The Cultured Cupcake

In Defense of the Cupcake

If The Atlantic senior editor Corby Kummer thinks cupcakes are still worth the hype, then so do we.

Check it out: Not So Guilty Pleasure

Cupid Loves Cupcakes

Sayre and I have a fantastic post waiting in the wings. It's a recap of our epic Valentine's Day Nondate, a lower Manhattan cupcake/pubcrawl featuring three (yes, three) cupcake bakeries  and some forgotten number of bars. Coming as soon as I fix some camera issues...

Buttercup Bakeshop: Enter Laughing, Leave...Not Laughing

Amanda: So, I love musicals. When I was a kid, I saw a lot of musicals. When I was in high school, I was in a lot of musicals. Now, I’m poor and I never see musicals. So, when I found these $20 tickets to a revival called Enter Laughing at the York Theatre, I was eager for an excuse to go.

Sayre: Quite honestly, I was just bored that day. But I, too, really like musicals. The first one I saw was The Lion King on Broadway in my senior year of high school. Amanda, though, I know, has great taste, so I figured that she’d pick something pretty good. And when she came up with Enter Laughing, I was definitely down to go check it out.

A: There you have it folks: Sayre likes cupcakes and musicals, and he is a manly, manly man.

S: Amanda, do you remember that time I mentioned that there might be throwing of cupcakes? You do? Oh, that’s good… And, I promise, I’m not gay. Seriously.

A: Sayre, I support your life choices. Anyway the cupcake shop we chose to review was Buttercup Bakeshop, which has two locations in the city: Upper West Side and Midtown East. We went to the Upper West Side location and sampled some cupcakes. But first, let’s talk about the show. Sayre’s laughter disrupted everyone around us, so I’m guessing he liked it.

S: No, that did not disrupt the audience! What did disrupt the audience was the 60-year-old woman sitting in front of me, telling the 40-year-old ex-trophy wife about how she would never do anything beyond Botox.

A: Yeah, that was unnecessary. But once the show started, you were having a pretty great time. Enter Laughing is the story of a teenager named David Kolowitz (played, with gusto, by Josh Grisetti) living in the Bronx in the 1930s who dreams of being a Broadway actor. Somehow this errand boy stumbles in the lead role of a Broadway play—a pretty crappy Broadway play—and then a lot of ridiculous things that happen involving a love triangle, a tuxedo mix-up, and a doting but guilt-tripping mother. Sayre, what were your thoughts?

S: Yeah, I thought the actors, for the most part, were very strong. The writing was really clever too. I thought the musical numbers that involved the entire cast were really good, but I thought the singing was, for many, fairly weak.

A: I liked a lot of the actors, especially the lead, who was adorably dorky and great at physical comedy. I also thought Emily Shoolin, who played his girlfriend, Wanda, did an amazing job. Honestly, I thought the writing was a little cheesy which I guess is to be expected from play that was written in the ’70s. I agree that the best parts were the big musical numbers. I was less interested when every character had his/her solo.

S: I liked Wanda, but I definitely thought that the two most talented actors were the lead (Grisetti) and the owner of the theatre company (played by Bob Dishy, whose credits include Law and Order, The Golden Girls, and Jungle 2 Jungle) who reluctantly gives David his big break. Both of them, in their respective roles, seemed to be the most convincing and relaxed whereas for many of the other characters, especially during an acting scene absent of music, the performances felt forced.

A: And I’d also say: just because I found it a little cheesy doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate all the dirty jokes. David Kolowitz is a horny kid. His adolescent daydreams about boobs were hilarious. Oh, we also had a guest reviewer with us. Her name is Christa. And her review is as follows: “The main guy was ugly.”

S: That’s pretty much all she had to say, really.

A: Well, I left with a warm happy feeling inside---which was soon dispelled by Buttercup Bakeshop.

S: Buttercup blows.

A: To put it succinctly, yes. I’ve actually been there before but never for their cupcakes. They make an apple cake with cream cheese frosting that’s pretty decent; I’ll give them that much.

