Magnolia Bakery

I have always wanted to eat a cupcake from Magnolia's, well by always I mean ever since I heard "Lazy Sunday" by the Lonely Island and saw the skit on SNL. It's amazing!

"Let's hit up Magnolia and mack on some cupcakes!"

A pal of mine brought me back two cupcakes from a recent trip to NYC. We've been having discussions of how we aren't all that fond of red velvet, so I was a bit surprised when one of the two happened to be red velvet, but it turned out I liked that one much more than the vanilla with chocolate frosting. She said that when she was in there the selection was limited, which isn't surprising since they are always crazy busy. I honestly expected something magical, but the cupcakes were just okay. I did really like the frosting on the red velvet cupcake. It was the frosting equivalent to homemade whipped cream. Obviously it wasn't that, since whipped cream would not make an hour six hour bus ride back from New York, but that was exactly how it tasted and the consistency was just a little bit thicker than whipped cream is. My friend guessed that it was a traditional boiled frosting, which is officially my favorite type of frosting now. Two Fat Cats, here in Portland, has amazing boiled frosting. I won't be making any quick trips to NYC to have Magnolia's again, but I would definitely go there the next time I am in the city. It would be interesting to see their physical location and to actually have the Magnolia's experience myself.

http://magnoliabakery.com/home.php

I tried to get to the new bakery last night, but when I called them to see if they had cupcakes, they didn't answer their phone. Interesting... I kind of like the thrill of the hunt though. I will put out the request again, if anyone knows of cupcakes in the area that need to be reviewed, let me know! It's quite easy to pop into East End Cupcakes now to pick one up, but sometimes I like to have that more challenging quest of finding them at coffee shops or out of the way bakeries.

In the meantime, here is a hilarious (only in how unflattering it is) photo of me eating a cupcake in the USM library a few years ago when I was working on my undergraduate degree there. I'm not even sure where I got that cupcake from.

Breakfast Crepes

I tried to track down a new bakery today, but turns out they are not open on the weekend. Alas, I will have to wait until next week. I did however eat these amazing breakfast crepes that a friend made for me. Peaches in the first one, strawberries in the second and bananas in the third, all with a brown sugar reduction on top. I demanded bananas like the bananas in bananas foster, but my friend informed me that they did not have a blow torch. I have no idea what they did to the fruit inside the crepes, but it was all oh so tasty. It was an amazing way to start off my weekend.

East End Cupcakes

A week ago a few friends and I decided to go down to Fore Street for some gelato at Gorgeous Gelato and also a stop into East End Cupcakes. I was excited to try them again, since my first visit to their new retail location happened to be on their soft opening and they had limited flavors available. This time when I went in there had to have been more than seven varieties available for me to pick from. They also had a few of their more creative combinations available, such as the Lime cupcake with Coconut Buttercream.

Blueberry cupcake with Maple Syrup Buttercream

This cupcake was sort of similar to a blueberry muffin, but I really liked it. This cupcake is what prompted our now ongoing discussion of when a cupcake moves into muffin territory. When they are dense, like this one was, it seems to be more of a muffin. I always kind of hope that blueberry cupcakes will be like the Melt in Your Mouth Blueberry cake recipe that Marjorie Standish has in her book "Cooking Down East", which is kind of unrealistic on my part. My mom makes a few of those blueberry cakes every year and it is one of the highlights of summer. My family always fights over who gets the middle piece, since it doesn't have any edges to it. This is the ultimate piece of blueberry cake and often is the first piece taken from the cake, which looks a little odd.

The East End Cupcakes blueberry cupcake was delicious and I would totally eat it (or a few of them) again. For me, however, the Maple Syrup Buttercream really made the cupcake. It was light, creamy and delicious.

Lime cupcake with Coconut Buttercream

Let me say, I hate coconut, so I didn't even try the Coconut Buttercream. I did try the cupcake part of this one, because my friend offered to share it with me, knowing how much I loathe coconut. The lime cupcake was delicious. There were even little lime rind bits in the cake itself.

There were so many options to choose from on the day that my friends and I went into East End Cupcakes. I love that they have already begun to bring out some of their more interesting flavors to complement their staples. I also love the simple decor that they have and the chairs are really nice to sit in on a hot summer day. They are surprisingly cool, which seems odd to say, but I appreciated it on the hot summer night that we went in.