raspberry « GrumpyWhenHungry

Posts Tagged: raspberry

Around NY / Bakery — 1 Comment
4
Dec 09

Butter Lane Cupcakes

First off: THANK YOU GROUPON! I write about food on this site, but you can see an article that I wrote for another blog on this fabulous group discount service that gave me my dozen cupcakes for half the price.

Second: HELLOOOOOOO BUTTERLANE!

butter lane inside1

Ahhh, a group of folks after my own heart! Ever since I was two and my Dad gave me a small stuffed cow that was featured in all of my childhood photos, I have LOVED cows. I have a sweet spot in my heart for the resident cow of my childhood vacation spot, Block Island, and hopefully sometime soon will have his portrait purchased 8 or so years ago framed and hung on my wall. So you can imagine my little heart jumping for joy at the site of this beautiful bovine hanging on the wall of my sweet-tooth driven destination. Everyone working at Butter Lane is unbelievably friendly, talkative, and so helpful.

butter lane inside2

Butter Lane is like most cupcakeries in that they have two or three cake bases (vanilla, chocolate, and I believe their only other one is banana), and then the frosting combinations are where the creativity lies.

butter lane inside3

You know something has to be good when a patron already in the store tells you to trust the employees to picking the flavors for you.

Which brings me to:

butter lane inside

The Cupcakes!

Ahh, such high expectations. And for the most part, Butter Lane came through. To start off with, the brief not-so-goods: the vanilla and chocolate cakes that I had were just a bit dry. They crumbled too easily, and didn’t dissolve on my tongue the way I expect cake to. I also like my chocolate cake to be a bit bolder, with a chocolate flavor that you would be happy to have in your corner in a fight between the frosting. A real hold-it’s-own kind of chocolate cake. Butter Lane’s chocolate was just a tad shy of the bar.

butter lane 7

Now that we’ve got that squared away, on to the good stuff!

Ohhhh that frosting! The buttercreams are absolutely DELISH. They make all kinds: vanilla, chocolate, maple, cinnamon, raspberry, strawberry, espresso. And the banana cake was ON POINT! Moist, delicious, and not too overwhelming on the banana. It’s no surprise that my favorite cupcake flavor came with a banana base. The Banana with Cinnamon Buttercream is the kind of thing that I would go back and order a whole dozen of at full price.

Overall, I give Butter Lane a thumbs and a half up. I’m going to go back to see if cake is a bit moister next time, but I’m going to protect against dry mouth with at least a half dozen with the banana base. Of course, now that I’ve said that, the next time I go everything else will be oozing moisture and the banana will feel like sand in your mouth. That’s just how the world works.

butter lane 8

Butter Lane

123 East Seventh Street, New York, New York 10009 (p) 212.677.2880

Drinks — 1 Comment
27
Nov 09

HOTLIPS makes Mouths Happy

Hot Lips in a Row

MMMMMMM Fresh fruit soda from the Pacific Northwest. HOTLIPS is like a party in your mouth. A few days after this delicious little package with individually wrapped bottles arrived on my doorstep, I took my first sips of HOTLIPS, and I was a convert. The sodas are all cooked in a kettle, then bottled, and then pasteurized. The fruit flavorings take you a bit by surprise, because you expect the sodas to be a bit sweeter or more artificial tasting, but the truth is the sodas taste like real fruit. There’s no long story to this one. Even though HOTLIPS soda is across the country, it’s totally worth the shipping to taste these artisanal fruit sodas. DELISH!

HOTLIPS soda in a box

HOTLIPS raspberry soda

Chocolate / Food — No Comments
29
Oct 09

Sweet Dreams: A perfect end to National Chocolate Day

A chocolate-infused paradise

How an ultimate chocolate lover ended National Chocolate Day (yesterday!).

Featured Bars:

Vosges Haut Chocolate Peanut Butter BonBon Bar and Mo’s Dark Bacon Bar

Michel Cluizel

Fine and Raw (raspberry and vanilla)

Theo Ghana Dark Chocolate Bar (84%)

Mast Brothers Chocolate

Vosges Naga Bombalinas

Dolfin Tasting Squares

Amedei Chuao Bar

HEAVEN!

candy / Chocolate — No Comments
2
May 09

A Chocolate Hit-or-Miss

This pretty box of chocolates came from Knipschildt chocolatier out of Norwalk, CT. A few weeks ago I took a trip down to their flagship store, Chocopologie to see what they were all about.

Their store is a good size, and their cafe seems a bit darker, but comfortable. I wanted to purchase a box of their chocolates, and I picked up some fun hollow easter eggs for my family for Easter. I also wanted a hot drink for the ride home, and the woman at the desk represented their nakesake drink: the chocolpologie. It was a dark hot chocolate espresso drink with lavender foam, and it was heavenly.

The Chocopologie Bar that I bought, the Burnt Caramel and Sea Salt bar, was also very good. I’m usually not a fan of filled chocolate bars, because the centers are usually too sugary and gooey–to the point where they make your teeth hurt. But the caramel filling in this bar was thicker, and not gooey at all, but had a fantastic sweet flavor with a little bitterness from the burn.

I had very mixed feelings about the box of chocolate. First of all, I didn’t get to select what came in the box. The store only sells their chocolates individually, and so when you buy a box you are at the mercy of whoever put that box together. Some of the pieces were very nice, like the dark chocolate with raspberry and pink peppercorns, or the lemon marzipan (again, I’m not a big fan of marzipan, but this tasted more like bright sour lemons), but others really missed the mark. The pistachio was bland, as was the coconut truffle.

A few weeks later, I found Knipschildt chocolate at my local Dean & Deluca, and was excited to try some of the pieces that I had seen in the store, but had not come in my box. The tangerine white chocolate cone was delicious, as was their caramel with pink himalayan sea salt. I also purchased a green tea truffle (I’m a fan of tea in chocolate, and loved the Blanxart green tea bar!), however after the first bite of this truffle, I spit it out and threw the rest away. Again, Hit-or-Miss seems to be the theme for Knipschildt.

Overall, I would probably go back for the chocopologie bar, but other than that I would be very cautious when selecting which chocolates you are going to buy, and ALWAYS buy just a few, and pick them out yourself.

GrumpyWhenHungrySo eat, and be happy.