Time for the Red, White, and Blue

One of my favorite holidays of the year is the 4th of July. I love feeling patriotic. I love fireworks. I love swimming. I love barbecuing. I love red, white, and blue desserts. Every year I see some creative 4th of July cupcakes. Remember cupcake kabobs two years ago? Awesome. This year I found a few more to add to my 4th of July dessert list.

Red, White & Blue Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes from Love From the Oven

Red and Blue Velvet Cake Pops from Taste and Tell

Red, White, & Blue Fruit Pizza from Our Best Bites
(ok, not cupcakes, but still yummy)

Review: Baked by Melissa

I got quite a few recommendations to visit Baked By Melissa, so I made it a priority on my list during my time in New York. Baked By Melissa has four locations in New York City and I visited the Fashion District one.




Baked By Melissa is a unique cupcake shop, in that they only sell mini cupcakes. But these mini cupcakes were different than any I've seen before because they had a smaller base than normal. They reminded me of muffin tops.




Since these were mini cupcakes, I decided to get one of each! I actually love this because I got the chance to try all of them and didn't feel sick to my stomach.




Flavors (L-R, T-B): Cookies & Cream, Cinnamon, Mint Chocolate Chip, Rice Crispy Treat (flavor of the month), Tie-Dye, Red Velvet, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Peanut Butter Cup, Red Velvet (again), Chocolate Chip Pancake, S'mores, Cookie Dough.




Highlights: I loved the salty flavor that the maple syrup brought to the Chocolate Chip Pancake cupcake. The Cinnamon tasted just like a yummy cinnamon streusel cake. The frosting on the Red Velvet had a strong cream cheese flavor. The Peanut Butter Cup tasted just like a melted Reese's. My favorite was the Mint Chocolate Chip which tasted just like my mom's mint brownies. Yum!

Lowlights: There wasn't enough frosting on some of the cupcakes. The Rice Crispy Treat needed to have a fresher treat on top. As you can see, I really didn't have any negative things to say about Baked By Melissa's cupcakes.

I loved the cupcakes from Baked By Melissa! I love that they were small so I could eat all of them. I loved the different flavors. The cake was moist and the frostings were flavorful. The cupcakes start at $1 each, but go down as you order more. My 12 cupcakes cost $10. One of the best parts about New York cupcake shops is that they are open late. Baked By Melissa is open until 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends. I would definitely recommend Baked By Melissa to anyone visiting New York City.

Baked By Melissa
www.bakedbymelissa.com
Locations: Fashion District, Soho, Union Square, Grand Central
212-842-0220

Savory "Cupcakes" to Appear on new LA Food Truck

I love food trucks, but I haven't yet experienced eating from a LA food truck. LA has some pretty awesome food trucks. I mean, a food truck devoted to grilled cheese sandwiches?! Yes please.

Catering company, Heirloom LA, now has their own food truck for roaming around the streets of LA. The reason I'm writing about them is because one of their food items is called Lasagna Cupcakes. Let me explain: they are "individual sized portions of lasagna that hold their shape after being heated up and can be eaten with your hands." They look and sound delicious!!

Meat Lasagna Cupcake Package ($42):
2 Wild Boar and Bolognese and Fresh Mozzarella
2 Short Rib and Robiola
2 Lamb Ragu and Fresh Mozzarella

Vegetarian Lasagna Cupcake Package ($42):

2 Roasted Vegetable Caponata and Ricotta

2 Sage, Brown Butter, and Pumpkin and Smoked Mozzarella

2 Smoked Mac-n-Cheese

You don't have to live in LA to taste these savory cupcakes. Lasagna cupcakes can shipped frozen on dry ice so you can keep them frozen for up to a month. I might just have to search out this food truck so I can try them myself.

Review: Billy's Bakery

My New York cupcake adventures continue! Next stop was Billy's Bakery. I met up with a friend of a friend who lives in New York City. We were both excited to try the cupcakes at Billy's!

Billy's Bakery reminded me of SusieCakes, one of my all-time favorite cupcake shops in California. The shop was filled with old-fashioned cupcakes, cakes, pies, and cookies. Again, I wanted to try one of everything, but my sweet tooth was only going to last so long in New York.




I chose Red Velvet and Vanilla with Chocolate Frosting. Kristy went with a Banana one. The frostings on both of my cupcakes were so creamy, just like SusieCakes. Both the cream cheese frosting and the chocolate frosting were delicious! The problem was with the cake: they were both a little dry. I wanted to love the whole cupcake, but I just couldn't. Kristy's cupcake, on the other hand, was "moist and satisfying." So maybe I just got unlucky with a few dry ones. The proportion of frosting to cake was great: not too much, not too little.




Although my cupcakes weren't perfect, I would still come back to Billy's Bakery to try out their other goodies. And of course I would get another cupcake to see if my original tastings were correct. Cupcakes are $3.00 each.

Billy's Bakery
www.billybakerynyc.com
Twitter: @billysbakerynyc
Facebook: Billy's Bakery
Three locations: Chelsea, Nolita, Tribeca

Cupcake Wars: Bollywood Bake-Off

June 21st episode:

"East will meet West when four gifted cupcake makers compete for the chance to have their cupcakes at the center of the opening night party for the Indian Film Festival taking place in the heart of Hollywood."

Competitors:

A Cupcake Wonderland (Philadelphia, PA)

Cupcake (Minneapolis, MN)

Passions Pastries (Studio City, CA)

Icing Makes the Cake (Georgia)

Baking with Indian flavors has got to be a bit difficult, but I bet when done right the cupcakes would taste amazing. And how about the team that used all 12 ingredients...maybe a little too ambitious. What did you think of this episode?