Tonnie's Minis

Tonnie's Minis
120 W 3rd St
Btwn MacDougal St & 6th Ave

So, I am not so great at updating PC. I have been collecting my research (eating cupcakes) and I'm compiling my reviews and they'll come eventually.

I took an hour and a half lunch break today and I don't really feel like getting back to my current project of updating a mailing list. I'm feeling creative after spending an hour reading in washington square park so I guess right now would be ideal for a post.

After eating a sandwich and reading, I decided to take a walk to Tonnie's Minis which is just south & west of wash sq park. The sign outside calls it a 'cupcake and coffee bar' - I like the idea of a cupcake bar. It would be pretty cool if it were set up like an actual bar with shelves of cupcakes set up like bottles and a bar tender mixing up cupcakes instead of drinks, but that wasn't the set up. It was set up like a standard bakery with cupcakes inside of a glass casing. There were 5 black tables, circular in shape, each with 2 metal chairs. I sat in a table that was facing the window. The shop was pretty simple inside, however one of the walls was covered with laminated magazine reviews, always a good sign.

I, of course, ordered the standard vanilla with buttercream icing and I had a choice between frosting colors - white, blue, yellow or pink. I was feeling girly, so I went for the pink. The cupcake was on the smaller side and fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. I prefer smaller cupcakes that fit in my mouth easily, because I can get the full effect of the cake and the frosting in the proportion the baker intended.

With my first bite, I learned that cupcakes from Tonnie's Minis are served chilled, which was nice as its 87 degrees out today. The icing was delicious, a soft consistency with the perfect blend of sugar and butter and whatever else goes into icing. The cake was a yellow cake, which was moist to the point that it sort of tasted wet and that bothered me. I think most of the cupcakes I have been eating recently are more of a white cake, which mixes with the buttercream icing better.

Overall the cpck was ok but I wouldn't say its one of my favorites. Maybe if they switched out the cake for a white cake things would be different. I didn't try any of the other varieties because I was doing this review alone and I probably would have exploded from too much cupcake, but I did take a picture of a sign listing the different types and they seem to have a nice variety.

Ratings (out of 5)

1. Presentation: 4.5 - very pretty, swirled baby pink icing
2. Texture of
-cake: 3 - a little too moist for my liking
-icing: 5 - super soft, not grainy
3. Taste of
-cake: 2 - the yellow cake threw me off
-icing: 4.5 it really was delicious icing! :)
4. Ratio of cake to icing: 5 - perfect proportion
5. Price: $1.75; they had a special for NYU students (which I am for the summer) 2 cupcakes for $2. Unfortunately, I left my NYU ID at my office- therefore, did not qualify for this special. :\
6. Atmosphere of the bakery: 3 - clean, simple, to the point.

Burgers & Cupcakes.

Burgers & Cupcakes
458 9th Ave, between 35th & 36th

Burgers and cupcakes gets straight to the point with the name of their restaurant- they only serve burgers and cupcakes. This was the first place I did an official rating for PC, lending a bit of excitement to the experience. The atmosphere had a strangeness about it, in that it was half burger joint (sawdust on the floor to soak up spilled liquids) and half pink, cutesy cupcake shop.

Vanilla/Buttercream: The cake part of the cpck was rather small, and it was completely dominated by the huge cone of icing that was piled on top. As far as taste, which in my opinion is the most important factor, the cake was pretty much standard- so standard that I have made boxed cupcakes that taste better than it. The icing was a little on the sugary side, which would have been fine had there not been 2 tons of it.

Chocolate/Buttercream: The same size and shape as the v/b. The chocolate cake was moist and delicious - most likely some sort of devil's food cake - and I would have loved the cupcake if it had a different icing. The buttercream icing just didn't mix that well with the richness of the chocolate cake.



Ratings (out of 5)

1. Presentation: 2.5 - weird, messy cone of icing
2. Texture of
-cake: 2
-icing: 3
3. Taste of
-cake: 2
-icing: 3.5
4. Ratio of cake to icing: 1
5. Price: $2 - not bad
6. Atmosphere of the bakery: 2 - sawdust, need I say more?

The Ratings.

At each bakery, I will be tasting and examining a vanilla cupcake with buttercream icing - also known as the standard cupcake. My overall rating will be based on the standard, however if a bakery is known for a specialty cupcake I'll definitely be into eating that one also - so it can be placed in a special category.

I'll be judging based on the following criteria:
1. Presentation - i.e. how cute it is
2. Texture of
-cake
-icing
3. Taste of
-cake
-icing
4. Ratio of cake to icing
5. Price
6. Atmosphere of the bakery
7. Q Factor - credit to my Intern for this one. The WOW factor!
8. Specialty cupcake (optional)

Yay. So that's how I'll judge the cpcks.

PC is born!

From a very early age, I have always had a love for cupcakes (picture to come.) I love to eat them, I love to bake them, I love to look at them. But it wasn't until my first exposure to the New York cupcake scene (a la Magnolia Bakery) that I realized I was obsessed with them.

Now I am living in New York for the summer, and I thought it would be fun to try all the of the big name cupcake eateries in the City. After putting some thought into the waist-expanding task ahead of me, I realized I could justify eating 30+ cupcakes if I turned my venture into a project of sorts, and Project Cupcake came to life! I am going to be tasting and rating cupcakes from bakeries all across Manhattan (and maybe some other boroughs.) More details about how I will be rating the cupcakes to come, but let it be known - I am really freaking excited to start this project.
-C