Citarella cupcakes are to die for (not literally)

Regular size Citarella cupcakes

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of heading over to gourmet market Citarella on 6th Avenue at 9th Street to meet their Executive Pastry Chef Joanne Gregory and talk about cupcakes. They offer various cupcake choices, and have been selling them since February of this year. The ones above are the regular size ones, and are $2.99, and the ones just below are their mini cupcakes, which come in boxes of 5 for $7.99, also pictured. And yes, they're fairly big mini cupcakes.


Citarella mini cupcakes



While in the store, I got to taste their Strawberries and Cream cupcake, and VP of Marketing Marc Oshima snapped a photo of me eating it. (I owe this taste treat to Marc, who contacted us after reading our previous post about Citarella's cupcakes). I'm sure I looked, well, like I could keep eating those cupcakes all day. The chocolate cake was moist, rich, and tasted like chocolate. I've found that sometimes bakeries get the first two but not the third with chocolate cake. Actually, while I could have kept stuffing my face, a small portion was plenty. The strawberry frosting light, creamy, and not too sweet, and went perfectly with the chocolate cake. One of the best chocolate cupcakes I've had in New York. Here's what it looked like inside:



All the cupcakes were very good, though the chocolate/chocolate and strawberries and cream were my favorites. The red velvet was also rich and moist, the lemon sweet and tart, and there were little touches to these cupcakes that I didn't realize until I was actually eating them, like the sprinkles, which were tiny enough to add decorating detail but then also gave a very slight crunch. The vanilla cake was light and moist, lighter than the chocolate, but it's hard to compare because the chocolate cake was so good it kindof outweighed everything else.

The big ones are big, probably best shared with someone, and well worth $2.99. They are elegant, as were all the pastries in their pastry counter, and as I told the staff, they are "adult" cupcakes. Not that kids can't enjoy these (a family came in while I was there and the kid was clamoring for a cupcake), but they could be enjoyed at the most upscale of parties as well.

I like that they pay as much attention to their cupcakes as they do all the other pastries they offer. I appreciated too that the cupcakes each had a personality, if you will. They didn't each look like one another. Joanne Gregory explains in the interview below about the hand-tempered chocolate on the chocolate ones. Obviously the puffs of frosting (there is probably a more technical term that I don't know, but I will just call them puffs) on the strawberries and cream make that stand out, and the sprinkles and dot on the others give them a distinctiveness that makes them a good fit for a gourmet market.

They also said that while they expected cupcakes to sell, they've been surprised at how well the cupcakes have been doing, though of course, we aren't!









No, these are not cupcakes, they are beautiful white chocolate-covered strawberries, but they could so be served with cupcakes. Or on cupcakes. Or one bite and then one bite...seriously, I couldn't stop taking pictures and oohing and aahing over everything they sold.

And because they have all kinds of food and cooking/baking supplies, I found other intriguing things, like glitter candles:



See more photos of cupcakes and many pastries that are off-topic for this blog, but gorgeous nonetheless (yes, I will SO be back for the lemon pound cake, mixed berry tart, chocolate porcupine, and more!) in my Flickr photo set. And big thanks to Marc and Joanne for their generosity. We hope to partner with Citarella at some point in the future for an event, so stay tuned, and in the meantime, check them out if you are looking for a sinfully rich cupcake.

And unlike some bakeries (coughMagnoliacough), you can walk in and get several dozen or just call and get extras. They don't do custom flavors, but whatever they are currently selling (right now: red velvet, coconut, lemon, chocolate/chocolate, vanilla/vanilla, and strawberries and cream) are available for events.

Below, Citarella Executive Pastry Chef explains how they choose which flavors to feature, what's in their cupcakes, and why she thinks cupcakes are so popular:



Citarella has eight locations, four in Manhattan (Greenwich Village, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Harlem) and four in the Hamptons (Watermill, East Hampton, Tutto Italiano, Bridgehampton).