June 29, 2006

Cakeface Discovers the Perfect Cupcake

Like the knights searching for the Holy Grail I am on the life long quest to find the perfect slice of cake.

Grand Central Station
, once the hub of hustle and bustle, is now the home of a pretty fantastic food concourse that is accessible and friendly. In it I discovered the Little Pie Company. Take a trip to NY on the train and don’t leave Grand Central Station – it is worth the trip just to explore these eateries and have a piece of cake.

The perfect cupcake is vanilla and you have a choice of chocolate, vanilla or strawberry icing. Let’s be clear, my favorite cake is white cake with white icing – like the kind you used to be able to count on at weddings before they started getting all fancy with carrot cakes and other nonsense. I chose strawberry icing just for a summer treat. My mouth waters now with the memory of it.

As I walked down the tracks to my train I bit into this beauty and it was extraordinary. The icing was creamy like real cream, not buttercream filler. It tasted like real strawberry and melted in my mouth. It was warm, not refrigerated and six days old. The cake was so moist and it tasted almost like it had corn meal in it – a very unexpected and yet delicious surprise. But the real surprise, which I got to in about ten seconds, as I wolfed down the cupcake, was the white creamy center. Oh my, pure heaven and an instant attraction repulsion of guilt and pleasure explosion.

Some trigger goes off in my mind when I eat cupcakes, taking me back to when I was for or five. It explains why I have to always eat cake as fast and furiously as possible. Here’s the story - on the bus home from school one day I found a piece of cake in my lunch box that I had not eaten (yes, hard to believe it had been overlooked, prepubescent is all I can say). I furiously stuffed the cake into my mouth before exiting the bus. Everyone was impressed and the nickname Cakeface was born and she lives on today.


Unfortunately I can't find a photo of the cupcake online or on their menu. You'll just have to try it yourself!