AlwaysInformed: Corner Café’s Cupcake Comeback

Samantha Zalaznick — December 09, 2009

Vanilla Cupcake with Burnt-Butter icing from Corner Café and Bakery.

A horrible thing happened six years ago at Yura & Company, a favorite Upper East Side spot for prepared food and baked goods. They switched their signature cupcake frosting from a perfectly thick, sugary burnt-butter icing to an unfortunate light and smooth buttercream. This regrettable change was the beginning of Yura’s downfall, culminating in the split of its owners, Yura Mohr and Paul Dimino.

Dimino split off taking the Third Avenue location and turning it into Corner Café and Bakery. This split was bad for Yura but amazing for Yura-lovers! Although there’s no longer any affiliation, Corner Café offers almost the identical menu, but in a larger setting with an adjacent sit down café. What’s even more exciting is that THE CUPCAKES ARE BACK! Dimino has asserted Corner Café’s superiority by reviving the old recipe, bringing back to Yura-lovers what once was lost.

“I have been serving Upper East Side residents for over 20 years,” Dimino noted on Corner Café and Bakery’s website. “As my business grew, I have had the pleasure of watching the neighborhood children grow from “strollers to college.” I attribute some of their success to eating my cupcakes”

Yura still exists in its original location on 91st and Madison, but its spirit is carried on by Corner Café and Bakery which continues to expand across the uptown landscape. A new location just opened at 1246 Madison Avenue (b/n 89th and 90th Streets) where Petaks used to be.

Besides the cupcakes, other recommended dishes include: Smoked Turkey Pinwheels, Luca Salad, and Rare Roast beef with Frizzled Onions.

Locations:
-2328 Broadway
(daily, 7am-10pm)
-1246 Madison Ave
(Daily, 7am-8:45pm)
-1645 Third Ave
(Mon-Fri, 7am-9pm; Sat, 8am-9:30pm; Sun 8am-8:30pm)

AlwaysInformed: July 4th Cupcake Flag

The Gluttoness — July 01, 2009

Whether you have a clam bake or a blowout barbeque, all 4th of July feasts must end with sweets, and watermelon just isn’t gonna cut it. You may be able to find a flag-emblazoned cookie cake at the grocery store, or special red-white-and-blue rainbow cookies at your local bakery, but there’s a better way to impress your Fourth of July guests: Baked by Melissa’s cupcake flag.

This patriotic configuration of miniature red, white and blue cupcakes is the perfect dessert for this annual party. The brightly hued vanilla cupcakes come with a map so you can easily arrange your confections to resemble our nation’s stars and stripes. The flag is available in three sizes and since cupcakes are usually $1 a pop, you’ll get a little bit of a break on the big day, and the more you order the less you pay. Buying 260 cupcakes costs $182. Larger flags consisting of 425 cupcakes or a whopping 630 rings up at $297.50 and $409.50, respectively. An investment in Baked by Melissa’s cupcake flag will surely up the “wow” factor, but you may find it difficult to outdo this spectacular spread next year.

AlwaysInvestigating: CupcakeStop’s Cupcake Truck

The Gluttoness — June 25, 2009

You know you’re onto something when The New York Times and CNN feature you before you even serve your first cupcake. The idea for the CupcakeStop was dreamt up by Lev Ekster while studying at New York Law School. The cupcakes are baked in Brooklyn by a professional pastry chef, Manal Mady, and Ekster twitters the location of “New York’s first mobile cupcake shoppe”—a popular methodology of roving food trucks also employed by Wafels & Dinges and LA’s famed Kogi Taco Truck. The flavors on the day that we sampled CupcakeStop included: Red Velvet, Oreo Crumb, Peanut Butter and Jelly and Tie Dye.

The menu should immediately alarm any cupcake aficionado. CupcakeStop’s flavors are eerily similar to Baked by Melissa’s bite-sized confections. In fact, all four flavors can be found at her sliver of a storefront located on Spring Street near Broadway, where miniature cupcakes also sell for $1 (CupcakeStop’s full-sized sweets cost $2.25). Unfortunately for CupcakeStop, these carbon copy cupcakes don’t come close to the moist originals. The cake was dry, closer in texture to a stale muffin than a cupcake, and the icing wasn’t nearly sweet or creamy enough to overwhelm the average bottoms.

The best of the bunch was the Oreo Crumb, a chocolate-flecked vanilla cake with cookies-and-cream icing. We wouldn’t go out of our way to find CupcakeStop again but we won’t rule out stopping by to curtail a cupcake craving.

AlwaysPartying: National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day

April 02, 2009

AlwaysHungryNY frequently orders ‘wichcraft’s Chunky Peanut Butter & Seasonal Jelly Sandwich on Triple Decked Pullman White Bread, but we decided to step it up a notch for National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day. Rather than eat this fabled combination on a sandwich, our sweet tooth much prefers these two tasty spreads in cupcake format. While you’re probably expecting us to name-drop a bakery, like say, Crumbs, it turns out Hill Country serves our favorite Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcake. Topped with peanut butter icing and sprinkled with Reese’s Pieces, the ample filling of grape jelly adds extra oomph to the already moist, vanilla cake. A half-dozen of these bad boys would be the perfect way to celebrate the holiday.