Buttercup Lemon Cupcake

Buttercup Bake Shop Lemon Cupcake, http://www.buttercupbakeshop.com/

Taste: I LOVE lemon, but this was awful-- my mouth puckered up at the strong artificial lemon flavor in the frosting-- have you ever had a Warhead candy? That level of sour-- and the sourness was so overpowering that even the confectioner's sugar didn't add a sweetness, but the whole sugar/super sour combination made me almost choke. The cake was advertised as a lemon cake, but I didn't taste any lemon at all in the cake, just a plain, boring, near-tasteless golden cake. Overall Taste Rating: 1 out of 5 Sprinkles

Texture: The frosting is dense and a little chalky. The cake is a little bit dry. Blech. Overall Texture Rating: 2 out of 5 Sprinkles

Aesthetic: The artificial fluorescent yellow color borders on frightening. The amount of color dye that must be in there frightens me. It looks to me a little bit like Elroy Jetson's cartoon hair. I guess it's proportionate and festive, but... I'm not impressed. Overall Aesthetic Rating: 2.75 out of 5 Sprinkles.

Satisfaction: A VERY disappointing cupcake for a lemon-lover such as myself. I'm an extreme lemon cake lover-- when I was a little girl, I used to always ask for a lemon flavored birthday cake, which was not especially popular amongst the majority of children attending my birthday parties, but I absolutely loved. I also had a deep childhood love of Freihofer's Lemon Cupcakes, which I have not been able to find since my childhood, but were boxed Freihofer's cupcakes with lemon frosting, vanilla cake, and a lemon curd filling inside the center of the cupcake. They were the best, though I believe they were discontinued decades ago. And I'm obessed with the Lemon Cake at Del Frisco's Steakhouse, which is always available though not always listed on the dessert menu-- if you're ever there, definitely ask for it, it's outrageously good. Anyway, I LOVE lemon cake, and this was awful, absolutely awful. This is NOT the place to find a good lemon cupcake. Overall Satisfaction Rating: 0 out of 5 Sprinkles

Overall Cupcake Ranking: 5.75 Sprinkles (out of 20 possible)

Buttercup Sour Cream Spice Cupcake

Buttercup Bake Shop Sour Cream Spice Cupcake, buttercupbakeshop.com

Taste: The cream cheese frosting is tasty-- nice and cream chees-y and sweet at the same time. I guess the sour cream must be baked into the cake, but I can't taste it anywhere, and it's definitely not in the frosting. The cake flavors are very mild-- the spices are light, and the walnuts and raisins baked throughout add some flavor, but this isn't a particularly rich or flavorful or sweet cake. The frosting is good, but the cake leaves a lot to be desired. Overall Taste Rating: 3 out of 5 Sprinkles

Texture: STALE is the texture on this cake! SO stale that this bakery should be ashamed to have even sold it to me. The texture of the cake is stale with chunks in it, as there are walnuts and raisins dispersed throughout. The cream cheese frosting is smooth and creamy though. Overall Texture Rating: 0.5 out of 5 Sprinkles

Aesthetic: This cupcake is fairly attractive-- the icing has a nice swirl, with a dusting of crumbs and walnuts on top, and the proportions are good. It's not the neatest presentation, nor does it have any special decorations to make the cupcakes extra-attractive. Overall Aesthetic Rating: 3 out of 5 Sprinkles

Satisfaction: This cupcake was so stale that it was hard to enjoy. Overall Satisfaction Rating: 2 out of 5 Sprinkles

Overall Cupcake Ranking: 8.5 Sprinkles (out of 20 possible)

Buttercup Bake Shop Chocolate Frosting on Vanilla Cake

Buttercup Bake Shop Chocolate Frosting on Vanilla Cake

buttercupbakeshop.com, $2.25 each

Taste: The frosting is very cocoa powdery and very buttery, and not as sweet as Magnolia or Crumbs' chocolate frosting, and tastes less like real chocolate. The cake was unremarkable, not possessed of any distinct flavors but not unpleasant... not particularly sweet. The frosting and cake together are not sweet enough for me-- it tastes too much of unsweetened cocoa powder and butter. Overall Taste Rating: 2 out of 5 sprinkles.

Texture: Happily, the frosting's texture is very smooth and buttery. The cake's texture was also not particularly good or bad-- not moist but not dry, somewhere in between, but generally unremarkable. Overall Texture Rating: 3 out of 5 sprinkles.

