New York , New York!

Although it doesn't seem like it, I have been baking and eating cupcakes all month long.  In fact, I've been so busy baking and eating I haven't really found the time to blog about it all.  So I thought it best to start with my short trip to Manhattan that included not one, not two, but three cupcakeries!
Cupcakery 1: Magnolia (Avenue of the Americas location)
I think I've hit up this bakery on all my recent NYC trips, because who can resist their charm?   Sure, they've branched out, and their lines are generally long, but they won me over this time when an associate stopped a German teenager from cutting in front of me and sent her to the end of the line.  We could use more people like that down here in DC.  But I digress.
I decided to get wacky and order a flavor-of-the-day, which was lemon coconut.  A light cake with whipped cream frosting that was adorned with snow-white coconut.  It was okay. Nothing too exciting.  But I had a cold and the echo between my ears of the crunching coconut annoyed me.  

Cupcakery 2: Butter Lane (Lower East Side)

You know the saying, birds of a feather flock together?  Well, apparently so do amazing bakeries.  This adorable, out of a romantic comedy spot is just a few minutes from my all-time fave place to grab a cupcake, Sugar sweet Sunshine.  Or maybe people from the LES really know their cupcakes?  I like this place because of its simplicity, cheerfulness, nice people working there, and the choice.  You choose your cake (chocolate vanilla or banana) and you choose your frosting, with flavors rotating daily.  There are some really interesting flavors here, and I went with blueberry frosting.  SO GLAD I DID!  Scrumpdidlilyumptious blueberry cream cheese frosting on a light vanilla cupcake.  The food memory created by the cupcake  is wonderful.

Cupcakery 3: Babycakes (also Lower East Side)

Spoiler alert: the best thing about this place is definitely NOT the cupcakes.  To be fair, they specialize in gluten-free, vegan, allergen-free cupcakes.  I am a person who can process gluten, and quite thankful to be.  But I went along, because my friend Amber was so excited to go to this bakery after seeing them on Martha Stewart.  I ordered a maple cupcake, which looked cool.  Based on my own expereinces baking low-fat desserts, I thought the flavors might mesh better than a chocolate or vanilla cupcake. The firstbite was not bad.

But when I bit the cake without frosting, it was so not good.  Like, get-this-out-of-my-mouth-right-now not good.  So, bad?  Poor Amber was so disappointed.  She grieved the rest of the trip.  We're not sure if its gluten-free cupcakes that we're not used to, or if its just this place, so stay tuned.  So our cupcakery successes were 2/3, which is decent.  If you ARE gluten-free or vegan, go for the donuts at Babycakes.  Those were interesting, and not half bad.