Cupcakes: Reporting from New York City!!!

After a nerve-wracking visa interview and a 19-hour flight, I am back in New York! Being here does not only mean I get to attend my sister's wedding, but I could also get to try all the cupcakes that have been made famous in New York City. It has been a tiring but fun week with dinners and lunches to go to, friends and family to meet, preparations leading to my sisters wedding and of course, discovering the city that is New York.

After mustering all my strength and confidence to venture into the city alone without the aid of a 3G-enabled phone (which would allow me to access maps and routes anywhere in case I get lost), I was able to navigate through the avenues and streets of NY much easier than I thought. The city is set up in a grid, and the subway system in a similar manner. There are so many subway stops scattered around the city that wherever your destination is, there is bound to be a train or bus that can take you there or a walkable distance from it. Taxis are abundant, and they are very convenient to use; however, fares can get expensive and you will be under the mercy of the New York City traffic. My mom laughed at me as I headed out earlier today as she said, "You haven't even gone to Divisoria alone and here you are going around New York!"

NY Cakes, Flatiron District

Weekend Market at Union Square Park

Le Bronx

Bakeries at Arthur Avenue, Bronx

A variety of olives, capers and pickles--Arthur Avenue Market

Deli at Arthur Avenue Market

Olives and Pickles at Teitel Bros.

Oh. My. God.

Cakes at De Lillo's

De Lillo's

Espresso and Cannoli at De Lillo's, Little Italy, Bronx.

So after a couple of afternoons spent exploring popular parts of NYC, I made plans to get cupcakes at Billy's Bakery, Magnolia Bakery and Sprinkles Cupcakes, which would prove to be a challenge because they are nowhere near each other. First stop was Billy's Bakery. I went to their location at Chelsea, and I have to say, I found the place very charming. The yellow subway tile and vintage wallpaper gave the shop, well, a vintage feel. The AC was a welcome relief from the summer heat. The bakery had one table and banquet seating so this definitely discourages lingering around. The gentleman behind the counter was very helpful, though he was lacking a smile that I would have really appreciated. And it wasn't even a busy afternoon.

Billy's Bakery; 184 9th Avenue, between 21st and 22nd Streets

I got a box of four cupcakes: red velvet, chocolate chocolate, carrot cream cheese cupcakes and of course, vanilla vanilla. At $11.00 for a box of four, it was a bit pricey. The cupcakes looked like they had the old fashioned buttercream frosting because of the crust it seemed to have. And since I ran the risk of letting the frostings melt in the summer heat, the crusting buttercream gave me a little more confidence to carry them around city while I get my other cupcakes.

After Billy's I headed straight to Magnolia Bakery, then at Sprinkles Cupcake (which I will blog in other entries). It was a long day so I looked forward to rewarding myself with a taste of Billy's Bakery cupcakes.

So after dinner at home, I took out the cupcakes so Mama, my sister and I could taste them.

We had the red velvet with cream cheese frosting first, as this is one of the more, if not the most, popular flavors of cupcake in the city.

Red Velvet Cupcake

Red Velvet - $3.00

I have to say I was stunned when I found myself unimpressed with the Red Velvet. The cake base looked moist but upon taking a bite, the cake was the opposite. It was dry with a faint chocolate flavor. The frosting was more like a buttercream than a cream cheese frosting, with the tell-tale sign of crusting on top. At some point, my sister said that the cupcake tasted like boxed mix. It did provide some comfort, but so can a box of Kraft Mac n Cheese or a steaming bowl of sinigang.

And so we moved on to the Yellow Daisy cupcake: a yellow cupcake with a vanilla frosting and dainty sprinkles on top. I thought this cupcake was really cute, but to be honest, this was charming at best.  The first thing that hits you is the sugary frosting that has very little vanilla flavor and the texture is a little denser than I would like. And after lugging the box around NYC in the summer heat while weaving in and out of human traffic, how could the frosting even survive?! Does Billy's Bakery use, dare I say it, SHORTENING?! Meh, I'm not really entirely opposed to that (SHOCKING!), but for the price they are asking for these 3oz cupcakes, they'd better be using some butter.

As with the Red Velvet, this was a little comforting, but at $2.50 a pop, this comfort does not come cheap. (And there's comfort I like waaay better. There's a liquor store in Long Beach that sells San Mig Light for 2 bucks. Hehehe.)

Yellow Daisy Cupcake (Vanilla Vanilla) - $2.50

Already getting full from all the cupcakes, we reluctantly tried the classic chocolate cupcakes. This cupcake smelled of good cocoa, and the cake looked like it had plenty of it. We found the frosting a little too sweet, but it compensated for the lack of flavor in the cupcake, which was surprising because it did smell like it had plenty of good cocoa. It also had good body to it, and I really like a frosting that you could sink your teeth into. The cake was again a bit dry but this was more enjoyable than the rest of the cupcakes we already tried.

Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes - $2.50

By this time, Mama and my sister had already raised the white flag so I was left to taste the carrot cupcake by myself. It was a good thing that I saved this for last because I liked this the most. The cupcake had discernible bits of carrot and walnut that provided body and texture. It also seemed to have shredded sweetened coconut in the batter which helped with the texture and moistness but that did very little to add flavor. The cream cheese frosting was a miss though, because it had very little of the tang that I like in cream cheese. The frosting crusted as well, which leads me to believe that there is more sugar and butter (?) in the frosting than cream cheese. The cake was great on its own, and the frosting was a superfluous addition.

Carrot Cupcakes - $3.00

I wish I had more cupcakes from Billy's to try, but at $11.00 for a box of four, and two more bakeries to visit, I might not have enough money for the train ride to Long Beach. So I will give my best effort to be fair.

If I were asked to rate Billy's from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, I wouldn't. People come to Billy's for a number of reasons. They could be seeking comfort, seeking to satisfy a sweet tooth, or seeking attention. But if I'm seeking for great cupcakes, this would be one of the last places I'd look. For a place known for its cupcakes, Billy's disappoints. They were okay, okay, but it wasn't exactly the roll-my-eyes-in-ecstasy and I-just-died-and-gone-to-heaven experience I was made to expect from some reviews. But hey, they're cupcakes. They are fun, and not to be taken too seriously. With that said, would I come back to try the rest of the cupcakes? Only if I'm not paying. Would I recommend Billy's? Yes, go at least once. Is Billy's worth the hype? Not so much. Billy's worth the calories? Absolutely....not. But heck, I'm not complaining! I'm in New York City!

And that wraps up my 1st of several cupcake report from NYC. Next in line, Sprinkles Cupcakes! (Gosh I sound like a dork.)

Elbow deep in cupcake frosting

Yesterday’s testing ended better than it started.

Feeling rather sick, I began the day making different batches of frosting for the cupcakes that I baked off earlier in the week and played around with a few recipes I had from my previous jobs and a couple I found on the internet.

One recipe in particular caught my attention. It was a traditional American butter-based frosting that called for 6 to 8 cups of sugar to a bar of butter (which is about 227 grams or half a pound). SIX TO EIGHT CUPS! From the get-go, I knew this recipe was going to be too sweet, especially for a Filipino clientele. To me, it even seemed unhealthy to be putting that much sugar in frosting. But a lot of the reviews online mentioned this frosting recipe to be “one of the best they’ve ever tasted.” So I kept an open mind and tried the recipe out, but I cut the recipe in half because if I use that much sugar, I would not have any left for the rest of the frostings I was yet to make.

My impressions were right. This frosting is just waaay to sweet. It holds great under warm weather but it tastes awful. I could not taste anything but pure sugar. So I decided to cut the sugar by half. Even when I cut the amount of sugar by that much, I still found the recipe too sweet. But I thought that maybe the sweetness would be tolerable if it was enjoyed with the cupcake base. I assembled a few cupcakes and had my cousins taste them. They weren’t too crazy about the sugary frosting either. So I went back to my kitchen extremely disappointed because I was already running out of ingredients and this misstep would cost me a few more ingredients that I needed for something else.

I also ran into a few problems with the dulce de leche that I made the day before. When I spread it on the tops of my banana walnut cupcakes, they refused to stay on top of the cupcake and made their way down the sides of the cupcake. I was so frustrated that I almost called my friends to let them know that there was not going to be a taste test that evening. But rather than waste all the effort I’ve already exerted, I moved on to the Red Velvet cupcakes and the cream cheese frosting.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Banana Walnut Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche

The frosting recipe was pretty easy and manageable. And I found it to be smooth and tangy, which I liked. I piped them on to the cupcakes and was finally happy with at least one cupcake. I also finished baking off the chocolate chip cookies that I promised to let sit in the fridge overnight. I found a solution to the burnt bottoms of the cookies by doubling the pans I baked them in and taking them a tad early to keep them chewy. After taking photos of the cookies and cupcakes that I managed to assemble and decorate, I got so tired I didn’t even finish the chocolate frosting for the chocolate cupcakes.

Then, I slept. I slept for a good hour on the couch with my apron still on and with frosting glued to my forearms. I was only woken up by a call from Lyn saying that they’ve arrived in front of the house and ready to test the cupcakes.

I was so surprised with their reaction with the cupcakes. They actually liked the vanilla frosting on vanilla cake, the one I found too sweet. They found it so good in fact, Charo called it addictive. They enjoyed the Red Velvets too, but they found a strange taste that they described as ‘uncooked batter’ which they actually found pleasant. They also liked the banana cupcakes but suggested that they could do without the dulce de leche frosting. They were finally happy with the chocolate chip cookies as well, and Lyn kept on hinting I give them a bag to take home. I was only happy to oblige, as I was elbow deep in cookies and cupcakes and I did not know what to do with all the leftovers. 

