Images via About.com
According to the New York Post, yes:
Head down to the corner of Bleecker and 11th Street on any given day, and you’re likely to find a line of some 40 people snaking around the corner, rain or shine. What are they waiting for - citizenship? Springsteen tickets? A chance to win custody of Britney’s kids?
Nope. Cupcakes - and oddly enough, not even ones with weed baked in them. We asked.
Such is the power of Magnolia Bakery, the city’s legendary mini-cake emporium, which is to baked goods what Jack Nicholson is to womanizing and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to ill-fitting menswear.
Only one question remains: Um, why exactly? Here’s the cold, hard truth: Magnolia’s cupcakes aren’t that good. And they’re certainly not worthy of all the hype, articles and long lines. But instead of shrinking, Magnolia’s myth is expanding: The bakery recently announced it will open an Upper West Side branch.
The problem is not exclusive to Magnolia or even baked goods...
What do you think? Do you like Magnolia's cupcakes? What about the ubiquitous buzz about Magnolia? Are you excited for a 2nd Magnolia location? Tell us in the comments or write to us.
Comments
I love Magnolia for the simple fact that they rekindled the love of cupcakes for adults.
people need a reality check.
Anyway i Love Billy's Bakery the best. (besides the fact I used to live down the stret from there). YUM BILLYS!
Seriously, a box of Duncan Hines is better.
Sugar Sweet Sunshine makes better cakes than Magnolia, but their frosting is just as bad. Ick.
Not sure if it is the vanilla pod I use or my oven, but no one has ever complained about the Magnolia cupcake recipe when I have made it.
I took my girlfriend to NYC for a long weekend, and I planned to feature a cupcake tour. Unfortunately, time constraints limited us to just two bakeries: Magnolia and Billy's (Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Buttercup, Babycakes, and Crumbs will have to wait their turn). From reading online reviews, I was totally set up to hate one and love the other.
Once we saw the stylin' dudes at Billy's, we wanted to love that place even more.
However, we both agreed that Magnolia's cupcakes were really good, and Billy's were notsogood. The Magnolia cakes were moist and had a fluffy, yet adequately dense texture. I agree that the icing was very sweet, (I'd say the vanilla was too sweet), but we enjoyed it a lot. The only other negatives with the $2 window cupcakes were that the chocolate cakes weren't sweet enough to match up with either the vanilla or chocolate frostings. However, that made it perfect for the mocha frosting. Magnolia's was also my first experience with red velvet; I was disappointed, and hope that red velvet at other bakeries is much better.
Billy's cupcakes were were dry and heavy, crumbling off of my fork. The icing was also crusty and grainy. I really wished the cupcakes were more to my tastes; the crowd/environment certainly were. We did not have the famous banana cupcakes, but the the yellow (daisy?) and carrot cupcakes did not show enough promise to make us want to go back and try them.
To wrap it up, Magnolia's is overrated in the sense that waiting 40 minutes for a cupcake is ridiculous. But barring that, and the fact that every other person is seemingly required to lick their fingers before reaching into the pans for another cupcake, I would part with another $2 for a white cupcake with chocolate frosting. Billy's? Notsomuch.
I hope that New Yorkers aren't campaigning for SSSB and stomping on Magnolia's because one represents the authentic LES and the other has become yet another NYC tourist trap, because I really want to like SSSB's cupcakes.