at least I feel needs to come with a cream cheese frosting or it is just a stained Cocoa cake. Wait…that is what red velvet is actually. 

Red Velvet

Sprinkles sets itself apart in which that they are eerily consistent. The cakes are moist and the frosting is slathered on uniformly. The cupcakes in the shop are lined up and stacked neater than a Prussian Army. Regardless of the stamped out likeness of the cupcakes they are good cupcakes and worth stopping by and getting a cupcake that rivals other cupcake shops in New York…hell it is better than Crumbs. 

Sprinkles NYC
780 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10065
http://www.sprinkles.com/

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/

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.

Robicelli's Cupcakes at OpenHouse

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Nothing wrong with eating cupcakes for lunch by yourself in a AstroTurf fake park 

I guess it has been a cupcake kind of weekend....

After two weeks of searching and no hope from anyone at all, I found what I have been looking for: Robicelli’s Cupcake Chicken n’ Waffles. Last night before going to New York City  the Arctic Tundra, I randomly went to the Robicelli’s Cupcake site to find that they would be at the Park Here at OpenHouseNYC. It is basically a weird indoor astrotruf park that people can hang in. Now that I think about it, not so weird given the snowy Nordic conditions that the East Coast has suddenly become. OpenHouse allows vendors such as Robicelli’s and others to showcase their products.

Robicelli’s only had a few that I regret to not record but I went above and beyond stomach capacity (I did not really eat lunch and trekked through Williamsburg fending off hipsters beforehand) and chowed down on four of their unique cupcakes. Although seemingly unhealthy for a lunch, the composition of the cupcakes technically made it for a balance meal. Take that Michelle Obama’s Anti-Obesity Campaign! **Note I do not endorse replacing meals with cupcakes**

 

Hot Josh top left and El Guapo bottom right

Everything Frosted Cupcakes

Everything Frosted 

 Signage outside

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: When tea shop/jewelry store/internet cafe clearly says no outside food allowed, ignore it. 

The address of this place is 105 ½ Mosco Street in Chinatown and I immediately thought that this was some weird Harry Potter book and I got to walk through a wall to get to this place. In my quest for food awesomeness, after a pleasant dim sum meal at 27 Sunshine, me and my culinary companions (or extra stomachs) walked over to Everything Frosted, new to the cupcake and bakery scene opening up late 2010. Everything Frosted sets itself apart by using Asian influenced flavors, such as black sesame or taro and an ever changing combination cakes and frosting offerings. This dessert roulette can produce anything from a hazelnut cupcake with a red bean frosting, to a red velvet cupcake with a cookies and cream frosting and completely different offerings the next day. If you are bad at making decisions your options are:

A)    Look up their various cakes and frosting offering and compile a pre determined list of cupcake/frosting combinations you like. I believe the only prerequisite for determining the amount of combinations is at least Algebra, probably a B- or better

B)     Roulette style, just point and grunt and choose at random.

C)    Go with 2 or more people so you can choose multiple ones and try a little bit of each

Robicelli's Cupcakes

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Nothing wrong with having a cupcake at 9:30 in the morning

I like cupcakes, but I never really got onto the whole cupcake craze, a cupcake is just a pre-portioned slice of cake. I much prefer to have a slice of cake given a choice between the two. However, I do appreciate a good cupcake that does not taste like airy cardboard and bring ones that back memories of elementary school birthday pass outs. My Mom never cared enough to bake cupcakes for the class, we just Munkin-ed it up from Dunkin Donuts.

I have my favorite cupcakes like Sugar Sweet Sunshine and Two Little Red Hens but I have to add another to that list: Robicelli’s Cupcakes. Hitting the top for People Choice via Midtown Lunch and SeriousEats, I knew I had to hurry up and get my grubby mitts on these and try one.

Robicelli’s is different not only in there seasonal and non traditional cupcakes such as their PB& Grape J (Vanilla cake, grape jelly, peanut butter buttercream, chopped peanuts) and their Chicken n’Waffles (Vanilla “waffle” cake, vanilla buttercream, buttermilk soaked fried chicken dunked in pure Vermont maple syrup, this one just makes my heart skip a couple of beats, if anyone can point me in the direction of this said cupcake I will give you 1 WHOLE DOLLAR) but they also do not have an actual brick and motar store front. They basically make a lot of cupcakes and then bring them to various places to sell them, one of them being Cake Shop in the LES. Cake Shop a coffee/record/bake goods/music shop that has a very Kurt Kobain-esque vibe to it. However, they do make a descent cup of coffee (I am pretty sure that because it is a bar as well you can Irish it up which is always a plus) and have various bake goods, such as Robicelli’s Cupcakes.

 Pecan Potato Chip upper left and bottom right the Car Bomb

In order to not feel like a complete Fatty McFatterson, and to save room (I also was going to do a meatball tasting at the Beard House) I got two cupcakes, the Pecan Potato Chip and the Car Bomb. I went for the Car Bomb first which is a Chocolate Guinness stout cake, Jameson whiskey butter cream, Bailey’s butter cream. This cupcake is to worth the calories and is a clear example why Robicelli’s Cupcakes is worth searching out. Here is the breakdown: the cake is moist and dense and the chocolate hits you right away. Although the cupcake is dense, it has good crumb structure meaning that it isn’t flaking all over the place but you are not eating a piece of fudge. The frosting is one that really stands out to me is that it was a true butter cream and used all butter. I do not like shortening base frosting because my philosophy is: if I am going to clog my arteries with sweet goodness I want smooth, creamy dairy fat to line my arterial wall. The frosting was generously topped on and because it was so rich, imparted a smooth silkily texture that was almost like eating frozen custard. The other one, the Pecan Potato chip, a Pecan & potato chip butter cake, vanilla butter cream, roasted pecans, crushed potato chips, salted butterscotch. The cake was lighter compared to the Car Bomb but still held its own in the moist department. The cupcake had a great salty sweet going on even though I could barely taste the potato chip part. Unfortunately due to stomach capacity I was not able to try anymore cupcakes but I will now make it a point to be on the constant look out for these cupcakes.

Since they do not have an actual store, you are going to have to do a bit of searching in order to find these cupcakes but it is well worth it. 

Robicelli's Cupcakes 

Various Locations