Chelsey’s visit to New York should probably just be renamed the Vegan Sweets Tour.
After an amazing lunch in the Financial District, the two of us walked up to the Lower East Side for treats from Babycakes, a famous hole-in-the-wall bakery specializing in vegan and gluten-free baked goods.
I’d had a Babycakes cupcake once before at Stogo, but this was my first time actually visiting their East Village storefront. I’m now kicking myself for all the vegan cupcakes I could have been stuffing my face with for the past year.
You know, because I don’t eat enough cupcakes already.
The interior of Babycakes was miniature but fittingly adorable. Kkitschy handwritten slogans were scrawled everywhere, explaining the bakery’s mission and describing the treats. It was like a cross between Mad Men and Girls.
There were about a dozen flavors of cupcakes to choose from, as well as several other goodies including donuts, breads and cinnamon rolls. I chose the vanilla brownie cupcake for two reasons: one, I love brownies. And two, it had the most frosting…with a few chocolate chips on top as an added bonus.
Chelsey went a different route with a carrot cake cupcake.
We didn’t waste much time digging in…
Wow. First of all, it’s extremely rare that I like the cake part as much as the frosting, but this cupcake was rich, dense and studded with chocolate chips, completely living up to brownie expectations. The frosting was quite literally the icing on the cake- sweet, creamy and perfectly complementary. Crazy that it was all vegan, because this even compares to Crumbs!
Needless to say, our plates and wrappers were scraped clean.
And I was sad. (Seems to be a recurring theme, no?)
I’m finding some solace in the fact that I can go back whenever I want. Like for dinner, maybe…?
