Buttercup Bake Shop

I didn't know anything about Buttercup Bake Shop, and in fact had never heard of it, before I went to write this review.  But I discovered the bakery when someone had extra cupcakes when I was visiting our New York office, and of course I sought out info afterwards.  I can't ever resist a chance to try new baked goods!

Buttercup Bake Shop was started in 1999, by one of the two founders of Magnolia Bakery.  Yes, *that* Magnolia Bakery (which I've reviweed before), and yes, she left Magnolia to start her own place just a year before Magnolia blew up on Sex in the City.  Anyway, same baker, new place.

The offerings from Buttercup Bake Shop are about what you'd expect from an American bakery: cakes & cupcakes, cookies & bars, cheesecake & pies.  Some are gluten-free.  I tried only the cupcakes, available for $4.25 each.  Cupcakes come in a slew of flavors, with all the expected basics, including some filled or elaborately topped, some honoring snack food favs like Twinkie or Deviled Dog inspired, and some less classic American flavors such as buko pandan or, as I went for, ube.

I found the cupcakes to be much like those from Magnolia: underwhelming.  I think they just aren't my style of cupcake.  When in NY, my heart belongs to Empire Cakes.

Ube.

"Imported purple yam paste from the Philippines gives our unique texture and taste to our delicious Ube cupcake and buttercream."

Ube!  I was so excited to see this flavor offered, as you'd expect given that there is a label dedicated to the ingredient on my blog.  

It was an attractive purple cupcake, with a purple base, purple buttercream, and even purple icing sugar on top.

This cupcake was a mixed success for me.  The cake itself let me down.  It wasn't particularly moist, and the ube flavor was fairly muted.  I would have easily believed it was just vanilla.  ** cake.

But the buttercream?  Now THAT I loved.  It was very sweet, but somehow not cloying.  It was fluffy.  It tasted like ube and vanilla and sugar and butter.  Uh, yes, ube buttercream indeed.  I really enjoyed that buttercream, and it ratio of cake to frosting was good.  **** frosting.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

"Vanilla cake with a chocolate chip cookie inside topped with cookie dough molasses buttercream + cookie dough topping."

Eh.  The description stated there would be a filling of sorts, but there was not.  There were mini chocolate chips studded throughout the cake, but I was expecting something a bit different given the description ... either a cookie baked inside as the description implied, or maybe a cookie dough style filling.  The cake was fairly plain, not particularly moist, average cake.  Distribution of the little chips was good.  

The frosting was ... well, exactly as described, molasses flavor.  Extremely strong molasses flavor.  For me, too strong.  I didn't care for the flavor all that much, and I don't really think of strong molasses in conjunction with chocolate chip cookie dough?  The description also said there would be "cookie dough topping" which seemed to just be a few mini chips.

So overall, well, no filling, no cookie dough topping, boring cake, and too strong molasses buttercream. Not a winner for me.  *+.