valentine's day Cupcake resolutions and peppermint chocolate frosting at Butter Lane

I stopped by Butter Lane in the East Village (Manhattan) the other night. They were out of eggnog frosting, which I would've tried out of curiosity, but I bought a chocolate peppermint frosted chocolate cupcake (I was told to try it with chocolate) for $3 and was very happy. It wasn't quite as full-on peppermint as I might have liked (the frosting equivalent of, say, Starbucks' peppermint hot chocolate, which is very pepperminty), the peppermint seemed more concentrated in the crushed candy cane at the top, but it was very good, and also rich.

I couldn't finish it - that's actually a compliment! See butterlane.com and follow them @butterlane on Twitter for the latest news and info on their cupcake classes. I did appreciate their cupcake resolution sign. Still trying to work on my 2010 cupcake recap before I get to my 2011 cupcake resolutions!

valentine's day 5 frosting shots from Butter Lane: hazelnut chocolate, cranberry, blackberry, pumpkin and apple spice

I'd read that NYC's East Village cupcake bakery Butter Lane has new Thanksgiving frosting flavors and I wanted to check them out last night. I love their moist cakes, in vanilla, chocolate and banana, but at $3/cupcake, and after dinner, I was more in the mood just for the purity of the frosting. They do a great job with their frosting shots; they're $1/each and mine were very carefully prepared and packaged so as not to spill, plus they had garnishes on top.


5 frosting shots: Cranberry, Blackberry, Pumpkin Spice, Apple Spice, Hazelnut Chocolate (which is different from their other chocolate frostings)


hazelnut chocolate frosting shot closeup

Out of these, cranberry was far and away my favorite. It was a little tart but sweet as well, and refreshing. It very much tastes like cranberry, and the same for blackberry tasting like blackberry - if you like those fruits, check them out for sure. Pumpkin spice does have a bit of a kick, as does the apple spice, which was my least favorite of the five. The hazelnut chocolate was intense, in a good way, and the nut shavings added a little texture. They also have tiramisu frosting, but they told me that that wouldn't be so good as a standalone frosting shot because it works better on a cupcake so you get the full experience.

I think I've said this before, but unless you have an extremely high sugar tolerance, these are almost impossible to finish. I recommend bringing a friend or two; you really notice when eating frosting shots how rich frosting itself is, and how much the cupcake is actually the marriage of frosting and cake, and how each complements the other. What I like about Butter Lane is that because it's mix and match, you can ask them which cake would go best with which frosting, and they're happy to share their opinion.

They've also just launched a loyalty program using PlacePunch (more next week on other cupcake bakeries with loyalty programs). I'm not 100% sure how it works, but you can log in using Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare, and you get points for checking in, like this:





See more of my photos from last night in this Flickr set


sea salted chocolate frosting on vanilla cupcake

Visit them at Butterlane.com as well as Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook for the latest news. They offer cupcake classes twice a week.