Baked by Melissa and Billy's Bakery
I went over to my friend Trent's apartment on Sunday to watch the Oscar's with him and his boyfriend, Liam. Since there were only three of us, I thought it would be fun to bring over a bunch of Baked by Melissa cupcakes for a little tasting party. I had never had their cupcakes, but I'd walked by their stores many times, and been told that I had to try them.
What makes BBM different from other cupcake places, is that their cupcakes are teeny tiny. They had eleven flavors when I went, and I got a box of 25 (2 of each flavor plus three extra red velvet — Trent's favorite). I was thinking we'd split them between the three of us, but I ended up eating a bit more than my share so I could try each flavor.
I have to say, for as much as they're raved about, we were pretty unimpressed. The tie-dye flavor was my favorite, which as far as I can tell was basically just vanilla, but it was really good — I can definitely see why it's their signature. Runner-up goes to the cinnamon, which was also really delicious. After that, the rest were pretty much average to not great. I'd heard great things about the peanut butter and jelly, and it tasted exactly like a pb&j sandwich but I'm not sure that's a huge achievement, I mean, it's not that hard to make a pb&j sandwich.
[source]
They were also tinier than I expected, and they definitely don't look like the silhouette from their logo, which I think is kind of misleading. We also figured out that if you were to combine all of the tiny cupcakes to make larger ones, they're kind of a rip off in terms of sheer volume for what you pay. I paid $20 for a box of $25, when I probably could have just bought a few cupcakes for half that from Magnolia Bakery and been just as happy. It was fun tasting the different flavors for the first time, and comparing them to one another, so I suppose the novelty of it all is worth it. I may go back and get a smaller box with just the tie-dye and cinnamon, and I wish I had gotten more of those flavors and less of some of the others (chocolate chip pancake, I'm lookin' at you).
In other disappointing cupcake news, I tried cupcakes from Billy's Bakery this week too and I was very unimpressed. I got a banana, red velvet, carrot cake and yellow daisy. So far I've eaten all but the carrot cake, and they've all been dry, hard and really disappointing. The banana was the best of the three, but even it wasn't as good as the banana from Butter Lane I had a few weeks ago (even if their website does play music -ick).
Before I went, I read countless reviews raving about their cupcakes, and many saying how much better Billy's was than Magnolia. I don't know if I got a bad batch or what, but I've had better cupcakes from generic grocery stores. Their store was super cute (I went to the Chelsea location) and I've always adored their logo, but I can't say that I'll be back. I know it's not cool to say you like Magnolia Bakery, but based on taste alone, I have to say that it's still my favorite. That doesn't mean I'll stop trying to find a better cupcake (it's tough work, but it's a cause I believe in), but at this point I'm really doubting that I will.
I'm up for the challenge, though, where should I look next?