Sayre: To be fair, I’ve heard from other friends that their brownies are fantastic. Backing up a little, Buttercup was started by a couple of people who worked at the Manhattan nexus of cupcakes—Magnolia. In the fashion of Magnolia, Buttercup focuses on making a very few flavors, and, hopefully, making them well. They don’t.

A: We decided to sample a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, and a peanut butter and jelly cupcake. I’m going to say that the biggest problem with Buttercup is the cake. Specifically, it’s lack of any moisture whatsoever.

Sayre: I’d have to agree. Set a normal cupcake in the middle of the Sahara for a couple hours, days, I don’t know, and see what comes out. Chances are you’ll be able to sample it at Buttercup.

A: Beyond that, we both had a problem with the bitter taste of the chocolate cake. It wasn’t bitter the way that good chocolate can be bitter. It was just bitter.

S: For those of you who regularly watch The Office, I’d refer at this point to Michael’s take on bittersweet chocolate: it’s never good. In this case, it doesn’t matter, however, as Amanda already pointed out that they don’t do it well.

A: I found the vanilla frosting to be overbeaten. It had too much air.

S: I thought it was too sweet. You know when you eat something and you can feel your mind click on saying “whoa, what the hell did you just put in your body.”…

A: Yeah, my mind doesn’t have that reflex. I didn’t mind the sweetness.

S: Well, you’re lucky. I thought there was just too much sugar in the frosting. The chocolate frosting, however, was well done, consistency was good, with a complex chocolate flavor and an appropriate amount of sugar.

A: I think there was just as much sugar, it was just harder to taste through the chocolate. The vanilla cake seemed more promising, it had a rich buttery scent, but turned out to taste like, well, nothing.

S: I just want to point out at this juncture that I don’t smell the cake like Amanda does.

A: Gotta use all five senses, Sayre.

S: Thanks, Mom.

A: Honestly I found both cakes and both frostings unremarkable if not unappetizing.

S: I completely agree. For gourmet cupcakes, they just don’t cut it. I’d liken them to a girl that’s just pretty enough that you wouldn’t kick her out of bed.

A: Watch it, Sayre.

S: We left out the PB&J cupcake, which we both thought was decent. If you have to go there, definitely pick that.

A: (You know, on your next forced march to the cupcake shop.)

S: It’s an unusual peanut butter cupcake in that it has peanut butter frosting, yellow cake, and a jelly center. And, the peanut butter frosting almost tastes like you’re eating sweetened peanut butter. It’s very good and very original.

A: Peanut butter frosting is sweetened peanut butter, but good observation. I’d also disagree and say it’s not a very original cupcake flavor, but it’s a winning combination, especially with the whole PB&J sandwich nostalgia factor.

S: I’d never had one before, so I guess for me it was pretty original, but Amanda has apparently seen them on the blogosphere. So, I guess I’ll take her word for it.

A: Seriously, just make your own PB&J cupcake. Here are some examples:

Tyler Florence on Food Network's Jelly-Filled Cupcakes With Peanut Butter Frosting
How To Eat a Cupcake's Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes
Equal Opportunity Kitchen's Peanut Butter and Jelly Filled Cupcakes

Next up, we're Approaching Climax. Bet you can't wait!

Caramel Royale

Amanda: The night began when I showed up ten minutes late to meet Sayre at the movie theater that we never ended up going to. In typical Amanda/Sayre fashion, we wandered around for half an hour “looking” for a place to eat before settling down at a fine Italian establishment called Joe-G’s.

Sayre: Well, let’s just slow down for a second, Amanda. As usual, she just wants to plow ahead to the end; I enjoy savoring the entire venture. Amanda didn’t want to eat Asian food, and New York’s got a lot of it. We didn’t eat for a while. As we were wandering down Broadway talking about our hopes, dreams, and aspirations – mine was to eat lots of cupcakes – a four-year-old girl ran up from behind me and crawled in between my legs mid-stride. I pretty much knocked her flat on the face, resulting in a typical Amanda-ism: “Sayre, how could you knock down a child?!” Look, I wasn’t trying to. She was small. I didn’t expect to find her in between my legs.

