Butter Lane Cupcake Class

 

Had a wonderful time baking and cupcaking last night, at Butter Lane’s class. 

A favorite cupcake spot (right up there with Chicalicious), Butter Lane is a small shop nestled on one of the best foodie streets in the city (East 7^th).  They frequently offer classes and, as we booked this one more than eight months ago, I was very eager to learn the secrets of their deliciousness. 

The “secret” is relatively simple and as the instructor Joe explained, the easiest thing to bake is a cake. Furthermore, it’s not even a secret and I learned that their recipe is public information, located on Scribd and Facebook.  

Joe walked us through their process and provided some great tips for baking (some which I knew and some that were new to me) including:

-          Always scrape the bowl before adding new ingredients

-          Allow the butter and sugar to thoroughly cream

-          Add eggs, one at a time

-          Use room temperature eggs

-          Use cake flour, as opposed to All Purpose

-          When scooping the cupcakes, use an ice cream scoop with the round bottom facing you and use the side of the bowl to level the contents off

-          Also, when filling the cupcakes, stir after every 6 scoops

-          Using cream cheese in butter cream allows you to use less sugar (and crank it on a high setting to really fluff up the frosting)

We all went home with about a dozen cupcakes and they were quite delicious. Since Rob is out of town, half of them went in the freezer, as don’t want or need the temptation! 

Not the students handiwork, rather the shop's gorgeous creations.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable class. Always nice to hang with the girls, bake (while sipping wine) and learn new things. It was nice to see how simple it is to make both the cupcakes and icing, and I suspect that I’ll be baking some of my own in the very near future.