cupcakes
GoodieBox Bake Shop – Red Velvet Cupcake Heaven
Cupcake litmus test: if you cut one in half with a knife, the two sides fall down, and the frosting top comes off, the cake is too dry and/or there’s too much frosting, and, basically, you’re in trouble. If you cut one into quarters, and the four tops remain intact after impact with the plate, you’ve got a moist, delicious, perfectly balanced red velvet cupcake from GoodieBox. I mean, (elderly New Yorker who’s gushing with praise) it’s so good– you neva’!
I recently went to a GoodieBox tasting at the East Harlem Café, a cute, hip joint with gorgeous mozaic art pieces. GoodieBox is a baked goods supplier operating out of Weehawken, NJ that specializes in classic and simple baked goods.  Their red velvet cupcake was the best I’ve ever had. Perfect, light, vanilla cream cheese frosting– not too much to be sickening, not too little to be sad plus the aforementioned moist, springy cake. You can either order these babies online or hope that your local coffee shop starts carrying them. GoodieBox Bakeshop 201-430-8634 goodieboxbakeshop.com   East Harlem Café 1651 Lexington Ave
(between 104th St & 105th St)
New York, NY 10029 Â
D.C. Dessert Roundup – Capital Confections Part 5: Baked and Wired
We were in Georgetown; we wanted cupcakes. Georgetown Cupcake was (GASP!) closed. My dessert-deprivation panic began to set in, but then my trusty guide remembered something about another cupcakerie thereabouts. With her keen sense of direction, especially when it comes to sweets, she led us through an out-of-place mall, past the C&O Canal, to Baked and Wired– the perfectly-named coffee shop/bakery in this collegiate neighborhood. And what splendors we beheld inside:
These cupcakes were very fine indeed. The origami-like pointy wrappers were very pretty. (I wonder if they’re more difficult to frost than cupcakes nestled in normal wrappers?) The cakes in our chosen specimens were moist enough to be tasty, but not so moist as to collapse under their icing roofs. The Strawberry cupcake had real fruit chunks in the cake. The Mocha cupcake had a slight coffee flavor, but was mostly chocolate– just the way I like it.
Since Baked and Wired is a café, you can also get some coffee and a slice of quiche, then take a load off under a big American flag they’ve got as part of their modern, minimalist, hipster-attracting decor. Georgetown Cupcake, you shouldn’t be closed on Mondays– people’s eyes wander… their heads turn… and before you know it, they’ve got a new favorite.
Baked and Wired 1052 Thomas Jefferson St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20007 202-333-2500 http://www.bakedandwired.com/