A: That’s what he said.

S: Well played.

A: Since Sayre backed us up once, I’ll take the liberty of backing up again. While we were discussing our hopes and aspirations, Sayre and I discovered our mutual love for cupcakes. A love I never thought Sayre would harbor in the depths of his Texan/fratboy/investment-banking heart. Nevertheless, I was very excited to hear of Sayre’s cupcake fetish…

S: Fetish? I don’t know if that’s what I’d call it.

A: Because I myself have been known to scour cities in search of the most delicious cupcakes.

S: Yeah, so that’s cupcake side of things. The culture, well, neither of us are really that cultured…

A: Speak for yourself! I happen to be getting a “Master of Fine Arts”. I don’t think you can get more cultured that that.

S: Anyway, so, Amanda and I started seeing movies together on a monthly basis beginning in the fall of our senior year at Pomona. Titles that we’ve gone through include: The Kingdom, Rendition, Ironman, and a bunch more we can’t remember.

A: Nobody cares about what we already did, Sayre. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do now.

S: Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. So, at dinner, Amanda and I decided that there are plenty of different cultural things that we can do in New York besides just watching movies. So, valued readers (all four of you), look out for forays to the comedy clubs, the New York Philharmonic, Broadway plays, jazz clubs, and that guy playing violin in the subway. Seriously, you guys should read this just to see what happens. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if one of us throws a cupcake at the other one at some point. And, when that does happen, you can be assured that the details will be here at your new most-clicked bookmark on Firefox. So, I give you, and Amanda is here waiting her turn to speak, so, really, we give you: The Cultured Cupcake.

A: Yay! Thank you, Sayre, for that highbrow introduction to this modest endeavor of ours. We probably shouldn’t be making promises like cupcake fights so early in the game, but we want to keep you intrigued. For the moment, let’s fast forward back to (yes, fast forward back to) the night in question, which happens to be tonight when the first movie /cupcake review was born.

S:
For those of you who have read The Polar Express, it’s like when little Timmy receives the first gift of Christmas.

A:
What the hell? What does that have to do with The Cultured Cupcake?!

S:
It doesn’t, but I was just thinking of The Polar Express.

A:
So, it was a cold night, and Sayre offered me his coat like the Southern gentleman that he is, but I, the hardheaded Yankee broad that I am, declined.

S:
Yeah, and she was sad too; it was really fucking cold.

A:
So we walked around, Sayre stepped on a child, we found Joe – G’s, etc. Dinner was an adventure but we’re not here to review mediocre Italian food.

S: For the first edition of The Cultured Cupcake ™, we chose a Caramel Apple cupcake from Crumbs Bakeshop, located at the corner of 75th and Amsterdam on the Upper West Side. And because Amanda is a loser who has never seen a James Bond film before…

A: Don’t tell everyone that! It’s so embarrassing.

S: As I was saying, we’re watching Casino Royale in my apartment because all the movies were sold out at the theater.

A: For the record: in the future, rather than just picking up a cupcake at whatever bakery we happen to stumble upon, future reviews will be more extensive including a taste test of three different cupcakes – one vanilla, one chocolate, and one flavor of the moment. The culture aspect will probably not be a DVD watched in Sayre’s apartment. This is New York City; we are not that lame.

S: Interjection! Watching a DVD in my apartment is not lame.

A: Great interjection Sayre. So on to the cupcake. I've actually rated Crumbs cupcakes before, and they came in dead last among L.A. cupcakes. So I wasn't expecting much. These cupcakes, if you haven’t seen them, are much larger than most. They’re also typically more elaborately designed. The one we got was fairly modest, with a drizzle of caramel across the top of vanilla frosting. The woman at the counter said that there were apple slices mixed in the batter which I found intriguing. The cake itself was nicely moist and dense although it could have been moister. But, I was pretty happy with the taste, which was surprisingly complex.

