Via the Voice

Aunt Butchie's brings "a little bit of Brooklyn" cupcakes to Manhattan. The Village Voice reports:

"[Partner, Aunt Butchie's Cupcakes, Sean] Rich says he's hoping to open the store, located in a former Yolato outpost, by February 1. "We're trying to bring a little bit of Brooklyn to Manhattan," he says. As to how one makes cupcakes more Brooklyn, Rich says that flavors like cannoli, zeppole, and cheesecake will "focus in on the Brooklyn lifestyle."

After more than 15 years in the cake business, why venture into the increasingly crowded cupcake field?

"We've always been known for our cakes, but we're really focusing on what the people want," says Rich. "We've seen over the last year or so that more and more customers were requesting that we do some cupcakes; less people were taking pieces of cake. It's the next best thing, really." When they introduced their cupcake line eight months ago, he continues, they started with three flavors, and expanded to 15. Last week, one of the bakery's locations turned out 90 dozen; over Christmas, they did 5,000. "You put some cupcakes out and people go crazy," Rich says.

So crazy, that the company is planning to open a couple more cupcake shops in Manhattan over the next 18 months or so; Rich says that while they haven't yet picked locations, Midtown seems a likely destination."

I am eager to try them! More to come, I'm sure.

SNAFU with the deep-fried cupcakes (updated!)

I do not know what happened with the deep-friend Robicellei's cupcakes at ChipShop. This is a distressing newsbreak for me (well, sounds like quite a few people were upset). I'm investigating. Anyone know?


Edit/Update: From Allison of Robicelli's:

"I really don't know what to say -- I don't know what's going on on their end, so I can't comment for ChipShop. I made a ton of these cupcakes that are sitting in my fridge now (which I scrambled to make when I found it went viral), so I'm out some good money too.

What I can say is that once we deliver the cupcakes, what these shops do with them is out of our hands. We put our heart and soul into these things, so we hope that our retailers will give the cupcakes the respect they deserve. I am sure that whatever went down this weekend at ChipShop was not done in any sort of malicious manner, but was either the result of a technical malfunction that could not be remedied or by simply selling out. It is possible that the weekend staff was unaware of the special because the entire stock had been sold out Friday night. The people at ChipShop are fantastic individuals and consummate professionals, so I'm sure that any confusion was probably the result of good, old-fashioned misunderstanding.

In the interim, I have spoken to the writers of the blog "Fucked In Park Slope," who also went down this weekend only to have their cupcake request denied, and will be arranging an Elvis cupcake giveaway with them over the weekend. If ChipShop isn't hooking the people up with their cupcakes, then I'm giving them away for free!"




Rock on, Allison. Hope this makes FiPS feel better, I know I'd be mollified.

Saint Cupcake in DailyCandy

It's frustrating when there's Blogger issues. Grr! Anyway, I wrote a whole post about this and it was eaten unceremoniously by blogger so I am just going to cut and paste the original source. (Sorry.)

This came in today from DailyCandy:

January 8, 2010

Give Saints
Saint Cupcake Delivers Nationwide

Sorry to break the news: You’re not God.

But people will sing your praises when you serve them Saint Cupcakes. The Portland-based bakery’s goodies are now taking flight.

Just head to the site and specify the amount (in multiples of three), flavors, and toppings. Soon you’ll receive a kit that includes the moist baked plain cuppies, frosting, and sprinkles, along with an icing wand and decorating tips. So it wouldn’t really be a sin to claim them as your own.

Favorite combos include carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut, vanilla chocolate chip with hot fudge icing and rainbow quinns, and chocolate with mint buttercream and white jimmies. For the vegans: chocolate or vanilla cake and frosting.

Of course, such heavenly treats are chockful of calories.

But even you only live once.

Available online at saintcupcake.com. To see the goods up close, check out our gallery.

I had to look up quinns (M-W came up empty), I can't lie.

Chocolate peanut butter banana Elvis cupcakes

These Elvis cupcakes, with fresh banana on top, are by Little Sweeties Cupcakes on Flickr

Blue suede Elvis cupcake at The Sweet Tooth Fairy

This is the blue suede cupcake we told you about, from The Sweet Tooth Fairy of Provo, Utah, via Flickr:


Our rich and velvety vanilla cake (dyed blue) topped with our Cream Cheese frosting

Chocolate raspberry wine cupcakes

Dark chocolate cupcake with raspberry infused wine buttercream and a raspberry drizzle are available by internet order only from A Cupcake Bar in Cary, North Carolina (photo via Flickr).

