A Buttercup Batter Makes For A Better Batter...?

Pastry Shop: Buttercup Bake Shop

Website: www.buttercupbakeshop.com

Location: 973 2nd Avenue

Phone: 212.350.4144

Price Range: $

Choices: Caramel Pecan Cheesecake; Hummingbird Cupcake; Lemon Cupcake; Chocolate w/ Chocolate Icing Cupcake; Buttercup Golden w/ Chocolate Icing Cupcake; Red Velvet Cupcake; Carrot Cake; Devil Dog Cupcake; Lady Baltimore Cake; Banana Pudding

**First off, before you continue reading on, I would like to apologize to my dedicated readers for not being consistent with my updates these past two weeks. I understand that having a busy life is not an adequate excuse, if so I should not have started this blog. On that note, I will try my best to keep consistency for my loyal Savory Desserts NYC readers. :D To make up for last week, this week I have updated with two postings; one in honor of the Mid-Autumn Festival and one on a new pastry shop visit.**

This week a couple of friends and I went to pay a little visit to a bakeshop called Buttercup Bake Shop. When you first enter the cute little bakeshop, you see a wide range of cakes, cupcakes, and other sweets in closed display counters. For pastry lovers, it felt like you died and went to heaven. All the way in the back there’s a window that allows you to view the bakers and the kitchen at work. Despite its small area, they still offered a few tables and chairs for the guests to sit and enjoy their sweet guilty pleasures. Typically before we taste any of the desserts, we would organize the order of tasting from lightest to heaviest in richness. This time due to the lack of space on our table, we chose to taste according to which was the easiest to cut and clear up space.

Our first victim was of the Caramel Pecan Cheesecake. The texture of the cheesecake was drier than most; it was stiff but had lots of creamy flavors. What I usually look forward to in a cheesecake is the crunchy graham crust. Sadly, the crust was a bit soggy but had a nice added taste of pecans and walnuts. There was a garnish of caramel pecan on the top of the cheesecake but the sour cream flavor was so overpowering you could not enjoy the toppings of the cake.

The first cupcake we tried was the Hummingbird cupcake. The cake was a bit dry, balancing well with the vanilla frosting giving the cake more moisture. In the cake, I was able to taste primarily bananas, and pecans. When I took a bite of the cake, I felt a texture resembling pineapples and saw swirls of cinnamon but the flavors were not enhanced enough to be tasted.

One of my all time favorites is lemon pastry. At Buttercup Bake Shop we ordered the Lemon cupcake. At first glance, you get a bright yellow color coming from the frosting. Once the cake was cut, you instantly get a burst of lemon aroma. When I took a bite, I noticed that the cake was moister than the first one. It had strong flavors of lemon; most likely produced with lemon extract. One of my friends said, “It just tastes like lemon pound cake, nothing special.” As for the frosting, there were not any lemon flavors nor vanilla flavors to enhance the cupcake further.

The Chocolate with Chocolate Icing cupcake, I would say is not for us. The flavors of the cake reminded me of a brownie however it was much moister. This cupcake is very sweet and is highly recommended for intense chocolate lovers.

The following pastry we tasted was the Buttercup Golden with Chocolate Icing, recommended by the employee. For some reason, it didn’t contain any flavor characteristics that distinguish it was a cupcake, it tasted more of bread.

The Red Velvet cupcake is one that was most recommended in their reviews. It was also the one that I look forward to most. It was a vanilla based red velvet with cream cheese frosting, as told by the employee. Upon tasting the frosting, it struck us there weren’t hints of cream cheese at all rather that it tasted of buttercream. Product knowledge much?

With the first bite of the Carrot cake, you instantly get bursts of nutty carrot flavors. The moisture of the cake was on point. However when taking a bite with the icing, the icing’s overpowering sweetness completely wipes out its refreshingly earthly flavors.

Taking a look at the “Devil Dog” cupcake gave us all a toothache. It was composed of a very dark chocolate cake; with a very sweet marshmallow spread sprinkled with blue sugar crystal cubes, all this equals to an unpleasantness to the palate. It felt like I ate an entire bar of dark chocolate with roasted marshmallows all at once. However, I should add that this was actually a moist cupcake.

The last cake we tasted was a slice of Lady Baltimore. The cake was vanilla based with fillings of shredded coconut, apple-oatmeal cookie crumbs, finely chopped toasted almonds, candy cherries, and almond extract. Although, the composition of the filling was said to have this many ingredients, after tasting we were not able to identify all that was stated. From the tasting, we were only able to extract flavors of coconut and candy cherry preserve. This preserve had just the right amount of sweetness balancing well with the light vanilla cake and marshmallow spread.

Half way through our tasting, an employee came by to offer us two samples of their puddings. The first one was Lemon Raspberry pudding; it was delightful and refreshing with a sour kick at the end. The second one was Chocolate Truffle pudding; it was delicious!! The level of sweetness in the chocolate was on point. It had a light smooth fluffy texture. Once in your mouth, you feel the cake dissolving slowly into the pudding giving you the “melt in your mouth” feeling.

The highlight of this dessert review would be the Banana Pudding. Quoted from the three of us, “OMG, this taste so good!” I must say it definitely did not look appetizing even when it was displayed in the counters. It was pastel yellow in color, and did not present any aromas of bananas. However, this was a sent from heaven “melt in your mouth” pudding. In the pudding, there are slices of banana and pieces of vanilla wafers. Because the wafers were soaked in the pudding for a period of time, it becomes a nice soft addition to the smooth creamy texture pudding.

As for beverages, one of my friends ordered a hot chocolate. His opinion states, “The hot chocolate tasted of hot steamed milk mixed with NestleQuik powder. It was very generic.” I enjoyed my regular cup of Joe with milk and no sugar because of its bland flavor I was able to balance it with the intense sweetness of the pastries. My other friend ordered the apple cider. She stated, “I only ordered the apple cider because I don’t drink coffee but it was good because the sourness helped balance the sweets.”

One additional detail I must include regarding all the cupcakes was the extremely intense sweetness of all the icing and spreads. First, all of the icings and spreads were sprinkled with little sugar cubes. They were very thick in texture and you can actually chew the icing and feel/hear yourself biting down on sugar.

Overall, I really liked the service I received from the girls working behind the counter. They were very helpful voicing their recommendations, very pleasant and kind. The baked goods were not awful but it was not what we had expected. We highly recommend the Banana pudding, the Chocolate Truffle pudding, and maybe the Hummingbird cupcake.

Mishii's Rating: 5/10