Cupcakes in the Big Apple City
Sugar Sweet Sunshine - Cupcake Cafe - Laura's Cupcake Shack - Kumquat Cupcakery

Let us take a break from our Chinese Wedding series today and focus on the novel wedding cake idea - Wedding Cupcakes Tree! Well...although the idea of replacing traditional tiered wedding cake with cupcakes tree is not a totally new idea, but it only gains its popularity recently. People starting to be creative!

Definition of cupcake {Wikipedia.org}:
A cupcake (the common US, Canadian, and Australian term) or fairy cake (the common British term), is a small cake designed to serve one person, frequently baked in a small, thin paper cup. As with large cakes, frosting and other cake decorations, such as sprinkles, are common on cupcakes.

Here is a little cupcake history found at {Cupcakes Take the Cake} blog:
A "cup" cake in 19th Century America might have been a small cake, but it was not necessarily so. They were so called because the ingredients for them were measured in cups instead of weighed, as had been the custom. According to "Baking in America" by Greg Patent, this was revolutionary because of the tremendous time it saved in the kitchen.

Whether it was a "cup", "measure" or "number" cake, the shift to measuring from weighing was indeed a significant one, according to "The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America." But it goes on to explain that the cup name had a double meaning because of the practice of baking in small containers - including tea cups.

The cups were for convenience because hearth ovens took an extremely long time to bake a large cake -- and early cakes, by the way, were enormous -- and burning was common. Gem pans, early muffin tins, were common in households around the turn of the 20th Century and cupcakes were then baked in those.

(And if you are wondering, it was 1919 when Hostess introduced the famous snack cupcake, but it did not become the cream-filled, squiggle-topped Hostess Cup Cake we know today until 1950.)

It is interesting to note that the cakes were likely called "number" cakes because of a mnemonic device for remembering the recipe: one cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour and four eggs plus one cup of milk and one spoonful of soda.

The formula become known as the one-two-three-four cake, and today's cupcakes are mostly still made with similar traditional cake ingredients.


Busy with your wedding planning and has no time to make your own cupcakes? That's always the case for busy New Yorkers including myself. Guess what? We are lucky that we live in the city with creative cupcake artists everywhere at affordable prices. They never failed to show us how to turn the unlimited imaginations into an artsy CUPCAKE!

Here are four(4) simple profiles of the local cupcakery:

1. Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery (By Peggy & Debbie, since winter 2003)


126 Rivington Street, New York, NY 10002.
Tel: 212.995.1960
Fax: 212.995.1962
Email: info@sugarsweetsunshine.com
Web site: http://www.sugarsweetsunshine.com

Operation hours: Monday-Thursday 8am-10pm
Friday 8am-11pm
Saturday 10am-11pm
Sunday 10am-7pm

- Menu -

Pricing:
Cupcake $1.50 each, or $18 per dozen (12 pieces)

Flavors: (copied from sugar sweet sunshine web site)
1. Sunshine - Yellow cake with vanilla butter cream
2. Bob - Yellow cake with chocolate almond butter cream
3. Ooey Gooey - Chocolate cake with chocolate almond butter cream
4. Sexy Red Velvet - Red Velvet cake with "The Moose"
5. Sassy Red Velvet - Red Velvet cake with chocolate almond butter cream
6. Black & White...Just right - Chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream
7. Pistachio - Pistachio cake with "The Moose"
8. Pumpkin -Pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing
9. Lemon Yummy - Lemon cake with lemon butter cream
10. Coconut - Coconut cake with meringue
11. Faux Coconut - Coconut cake with satin butter cream

Decorations:
Sprinkles & Decons - Free
Drawings & Corporate logos - Price upon request
Basic decorations - $5
Inscriptions - $2

- Delivery -
Available (delivery fee depends on location)

- Payment -
Cash, Visa, Master, and American Express are accepted.


2. Cupcake Cafe (since 1988)



18 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011.
Tel: 212.465.1530
Email: info@cupcakecafe.com
Web site: http://www.cupcakecafe-nyc.com/

Operation hours: Monday-Saturday 9am-6pm
Sunday 9am-5pm

- Menu -

Pricing (Ordered cupcake):
Small cupcake (2 1/4") - $2.75
Large cupcake (3 1/2") - $4.00
* Regular cupcake is decorated with a single flower.

Flavors: (Six in-store cupcake flavors copied from cupcake cafe web site)
1. Chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream
2. Chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream
3. Chocolate cake with mocha butter cream
4. Vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream
5. Vanilla cake with chocolate butter cream
6. "Bohemian": Walnut cake with maple butter cream

Decorations:
Extra flower cupcakes, or special design cupcakes - $4.50 and up
Multi-flower bouquet cupcakes: Small - $6.50 and up
Large - $9.50 and up

- Delivery -
Deliver anywhere within Manhattan for an additional fee.
Pricing depends on location.

- Payment -
All major credit cards are accepted.


3. Laura's Cupcake Shack



Tel: 646.670.0887

Email: lauravalois@msn.com
Web site: http://laurascupcakeshack.com/

- Menu -

Pricing:
Regular cupcake: Range from $2.00 to $2.75
Fondant cupcake: $3.00 and up

Flavors: (Partial)
1. Vanilla cake with vanilla frosting
2. Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting
3. Chocolate cake with vanilla frosting
4. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting
5. Red Velvet cake with cream cheese

Decorations:
Every cupcake is made with color, theme, or character.

- Delivery -
Deliveries are being made up to Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Long Island, and New Jersey. Additional fees apply.

- Payment -
Contact Laura


4. Kumquat Cupcakery (since October 15, 2007)


Brooklyn Brownstoners Flea Market
Lafayette Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

Do Hwa Restaurant
55 Carmine Street, New York, NY 10014.
Tel: 212.414.1224

Dames
503 1st Street, Hoboken, NJ

Email: orders@kumquatcupcakery.com
Web site: http://www.kumquatcupcakery.com/index.php

- Menu -

Pricing:
Miniature cupcake - $15 per dozen (12 pieces)

Flavors: (Partial)
1. Banana cake with light cream cheese frosting and carmalized banana
2. Lemon cake with lavender frosting
3. Chocolate cake with peanut butter cream and frosting
4. Strawberry cake with vanilla butter cream and frosting

* To view the complete list, please visit their web site at http://www.kumquatcupcakery.com/index.php

- Delivery -
Minimum order for delivery - Three (3) dozen cupcakes
Deliveries are being made up to 100th Street in Manhattan, Williamsburg, Green Point, Fort Green, Park Slope, and Carol Gardens in Brooklyn.


Reside outside of New York City and you are looking for cupcake elsewhere?
Here is the guide to your local cupcake vendors (by All Thing Cupcake): http://www.allthingscupcake.com/find-local-cupcakes/


Enjoy planning!





Source:
Cupcake, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupcake
Cupcake history, Cupcake Take The Cake, http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com