S: I agree. I really liked the cake part the best out of all the elements of this cupcake. I almost think it tasted like a spice cake, and I really liked that flavor combined with the apple. The frosting was decent, but it’s nothing to write home about. 

A: I thought the frosting was pretty sweet and pretty standard. It tasted good, but like Sayre said it was nothing special, and I had a little problem with the consistency.

S: How so?

A: It tasted overbeaten and sort of spongy the way cheap grocery store frostings sometimes taste as opposed to a homemade variety which you would expect to be rich and creamy.

S: I agree with the fact that it was pretty standard. To me it seemed like normal vanilla frosting. Which, at $3.75 a cupcake, is kind of a rip-off.

A: Yeah, it’s good that you bring up the cost because I think that what you’re paying for at Crumbs is the larger than average size rather than premium ingredients.

S: Readers, just to give you a visual of the current state of affairs: Amanda finds herself wrapped up in a throw blanket from pottery barn on my white IKEA couch that feels like a stone slab. We could be in prison in the Ukraine.

A: Interjection. The Ukraine? Maybe, except for the fact that we’re in your well-appointed apartment. Well-appointed, I should mention, by your adorable gay roommate…

S: You haven’t even met him yet. Honestly, I just think you want to hook up with him. Literally, readers, she saw a picture, and that sealed the deal.

A: I always want what I can’t have.

S: So, anyway, we’re in my apartment, Amanda’s on the couch, I’m on the couch, and on my thirteen inch, Element TV, there’s a detailed floor plan of the Ocean Club located on Paradise Island (exactly 22:31 minutes into Casino Royale).

A: We just got so excited to write our first blog entry that we couldn’t finish the movie, but Sayre’s already seen it and he says it’s good. So far, I think that Jason Bourne could kick James Bond’s ass anytime.

S: Hold on woman, I agree with Amanda that Jason Bourne is a bad, bad man, and I think the Jason Bourne vs. Daniel Craig “Rumble in the Proverbial Hollywood Jungle” would be a sight to see. But, I’ve got to give the edge to James Bond. He is, after all, the man with the golden gun. Actually, I just remembered, that’s the villain in that movie, so he’s really not the man with the golden gun. Maybe Amanda’s right. Funny like that. Well, I think we’ll get back to you in about an hour and a half and some extensive editing. Amanda, any closing words?

A: I want another cupcake. And Jason Bourne.

Time elapses while we watch Daniel Craig fuck shit up.

S: We just finished Casino Royale and I believe the final count is: James Bond does indeed trump Jason Bourne.

A: That was not the final count; that was your count. I still beg to differ. But, it was a good movie.

S: When we review a movie like Casino Royale, we want you know that we “adjust” our expectations. More accurately, Amanda adjusts her expectations. My expectations are always exceeded when James Bond takes the stage.

A: Sayre is making it sound like I’m some elitist, artsy-fartsy film critic. My favorite movies of 2008 were The Dark Knight and Ironman. I like explosions and high-speed car chases. I’m not watching Garden State on my laptop every night.

S: Lies, lies, lies. To the review. For those of you who don’t know, the James Bond films are based off of a series of books authored by Ian Flemming. After a spell or horrible, awful, no-good James Bond movies…

A: Sayre, were they bad?

S: No, Amanda, I believe horrible, awful, and no-good were the adjectives I used to describe them, to be precise. Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough were both mediocre. Die Another Day, however, reached a whole new level of sucking. It’s one of those movies that one would hope mankind would, in a massive, global effort, scoop up every last VHS, DVD, film, screenplay, scratch paper, and cast the lot deep in the Marianas trench where only obscure sea creatures could be privy to its horror. Returning to the point, Casino Royale was supposed to be what I would term, the James Bond “renaissance”. And, I believe that it holds up very well to those expectations.

