photos by Ed Levine
Ed Levine at Serious Eats visits Dessert Club ChikaLicious (one of our favorite NYC cupcake bakeries) and explains the criteria for a really great cupcake:
I am not one of those people who have bought into the cupcake craze. In fact, let me say this straightaway: There are a lot of bad cupcakes in the world, more than ever before (thanks to the nationwide cupcake mania). To me a great cupcake has to have a number of very specific attributes:
- The cake has to be moist, light, and tasty in its own right, a difficult combination to pull off
- The frosting has to be smooth, also light, not too sweet, and deeply flavored
- A cupcake doesn't have to be huge. Cupcakes have become like bagels in this town, and like bagels, bigger is most assuredly not better. Size matters in cupcakes, but not in the way that you think
- Listen up. This last quality is really important. A great cupcake has to have the proper ratio of icing to cake. Other people may have different ideas, but I think there should be a 1 to 3 ratio of icing to filling. This hasn't been scientifically proven, but my guess is that Harold McGee and/or Jeffrey Steingarten will weigh in on this topic very soon
Go to Serious Eats to read his specific critique of various Dessert Club ChikaLicious cupcakes.
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