Aesthetic: The chocolate frosting has an interestingly light color compared to the frosting from Crumbs or Magnolia, which you'd think would connote more sugar in the recipe, and yet their chocolate frosting was the least sweet! The cupcake also unfortunately looked hideously deformed, as you can see in the picture above, although I liked that it looked like it had lots of icing before I tasted the icing and was underwhelmed. The cake was golden and the cupcake was even, but the icing was applied sloppily albeit generously. Overall Aesthetic Rating: 3 out of 5 sprinkles

Satisfaction Rating: The cupcake was just didn't do it for me. There was no pleasant chocolate taste like in Magnolia and Crumbs' chocolate frostings. There was nothing extra to redeem this cupcake either. Overall Satisfaction Rating: 2 out of 5 sprinkles

Cupcake Ranking: 10 Sprinkles (out of 20 possible)

Buttercup Bake Shop Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcake

Buttercup Bake Shop Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcake, buttercupbakeshop.com, $2.25 each

I love PB&J, but would I love it in cupcake form?

Taste: Pleasantly delicious! The icing had a distinct peanut butter flavor, and yet was also sweet and was clearly icing and not peanut butter-- I would guess they took vanilla icing and blended it with real peanut butter to create the flavor. The vanilla cake was unremarkable, but it didn't need to be, because the awesome peanut flavor of the icing and the yummy jelly found in the center of the cupcake made the cake just our bread-like vehicle for PB&J deliciousness! I think the jelly in the center was grape, and it was sweet but balanced nicely by the not-very-sweet cake and peanut butter frosting. Overall Taste Rating: 5 out of 5 sprinkles!!
Texture: The icing unfortunately had a major grittiness due to the fact that real peanuts were ground into it (or chunky peanut butter was used in its creation)! Points for authenticity, but the grittiness ruined the icing's texture a little bit for me. The jelly in the center nicely moistened the cake, which otherwise was a little dry. Overall Texture Rating: 4 out of 5 sprinkles
Aesthetic: From the outside, unfortunately, this was not the most attractive cupcake-- it just didn't look very appetizing. I think the pictures above demonstrate this cupcake's plainness and lack of beauty. Overall Aesthetic Rating: 2 out of 5 sprinkles
Satisfaction: My main complaint was that there was not enough jelly in the middle! I was left craving more jelly, and after eating the delicious jelly center was left with a PB cupcake lacking in J! But the jelly-included bites were utterly delish! Overall Satisfaction Rating: 4 out of 5 sprinkles

Overall Cupcake Ranking: 15 Sprinkles (out of 20 possible)

Cupcake Packaging

Above, Buttercup Bake Shop's box of cupcakes













Above, Crumbs Bake Shop's box of cupcakes













Above, Magnolia Bakery's box of cupcakes













Above, Crumbs Bake Shop's shopping bag

















Above, Buttercup Bake Shop's Shopping Bag
















Above, Magnolia Bakery's Shopping Bag


So the hand's down packaging award between these three prominent New York cupcakeries hands down goes to Crumbs! I think the pictures speak for themselves, but Crumbs has by far the best shopping bag, and also the most aesthetically pleasing and functional cupcake boxes!

Buttercup Bake Shop: Vanilla on Vanilla

For my next act, I tackled a Buttercup Bake Shop (buttercupbakeshop.com, $2.25 each) vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream cupcake.
Taste: The icing was exceptionally buttery and very rich, but very tasty. The cake was light and pleasant, not too sweet but flavorful enough, with almost a hint of citrus-y undertones in the cake. Something about the cake was very pleasant on its own, I think the subtle sweetness. Together with the icing, the icing overpowered the nice taste of the cake, although together they were still enjoyable. Overall Taste Rating: 4 out of 5 sprinkles.
Texture: The icing was a little bit hard on the outside, like it had dried in a crust, but underneath it was soft though dense with butter. The cake had a nice texture, I wouldn't call it moist but it wasn't dry either, it was just the right amount in between and stayed together nicely without crumbling. Overall Texture Rating: 3 out of 5 sprinkles.
Aesthetic: Tiny, cute, nice golden color, pure white colored icing adorned with small round colored sprinkles. Icing distribution was a touch sloppy, and cupcake was slightly lopsided. Overall Aesthetic Rating: 3 out of 5 sprinkles.
Satisfaction: Overall, a nice cupcake, but I only had a few bites and wasn't desperate for more. Though I appreciated the flavors when trying the cupcake and assessing the taste and texture, overall I found it too rich, too buttery and too sweet. The cake and the icing were both so dense, it didn't strike the perfect balance. Overall Satisfaction Rating: 3 out of 5 sprinkles.

Cupcake Ranking: 13 Sprinkles (out of 20 possible)