Towering cupcakes

This cupcake tower was posted on the Facebook page of Mini's Cupcakes of Salt Lake City, Utah. Will it fall?

Trix cereal cupcake + mail order Twilight cupcakes from Sweet Avenue

I'm loving this Twitpic by The Urban Housewife of cupcakes from Rutherford, New Jersey's Sweet Avenue Bake Shop. They just look so fun!

The cereal one is their new January special, via Facebook:

For the month of January, our Magical Mystery cupcakes will feature the same theme - Cereal Surprise! We wanted to create something fun & childlike. No matter how grown up you are, everyone loves a colorful bowl of cereal. Today's Magical Mystery flavor is TRIX.

This one is a Trix-filled vanilla cake with cotton candy frosting, topped with more Trix.

Sweet Avenue is now offering national shipping on their cupcakes, which includes their famed Twilight cupcakes and a DIY cupcake kit to create your own. The cupcakes are $45 for 6 cupcakes for the Twilight ones or "The Decorate It Yourself Cupcake kit includes your choice of three cupcakes, three frostings, and your choice of 3 sprinkles."

Here's a fan photo from Facebook of what someone made with the DIY kit:



They've been doing printed cupcakes; you can see lots of examples in this Facebook album - a few are below.






Lost cupcakes


Twilight cupcakes

Sweet Avenue Bake Shop
153 Park Ave.
Rutherford, NJ 07070
201-935-2253
info at sweetavenuebakeshop.com

You Are My Sweet Heart

Heart shape flower basket arrangement with 20 pcs Ferrero Rocher Chocolate, 12 red roses and one teddy bear in the center.
Teddy bear may vary.



Buy Now - Hand Bouquet-Tulips & Iris

(Singapore Florists: Online Florists in Singapore: Flower and Gifts). Bouquet.

Tasting lemon, vanilla and mocha cupcakes at Dessert Club ChikaLicious

Last night I tasted cupcakes from two places, one of them being Dessert Club ChikaLicious in the East Village. I've tried most of the cupcakes at most New York City bakeries and while I have my favorites, am always on the lookout for something new.

I found it at ChikaLicious (will just call it that for shorthand). Firstly, their cupcakes are so cute - small, but not mini cupcakes (though apparently those are in the works. Just right...especially if you're going to try a few. I got a lemon and a vanilla to start ($1.75 each).



The lemon is on the left. The frosting is very rich and thick, almost like a lemon custard except it's not quite that thick and isn't overpoweringly lemon-y. The lemon taste is light, and the cake was very moist, I think a basic vanilla cake. The vanilla/vanilla cupcake was much the same, save for the frosting was vanilla-flavored rather than lemon. I think I liked the lemon better, but both were good.

Then I decided to try the mocha, which is one of their filled cupcakes, and costs $2.25.



I'm not really a coffee drinker, but I do like certain coffee-flavored desserts. This one is filled with some thick chocolate/mocha-like substance. It's much more intense than the first two, even though again, the frosting has that same consistency. This one was very good but the mocha flavor was stronger than the lemon or vanilla flavors were. The chocolate inside was pretty thick, and I think because by then it was my fifth cupckae of the night (I ate half of them - will post about the Public Theater cupcakes later, doing them in reverse chronological order for some reason), I couldn't really handle it. I will try the mocha again to get a better sense of it, but I think if I had to pick, s'mores is still my absolute favorite, then maybe the lemon. It's light and creamy (I know those might sound like they don't go together, but they do, the frosting is very smooth and creamy, but it doesn't feel heavy in your stomach after you've eaten it).

Retro Meal..When We Were First Married..

I started to learn to cook back when my wife was 19 and I was 20- newlyweds! In Western Michigan, there is a large population of Dutch descended folks. I don't know why, but I heard once we use more cream of mushroom, or cream of chicken soup per population than just about anywhere! I was green, a newby to cooking..I had a couple of cookbooks, and a desire to become a better cook. Most of my recipes came off the box or the can! One of my first memories of a cooking success came from Campbell's Cream O Chicken soup! I spread the thick goop over some skin on chicken breasts and baked them.. I used Minute rice back then, as I didn't know any better.. It was a meal my wife and I enjoyed, both simple and good!
Last night, with our pantry getting low, I seasoned some boneless chicken breasts, dumped and spread a can of Cream of Chicken soup on them, and baked for an hour. I made white rice to go with it, which came out just right! the gravy is made with the chicken, which with added seasoning, was very tasty..
Sometimes it's good to revisit simple, it helps you remember good times when you were light on cash, but heavy on appreciating..

