in honor of my lovely and talented sister's birthday, i decided to bake cupcakes! red velvet ones. actually, my initial idea was to order them from one of the many trendy cupcake boutiques --magnolia, billy's, sugar sweet sunshine. i set about checking prices ($2.25 each/2 dozen minimum at billy's; 1.50 each at sugar sweet), availability, icing options (she and i agree on few things, one of them is a disdain for buttery icings!). it was becoming quite a little project. and then i tried to remember which ones were really good. this was the challenge. as i've noted before, i didn't love any of the ones i'd had.
so i thought, heck, why not try and make'em myself! so i rifled through my recipe files and found three that i could use. i decided to try the version offered by cakeman raven, but with the icing recipe from gale gand, the lovely author of one of my favorite titles (partly for it's title), butter sugar flour eggs. i didn't want to make a cream cheese icing, which cakeman raven uses. i was hoping to find a recipe that replicated the sugary, marshmallow-y icing that adorns the red velvet cake at maroon's. (btw, maroons just opened a branch on bleecker, across from father demo square! awesome! i just talked to a rep from the chelsea location. maroon's smoke shack opened last saturday, and it specializes in barbeque. it's got a smaller "cute" menu. i can't wait to check it out!)
as far as the baking goes, the cakeman recipe was easy to follow. i was a little nervous, because the batter didn't smell great--it didn't have the sweet buttery smell (since there is none) and the teaspoon of vanilla couldn't compete with the cup of buttermilk. the batter smelled like yogurt! i was also nervous about the icing, since it didn't taste at all sweet enough. but it was the wee hours of the morning by the time i finished the icing, so i thought perhaps my judgment was a bit off. i considered adding more sugar, or adding cocoa powder, since chocolate makes every thing better, but couldn't decide. so i left the cakes un-iced.
sister came over the next morning to deliver the verdict. she loved the cupcakes, but the icing was too buttery. so, in went some more confectioner's sugar. and some more. and some more. we added about an extra 2 cups of sugar to it, to make it taste just right. the added sugar also greatly improved the texture of the icing, making it lighter and easier to spread, which i was happy about.
in the end, it was a success. sister gave it the thumbs up, as did the cousins and friends who we shared them with.
a few weeks ago, i accidentally cracked the glass carafe of my coffee maker. so annoying! especially since i had yet to determine where the best cup of coffee on the LES and the surrounding nabes could be found. i had already visited 88 orchard, kudos beans, and ceci-cela to mixed results. actually, none of the "drip coffees" were up to snuff. 88 orchard and kudos beans offer much more flavorful lattes, though 88 orchard baristas have proved to be more consistent (and the service has gotten a bit warmer -- wan smiles now, as opposed to none at all before, which is more than you get from the folks at kudos). to complicate matters, the main housewares stores in the city no longer stock the replacement carafes that i need. aargh! oh well, i thought i would use this time to give these venues, second, third and fourth tries, and venture to some new places.
i did a little research, and found that the coffee obsessed seemed to think highly of the julius meinl coffees. i found a cafe in my 'hood, cafe trotsky, is one of the few in nyc that brew the julius meinl coffees. cafe trotsky is quiet, and charming and i would love to linger there over breakfast. it seems like a great place to relax, read, get your head together, savor pastries and caffeine. and the ladies that work there are certainly among the friendlier on the LES. an acquaintance of mine, who owns the wonderful hudson street papers shop (now at a new location on orchard street, but still named hudson street papers) mentioned that there was a statue of trotsky or some trotsky-esque figure on top of the cafe, but perhaps he was pulling my leg, because i went back and didn't see any kind of statue. in any case, loved the cafe but was less enamored of the drip coffee, it seemed a little watery to me. i think my palate has grown accustomed to a really heavy, brave brew, a la starbucks. the starbucks red-eye, prepared by the folks at the cafe on 233 broadway, in the woolworth building, is top notch. perfect every single time. (and the folks that worked there from jan-aug 2005, the greatest.) the coffee from the starbucks on spring street is adequate, but there are some management issues over there (three people at the registers, with three people ordering, and 1 lonely barista for hot bevs, and 1 barista for cold bevs and 8 people waiting for their bevs equals poor management and unsatisfied customers, if you ask me).
but my humble verdict for the best cup of "on the go" coffee, south of 14th street, is joe the art of coffee. the coffee snobs love it, wanna be foodies, best of nyc guide readers, and daily candy subscribers flock to it (hence the lines snaking down waverly place on the weekends), and with really, really good reason. it's strong, flavorful and it stays hot for a very long time. they'll make your latte into a work of art, if you'd like, but the coffee itself is a masterpiece. Joe the Art of Coffee 141 Waverly Place, bet Sixth Ave and Gay Street 212 924 6750, and 9 East 13 Street, bet 5th Ave and University 212 924 7400
Cafe Trotsky 192 Orchard Street, near Houston Street 212 677 6381
Hudson Street Papers 149 Orchard Street 212 229 1064
in honor of my lovely and talented sister's birthday, i decided to bake cupcakes! red velvet ones. actually, my initial idea was to order them from one of the many trendy cupcake boutiques --magnolia, billy's, sugar sweet sunshine. i set about checking prices ($2.25 each/2 dozen minimum at billy's; 1.50 each at sugar sweet), availability, icing options (she and i agree on few things, one of them is a disdain for buttery icings!). it was becoming quite a little project. and then i tried to remember which ones were really good. this was the challenge. as i've noted before, i didn't love any of the ones i'd had.
