Back to basics at Amy's Bread

It's been a tough few weeks for the cupcake eater in me. First I tried to squelch the craving with a non-cupcake pastry from Andre's. Then I gave in to the siren song that is Crumbs. Where's a Billy's red velvet or banana cupcake when you need one? Down in Chelsea and Tribeca, sadly. So when the craving returned last week, once again I turned to a local option: Amy's Bread.

Now, while my heart certainly lies with Billy's, I won't pretend I was unhappy "settling" for Amy's. I wrote about the black and white cupcake at Amy's a while back, and when I get a local craving for a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting, it still can't be topped. They've changed the wrappers to French cupcake liners since I last wrote, making the quarry look a little something like this:

The frosting got squished in transit. But still good!

When you pull the paper off the cupcake, it falls away in a neat halo, not unlike this dinosaur from Jurassic Park.

I realize this picture doesn't look much different from the one above it. But trust me, the cupcake liner mechanism works well.

And then when you cut into the cupcake, it reveals its true magic: A moist, fine-crumbed, intensely chocolatey cake that neatly straddles the line between cake and brownie. The center is always a tiny bit underdone, aptly delivering that fudgy-brownie hit, while the base of the cupcake brings the cake. Oh, and the frosting is perfect, sugary and mild, a classic foil for the rich cake.

You can see the moisture throughout and the layer of fudginess right below the frosting

While the other cupcakes at Amy's can't hold a candle to the goodies at Billy's, their black and white cupcake is tops. My unequivocal recommendation remains.