Rocky Road Ahead

It has been a week since the start of the new year. We are happy to be back home and we even welcomed the heat. The kids are back to school and we are all busy adjusting to the new school term and getting ourselves familiar with the new set of routines.

My tween begins the new school term with a great hurdle in front of him. Like all his peers, to mark the end of their sixth year in primary school, he will be taking the national exam later part of this year. Whether a student gets to be posted to the secondary school of his choice would mainly depend on how well he performs at this nationwide examination. It is definitely going to be a tough year, judging from the amount of homework my child had to do on the very first week of school.

I bought a box of brownies mix when we were in Beijing. I had intended to bake a batch of rocky road brownies on Christmas day. However, I didn't had time to do any baking after a day trip to Simatai, (a section of the Great Wall). So, I brought the ready-mix, together with the marshmallows and M&Ms, all the way home, and now these rainbow brownies became my 1st bake for the year! What a sweet start!

As with all ready-mix, baking out of a box is simple, fast and everything is done in a bowl. Like an obedient student, I followed the instructions to a T...including the part on stirring the ingredients together...with a spoon for about 50 times. I couldn't believe myself that I actually counted the number of strokes! Well at least I proved that the instruction is accurate, by the 50th stroke, the batter was well mixed with no traces of any of the flour mixture.

The brownies was done after 25mins in the oven, I took it out and dotted it with lots of marshmallows (I didn't have mini ones, so I used a kitchen shear to cut them into smaller chunks), followed by a shower of chopped peanuts and a light sprinkling of mini-M&Ms. I popped the pan back into the oven and waited patiently for the marshmallow to melt. I removed the brownies once the marshmallow started to brown.

These brownies are terribly fudgy...dense, moist, gooey and a little chewy! My kids love it! I prefer the texture to be firmer so I kept them chilled in the fridge. The chocolate-nuts-marshmallow is a perfect combination of flavours and texture...you get sticky, crunchy, chewy all in one mouthful!

Even though it is going to be a rocky road ahead for me as well...as I would likely be operating like a single parent for most part of the year...I will be holding on to my boys hands and hopefully we are able to cross or maneuver whatever obstacles along the way.

Pizza Bread And Onion Wraps, With Walnut Fudge Brownies

My wife had bought some great sub buns- and they were getting a little stiff.. Perfect for a pizza flavored topping! Imagine designer whole wheat sub buns, split to make four halves.. Topped with a slow simmered tomato sauce loaded with basil, oregano, fennel, onion, garlic, red wine vinegar, salt and red pepper. Grated Parmesan, and Romano, mixed with shredded Mozzarella onto the sauce, topped with mushrooms and pepperoni- broiled until bubbly- well, it was good! My son and his girlfriend were able to stop by..we had the open faced pizza, onion wraps, and brownies for an impromptu meal that was fun for the fellowship, if not the food! I love family at the table.. It makes me feel like a part of something timeless and ageless.. It bonds families, I think.

Cold Subs, And Pork Tenderloin With Potatoes..

Saturday, I went out in the cold for a bit, to shop for a few essentials in needed for supper. I grabbed a head lettuce, two decent tomatoes, sliced deli roast beef and ham, with a couple of fresh baked Portuguese rolls...I had a craving for a good, cold sub sandwich! When home, I built two subs that had ham, Havarti cheese, lettuce, sliced tomato with mustard and mayo for condiments. A Portuguese roll is elongated bread(not hogie length!), with a hard crust, and chewy, well flavored interior. They were large when finished, but did they hit the spot!
Sunday, I had decided to make a pork tenderloin roast(two tenderloins tied together)and marinate in an olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped garlic, oregano, basil, black pepper, salt, and lemon juice mix..Mediterranean flavor for sure! I roasted some Yukon Gold potatoes with it, and had made some chocolate walnut brownies for dessert.. Not a bad meal!
I hope to do a little more experimenting with foods in 2010, but still maintain my motto: "Simple things done well"..