This is an excerpt from a piece at Eat All About It looking at how Seattle bakery Cupcake Royale set about making improvements to its cake:
I’ve been interested in hearing about how — and why — Hall brought McCown in to consult. Sure, I’d seen Yelp complaints that Royale’s goods were overly dry, but I’d also heard complaints that Trophy’s frosting-to-cake ratios were unbalanced, and chalked it up to individual tastes. Cupcake Royale was about to open a fourth store. I figured whatever they were doing worked for them.
But Hall, who started the business in 2003, said no. The cupcakes met her standards when eaten fresh, she said — but not everyone eats them that way. They are baked daily from scratch, she does insist on all-natural ingredients… and by day’s end, or if buyers kept them overnight, they wound up dry. She’s not a professional baker, she noted, and the first CR staff baker wasn’t either.
“It was just time to step up.”
That meant finding an expert to figure out how to keep the flavor and “the integrity,” keep using home-kitchen ingredients (butter, for instance, not Crisco), but make a moister cake with more staying power. Bakery manager Melanie Bonadore (former gm of Essential) knew McCown. McCown liked the idea of a business owner who could pour her heart into her own vision, yet remain open to improvements. She spent a month with the Cupcake Royale team, consulting food scientists, tweaking ingredients and methods, testing how the ovens and air temperature and brands used in the CR kitchens affected the final product, and simplifying the recipe for more consistent results.
Speaking of Cupcake Royale's flavors, their June flavor of the month is Rainier Cherry with Theo Cocoa Nibs (via their blog Legalize Frostitution).
Description from blog:
Subtly sweet Rainier cherries from Olmstead Orchards in Yakima Valley swirled into a cream cheese and cherry liqueur frosting, topped off with organic roasted cocoa nibs from our superfriends over at Theo Chocolate.
I’ve been interested in hearing about how — and why — Hall brought McCown in to consult. Sure, I’d seen Yelp complaints that Royale’s goods were overly dry, but I’d also heard complaints that Trophy’s frosting-to-cake ratios were unbalanced, and chalked it up to individual tastes. Cupcake Royale was about to open a fourth store. I figured whatever they were doing worked for them.
But Hall, who started the business in 2003, said no. The cupcakes met her standards when eaten fresh, she said — but not everyone eats them that way. They are baked daily from scratch, she does insist on all-natural ingredients… and by day’s end, or if buyers kept them overnight, they wound up dry. She’s not a professional baker, she noted, and the first CR staff baker wasn’t either.
“It was just time to step up.”
That meant finding an expert to figure out how to keep the flavor and “the integrity,” keep using home-kitchen ingredients (butter, for instance, not Crisco), but make a moister cake with more staying power. Bakery manager Melanie Bonadore (former gm of Essential) knew McCown. McCown liked the idea of a business owner who could pour her heart into her own vision, yet remain open to improvements. She spent a month with the Cupcake Royale team, consulting food scientists, tweaking ingredients and methods, testing how the ovens and air temperature and brands used in the CR kitchens affected the final product, and simplifying the recipe for more consistent results.
Speaking of Cupcake Royale's flavors, their June flavor of the month is Rainier Cherry with Theo Cocoa Nibs (via their blog Legalize Frostitution).
Description from blog:
Subtly sweet Rainier cherries from Olmstead Orchards in Yakima Valley swirled into a cream cheese and cherry liqueur frosting, topped off with organic roasted cocoa nibs from our superfriends over at Theo Chocolate.
Comments