My birthday was last week, and I just never got around to making the cake I wanted to make, or picking up a Magnolia cupcake, time/heat got in the way, blah blah. As silly as it might seem to you, in my world it's just not a complete birthday without a celebratory cake or cupcake. I mentioned that today to Kelli (we're neighbors and I haven't seen her in two whole weeks!) and we made a plan to stop by our local spot on the way home from dinner. It's just as good as Magnolia, dare I say even better? It's also cheaper (which makes it even better than ever!)
Right on the corner of 91st and 3rd Ave in Bay Ridge, The Little Cupcake Bakeshop offers an impressive array of desserts. They also make a damn good cup of coffee. My go-to is the lemon cupcake. These bright yellow babies are cheery and flavorful and not too sweet. I'm not normally a 'lemon' gal, but these are consistently my favorite.
Kelli wanted a vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream, so I grabbed her one of those. I also picked up a chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake, which happens to be the favorite of the BF (I'm planning to see him tomorrow!)
We got ours to-go tonight, but LCBS has a cute seating area inside, as well as outdoor seats. It's a great place to linger over some dessert and coffee. I can also vouch for their Golden Vanilla Cake (almost as good as my mom's), but mostly I just stick to that one lemon cupcake that makes my belly happy. :) They may be slightly smaller than Magnolia's cupcakes, but in a world of out-of-control portion sizes, I'm totally okay with that. I think it's definitely worth 2 dollars for one of these little sugary gems. You can satisfy your sweet tooth without getting sick to your stomach--and one is not so terrible a splurge that you can't atone for it later. ;)Once the weather gets a little cooler, you might want to try what I call the "BF Special:" a chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake paired with their ridiculously rich Nutella cappuccino. Molto bene!
I don't know about the rest of the world, but cupcakes have been pretty big in NYC for a while. Let me know your favorite places! I think I've liked just about every place I've tried, except for the Cupcake Cafe. Their goodies might look beautiful, but they taste just plain awful. Their icing tastes like unsweetened butter and nothing else. EW. I'll be sticking with LCBS for now, where they taste even better than they look!
**In a lovely stroke of super-sweet synchronicity, Feisty Foodie has a cupcake post, too--her 'cupcake porn' is much better than mine, I might add!
Little Cupcake Bakeshop
9102 3rd Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
(718) 680-4465
The BF Special sounds RIGHT up my alley and SOOO good! Next time I visit, and I'm recovered, I'll have to try it.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually not a HUGE cupcake fan and really dislike Magnolia, however, the cupcakes from Crumbs are probably my tops since they are filled!
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ReplyDeleteI would love it if a certain someone would MAKE cupcakes for me instead... such as my favorites: Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes!
ReplyDeletehttp://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/car-bomb-cupcakes/
Crumbs' cupcakes are just okay to me, but I should give them another shot. And I love everything I see on smittenkitchen.com (unless it contains turnips. or brussels sprouts. or radishes), but I'm not a huge Bailey's fan. Maybe I need to have some Bailey's in CUPCAKE form to be won over!
ReplyDeleteThose look good! Have you ever tried Billy's Bakery? That's where we got our wedding cake done. It was excellent! I wanted to go there last time we were in the city, but we never had the chance. :(
ReplyDeleteHalcyon--I forgot Billy's did your wedding cake! I do like their cupcakes. The post I linked to at the bottom of my post is on Billy's! Small world!!
ReplyDeleteWere you the one who recommended Billy's? I can't remember now if it was you or my other NY friend Nelamm.
ReplyDeleteHalcyon--I can't remember now! I think it MIGHT have been your other friend, but I can't say for sure!
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