There was quite an uproar at the possibility of a blond haired, rough and tumble James Bond who is played by Daniel Craig. Pierce Brosnan, his predecessor, exudes charm, charisma and class, and Daniel Craig, well, doesn’t. However, he is well cast especially given the book off which the film was based. Casino Royale, the first of the James Bond books, chronologically, is meant to portray the rise of James Bond from MI-6 spy in training to 007-dom. Inherently, the man meant to take on the role of James Bond in this film should have been a raw form of what James Bond became later. Any good James Bond fan—obviously not you, Amanda—knows that Sean Connery is the yi ching of James Bond. He’s the one. He’s like Neo in the Matrix, but he doesn’t suck like Keanu Reeves.

A: Interjection. This is getting too dense for me. I’ll just say, having no previous experience with this so-called Bond fellow, that the locations were beautiful, the Bond girls stunning (Daniel Craig not so bad either), and the fight scenes mediocre.

S: I agree with Amanda about the locations and the Bond girls. I think Daniel Craig is a great young James Bond. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think he would be well cast in movies based on later books. For example, I don’t think he has the suave nature that Sean Connery does in a movie like Dr. No. But, for this movie, I do think he is very well cast. The fight scenes are completely new to the James Bond genre - particularly, the hand-to-combat aspect of it. I think the fight scenes try to mirror those depicted in the Jason Bourne films, but do not quite capture the magic, so to speak.

A: That’s what I was comparing them to as well, and what stood out to me was how I lost focus during the fight scenes and stopped being able to tell who was doing what. This may be more of a problem with cinematography than with the acting or the direction.

S: I agree with that save for the first chase scene which is made memorable by “crane fighting”. But, I think that this is more of a chase than a fight.

A: I like when Daniel Craig blasted through the wall like the Kool-Aid man.

S: Overall, I would say the movie is entertaining and a good first attempt at returning to the James Bond of past decades. Strengths: Daniel Craig as James Bond, some parts of the screenplay were humorous and well written, and there is an ever present air of mystery.

A: Yeah, it was definitely the kind of movie where I kept having to turn to Sayre and ask who that guy was.

S: Yeah, I think they held that part up well. Weaknesses: the Bond girls were mediocre, the villain didn’t scare me…

A: He had a fucking inhaler! That was his trademark thing!

S: My point exactly, and the weeping blood was over the top.

A: Who is he trying to be? The Virgin Mary?

S: The biggest flaw with the new James Bond film is the absence of Q. Q, to me, was a key ingredient in the James Bond formula. The former Q passed away shortly after filming The World is Not Enough. Briefly succeeded by R, Q has not yet been revived in the franchise. Until they do, James Bond will be missing, what really amounts to, a silent sidekick with a bit of a fatherly quality to him. And, the gadgets are just cool.

A: I wish we had more cupcakes. Next time, we won’t have that problem

S: I’m glad my review has you so spellbound.

A: Sorry I’m just getting hungry again. Back to the movie, I guess I’ll take the typical feminist perspective and complain about the Bond girls. It was cool that Vesper turned out to be more than just some disposable plaything for Bond, but I wish that all of her actions didn’t turn out to have been motivated by some off-screen boyfriend. Her opening scene was so promising—she was smart, career-minded, and sassy. If this is supposed to be a ‘renaissance’ of the Bond series, then the Bond women should evolve with the series as well.

S: It’s interesting to hear Amanda’s take as one whose never seen the bond films before; however, I think the point of James Bond as depicted in other movies in the series is that he is unattached and independent due to the fact that he is betrayed in this first movie. Future Bond girls must, therefore, not steal the show.

A: If that’s the case, then this movie would have been the perfect time to give the Bond girl a real presence, a sense of agency.

S: Fair point. Well, I think this is it for the first installment. Trust us, it will only get better from here. You learned a little about cupcakes, a little about culture, and way too much about Amanda and me.

A: And since everyone knows food blogs are only as good as their photos, we’ll have more of those next time too. Au revoir!