Because Karrie and Ian couldn’t make it to the tasting, I also sent a few cupcakes for them to taste. They wrote down their observations and I was able to read them today.  Karrie was okay with the Red Velvets but found the frosting not tangy enough. She also said that while they tasted good, it does not fit the memory of the Red Velvets she had before (I suddenly regretted not trying the Red Velvets when I was going around in NYC last year). Ian also found a weird taste he could not describe (I think this maybe the ‘uncooked batter’ taste Charo found in the cupcakes).  Then again, Ian always manages to find something wrong that hardly ever matters just to irritate me, so I’m not sure if I’m counting this one. =p  Karrie really enjoyed the vanilla frosting, which made me think twice about abandoning the recipe entirely. Maybe a few tweaks here and there would make it enjoyable for people with a sweet tooth and the sugar-intolerant (?).

At the end of the day, we made progress with the recipes despite the shaky start. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Tomorrow, I have a date with Lyn to take a look at KitchenAid mixers at Focus Global Inc. in Mandaluyong, the official distributor of KitchenAid mixers in the Philippines (YAAAY! I’m super excited!) and maybe decide on the best model to buy. Again, any sponsors? Send me an email! Better yet send me a cheque!

XOXOXOXO

Cookies, Cupcakes and Kebabs

Before I bore you to death with the story of my recipe tests, I would like to take this opportunity (naks, parang artista) to thank my friends who have gone out of their way to help me get started.  I know this will sound cliché as hell but this would not have been possible without their pushing me forward. I am really grateful for their putting up with me and for waking up early to accompany me to the cake supplies store, for making sure I have all the ingredients I need, for their constructive criticism and of course, for inspiring me and reminding me of the possibilities. (*tear*) Thank you very much for making this project a helluva lot easier.

So, moving on with the recipes, I decided to test my chocolate chip cookies first as they seemed to be the easiest to prepare. I got my ingredients together and equipment ready, and even borrowed the Kitchenaid from my aunt next door (I’m contemplating getting one real soon. Any sponsors?) and I got down to business. First impressions with the recipe are that it doesn’t take much time and effort to get the dough together and that the dough tasted really good raw (if you are pregnant, ill or your health is otherwise compromised, I really do not recommend consuming anything with uncooked eggs in them. Most chocolate chip cookie doughs do). 

This dough was very easy to work with. So after spacing them out properly on the sheet tray so they won’t stick together when they bake and making sure that the oven was at the right temperature when I popped them in, I thought to myself, “What could possibly go wrong?” Well, a number of things.

Since I was using a lightweight aluminum tray to bake them in, the bottoms got cooked faster than the rest of the cookie, turning them too brown, some even burnt. When I had my friends taste the cookies, they could not get past the acrid aftertaste of the slightly burnt bottoms. And though I was able to pull some out of the oven before they turned rock hard, my friend Charo said that the cookies could be a little chewier. I do like my cookies very chewy so I made a batch the following day and made sure I followed the recipe precisely. After mixing the batch, I promised to myself to the dough to rest overnight, as the recipe explicitly recommended. A recommendation I obviously ignored, when I baked off the previous batch cookies only after 30 minutes or so in the refrigerator.  So as I waited for the dough to rest while battling with my low emotional quotient, I decided to move on to the wonderful world of cupcakes.

Cupcakes.

I stood over the tiny cupcake tins and the fancy cupcake paper liners and thought what would people be thinking after finding out what I’m up to now. After two years of cooking school and several jobs later, my career has been reduced to cupcakes. CUPCAKES. I bet my next-door neighbor can bake cupcakes. Heck, I bet my dog can bake cupcakes. So why the hell am I making cupcakes?!

The truth is, I love cupcakes as much as the next guy. Well, as much as the next gay guy. I love how dainty they can be and how creative you can be with them. It’s not exactly Larousse Gastronomique material, but honestly, I love making them just as much as eating them. And as this is the search for the thing I’d be happier doing, cupcakes would be a good addition to the repertoire.

With the small oven and workspace that I had, I surprised myself when I was able to make a large batch of three flavors today: Vanilla, Chocolate and Red Velvet. Despite my requests to move the cupcake taste tests some other day because it was already late and I didn’t have my icings ready, my friends insisted in coming over to taste them. I was surprised yet again when they found that the cupcakes were really good. And they didn’t even have frostings yet! I say I was surprised because normally, they wouldn’t hold back on their criticisms because that’s the kind of friends they are; the kind that tells you the truth. Albeit they had a few criticisms here and there, they thoroughly enjoyed the cupcakes. Which made me even happier. But what made my evening was the dinner we had at Chef Dogan’s Turkish Grill and Restaurant in Katipunan Ave. QC. Guess what? The place is named after the chef who owns the place. And guess what!? He happens to be Turkish! And they serve up really good Turkish food.

Okay, this entry is going everywhere and right now it looks like my kitchen: a spectacular mess.  I’m sleepy and it’s been a long day of cookies, cupcakes and kebabs and I’m dying to go to bed.

Good night, y’all. XOXO.