Sprinkles is, sadly, delicious

The other day, I made my way to the new NYC location of Sprinkles to check out the competition. I'd actually had a Sprinkles cupcake once before, flown across country by a coworker who had visited LA. It was a red velvet, and it was okay, but granted it was a few days old at that point.

This time, I would have a fresh-as-a-daisy specimen and see what all the fuss was truly about. The Sprinkles store itself is bright, clean, airy, and sort of disorganized. Sure, the cupcakes are all orderly and very attractively presented, but there's no real line-- just some people milling about at the counter. Then you place your order, the person writes it along with your name on a pad and rips off a little slip, then someone takes the slip, fills the order, and puts the order and the slip on a back counter. Then the cashier picks up the bag and the slip, calls your name, and summons you to the register to pay. It's one of those systems that probably works really well when it's absurdly busy, but given that I was the only one ordering at the time and was standing at the counter the whole time, it was about 10 steps too many and sort of silly. Also worth noting is that the cash register is hidden in a tall podium, so to pay you sort of slip around the side where the employees enter and exit; there's a trash can there but no counter or place to set a bag or wallet while you're paying. That seems like a bizarre oversight to me.

My cupcake booty

All right, enough. You want to know about the cupcake, right? Right. I chose a black and white cupcake, chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and tiny square chocolate sprinkles decorating the top. And, much as I'd love to slam Sprinkles as terrible and overrated and all that, it was pretty darn delicious. The cake was strikingly chocolatey as well as notably moist, with a springy crumb that held moisture well. The frosting-- and there was quite a bit of it-- was the perfect mixture of buttery and sweet (erring on the sugary side, as you know I like), and the little chocolate sprinkles added some textural contrast as well as more chocolate flavor.

And it's pretty, too

Cross-section

So, sadly, this was one of the better cupcakes I've ever had. And while it's not cheap--$3.50 a pop!-- it's pretty big as well. Sprinkles, you win this round...

Sprinkles
780 Lexington Avenue, between 60th and 61st Streets
212-207-8375

The classic chocolate cupcake from Billy's

I'm slowly making my way through the menu at Billy's, once again, and I'm reminded every day how freakin' delicious this stuff is. And I'm not just saying that because I'm employed there. I mean, take the classic chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting. Light, fluffy, cocoa-inflected cake, with an appealing darker, almost coffee-like undertone at the exposed lip of the cake. Sugary, pure frosting, dotted liberally with sprinkles for visual and textural contrast. It's baked-good perfection: simple, uncomplicated, and thoroughly, seriously delicious. It may be humble (and bordering on homely, once I squished it beyond recognition in my purse on the way home), but it's a straight-shot throwback to childhood. In the best way possible.

Kinda dented. Oops.

So light and tender!

Billy's Bakery
184 Ninth Avenue and 75 Franklin Street
212-647-9958

Back to the Billy's classics

The other day, after spending much of my day wrist-deep in frosting, I just craved a cupcake, darn it. And even though I usually go for the more exotic offerings at Billy's-- the red velvet, the carrot-- for some reason I just wanted a classic vanilla-vanilla cupcake. And so a classic cupcake I got.

It got a little squished in transit, but it's still so cute, no?

Man, what makes cupcakes so good? Probably the fact that it's just pure butter and sugar, but still. This classic yellow cake was incredibly light, almost ethereal, and the crown of vanilla frosting was generous and lip-smackingly sweet. I gobbled this cupcake in a few bites and could have eaten about three more (but didn't!). Gotta love it.

Lots of frosting there

Billy's Bakery
184 Ninth Avenue and 75 Franklin Street
212-647-9958

Shake Shack redeems itself

After our disappointment with the dessert offerings at Eataly, BL and I were marooned on 5th Avenue and 23rd Street with nothing sweet in sight. We peeked around the corner to see if the Van Leeuwen truck was parked in one of its frequent spots-- it wasn't. What to do, what to do? Figured we might as well check out the only thing that came to mind: Shake Shack.

Now, as you know, I've had mixed experiences with Shake Shack custard, but I'm always the optimist when it comes to frozen treats. Plus, I figured, the line would be too long, and we'd have to go elsewhere anyway. Well, the regular line WAS very long, almost snaking its way out of the park entirely-- BL was discouraged-- but I pressed forward to check out the B line. The B line WAS no line. Honestly. One person sneaked his way in there in front of us, but we waited approximately 30 seconds and were at the window, ordering our dessert.

BL chose the daily special custard, grasshopper. The woman at the register described it as "chocolate mint," and I was expecting regular mint chocolate chip. But what emerged looked smooth and chocolatey; I took one bite and it tasted just like an Andes mint. Damn, I thought, that's good, and I'd tweaked.

Simple in looks but complex in flavor

Turned out, however, that this time around, for the first time, I HADN'T tweaked. My concoction, a cup of half-vanilla, half-chocolate, with caramel sauce on top-- was good. Nay, delicious! I gobbled it down, the caramel sauce sparse but flavorful, the vanilla and chocolate mixing and complementing one another like the best of black & white cookies.

Would have liked more caramel, but what was there worked

So what did I learn from this experience? While I might not jump at the Shack's vanilla custard straight up, when it's paired and doctored with more flavorful elements, it's quite a good conveyance. This visit made me a believer.

Shake Shack
Madison Park, 23rd Street and Madison Avenue
212-889-6600