Butter Lane

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that we're very much macaron people.  Well, turns out we're very much cupcake people as well.  In fact, our ideal dessert would probably be a macaron-topped cupcake.

Stand Mixer

Over the summer (wow, it's fall already?!) we participated in a cupcake baking lesson at Butter Lane in the East Village.  It was a school event, so we ended up paying $10 for something that would otherwise cost $60 or so.  We arrived at the hole-in-the-wall bakery and its adjacent kitchen.  An instructor split us into groups and introduced us to the things we'd be making: chocolate, vanilla, and banana cupcakes, and cream cheese, vanilla, and chocolate frosting. We settled down in front of these super-cool KitchenAid stand mixers and got to baking.

Our group made banana cupcakes, which sounded like they'd be muffins.  We sheepishly followed the instructions and dumped ingredients carefully into the mixer.  A bunch of stirring, mixing, pouring, and more stirring later, we had a pretty delicious batter.  I don't really like muffins, but judging by this cupcake batter, these were going to be pretty awesome banana cupcakes/muffins!  We also tasted the other groups' chocolate and vanilla batters, which were equally delicious.  It was weird eating raw batter for me; I've never baked much in my household as a kid, so I never had that lovely experience of licking wooden spoons or mixing bowls.

Cinnamon Cupcake

As the cupcakes baked, we sampled some of Butter Lane's cupcakes.  They were arranged in a beautiful, beckoning wreath of cupcake-y, frosting-y goodness. We ended up having to split up the cupcakes in order to have enough to go around. I think I ate a quarter of a cinnamon-flavored one, but I'm not so sure.

Butter Lane cupcakes

Next, while the cupcakes continued baking, we made frosting!  It was much the same of pouring ingredients, mixing, pouring, tasting....  During frosting-making, another group decided to get smart-ass on the instructor and starting eating ingredients or something, so she challenged them to The Cinnamon Test.  I really advise you guys try this at home!  And if you know me, you'll know I have a pretty sarcastic sense of humor!  So basically, you eat a spoonful of cinnamon in one mouthful.  Trust me, it was not pretty; the room will end up smelling like cinnamon, as will you; and please don't stand in front of someone trying this, or you'll get enveloped in a cloud of spice.

My cupcakes!

After we made the frostings, we got to ice our freshly made cupcakes.  This part was really fun, and I let my inner cupcake decorator run wild.  Eventually, I made 10 combinations of cupcake-frosting-sprinkles and packed them in a box to take home.  Of course...only one of these cupcakes actually made it to my awaiting belly, because the next day, my dad and sister had eaten them all.

Word to the wise, if you actually want to eat the cupcakes you've made, don't advertise that you've brought cupcakes home to share.





Butter Lane
123 East 7th Street