Tag Archives: cupcakes

Gluten Free on Park Avenue

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photoWhen we moved back from Austria, Alex and I looked at a lot of houses and neighborhoods to live in.  We wanted a neighborhood that we could walk Rufus around and where we could walk to shops.  We considered the Village of Pittsford but then decided we weren’t quite there yet.  It felt like moving to Park Slope without a family, we would feel out of place without a stroller.  So, we decided on Park Avenue and moved into a house in the ABC Streets neighborhood.  I love this neighborhood because the houses have character, the street signs are antique-y, and there is a sign that welcomes you to the neighborhood.  And I love that I am walking distance to restaurants, bars, Boulder Coffee, CVS, Wilson Farms, and Stevers Candies.

Park Avenue has a lot to offer not only for the regular diner, but for a gluten-free person like me.  Almost every establishment from Culver Road to Vassar Street has something gluten-free to offer.  Taking advantage of the sunshine today, I walked Rufus down to CVS for errands and stopped into Nathan’s Soup and Salad for lunch.  The board outside advertised gluten free soups, labeled with a “G.”  Nathan’s also labels their menu with “V” for vegetarian, and “D” for dairy free.  Upon arriving, I noticed that they had more than just gluten free soup, but also gluten free bread from local Rochester establishment, Silvana’s Arize, and gluten free sandwiches.  I ordered what I came in for, soup, and left with a cup of ham and cheddar and a Silvana’s Arize gluten free roll.  The cheddar soup lacked depth of flavor for me, but I was still happy to be enjoying a warm cup of soup on a cold day.  The roll reminded me of real fresh bread, doughy with the faintest smell of yeast.  It was a lovely lunch and for the price of $5.35, a good deal

Next door to Nathan’s is Dolce, a cupcakery.  Dolce makes two varieties of gluten free cupcakes daily.  Dolce has the longest list of flavors I have ever seen, and it appears to me that they can do many of those flavors gluten free.  Today I chose the chocolate raspberry and it was to die for.  The raspberry buttercream frosting was fruity, buttery, and light,  The chocolate was rich and dark.  It was a match made in heaven.  The only downside is with it so close, I will have to practice serious restraint every time I walk by!

For the gluten free diner looking for lunch, Nathan’s is a great option, and for dessert, Dolce just makes sense.  However, like I mentioned before, there are many more options on Park Avenue so here is a list of my recommendations:

F. Oliver’s Oils & Vinegars: I like the basil olive oil & royal pomegranate balsamic vinegar.

Wine Sense: Great boutique wine shop with helpful staff.

Boulder Coffee: Great coffee, gluten free chili, and packaged GF brownies.

Esan of Thailand: The curries are gluten free, I like the green.

Dorado: The baked enchilada is a good hearty meal.

Cibon: Go for lunch and get the duck salad.

Nathan’s: Any GF soup with the Silvana’s Arize bread is a perfect lunch.

Dolce: My favorite flavor is the raspberry chocolate, but it isn’t available regularly.

Sinbad’s: Falafel or the half chicken with artichoke salad.

Gluten Free News: August 2011

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Sorry for the belated post, but I’ve just returned from my honeymoon!  I’m now a married woman!  More on that later.  Here is your New York City GF news for August.

Al Roker bakes Gluten-Free Cupcakes

“Weatherman Al Roker told newscaster Ann Curry he’d made gluten-free cupcakes (with tapioca flour and rice flour) for his son Nicholas’s 9th birthday, which he shares with Mandela.” source: Bloomberg News.

DogFish Head adds a new Gluten-Free Beer to the Mix

In November, DogFish Head Craft Brewery will release their gluten-free concoction, Tweason’ale.  This is great news for gluten-free beer lovers, whose options are pretty limited. source: Bloomberg News.

Joan’s GF Great Bakes suffers from Fire

This news makes me really sad.  Joan’s makes some of the best frozen GF bagels out there.   I am keeping them in my thoughts and hope you do too! source: Long Island Herald

Babycakes at Rockaway Beach

Get your sugar fix while suntanning at the 97th Street Beach, where a half-dozen vendors share space.  source: New York Post

Sample Gluten-Free Bread on August 21

One of the NYC Celiac Disease Group’s members, Karen Freer, has just started a line of fresh gluten-free rolls, called, Free Bread.  She’s having  a tasting at her home and Meetup Members are invited to join!  source: NYC Celiac Disease Group

Cherry Blossoms and Cupcakes

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I spent this past weekend in Washington, DC to visit my sister, Madeline, who is a senior at George Washington University (also my alma mater) and my friend, Sarah, who happened to be in town for a conference.  Having spent four years living in the District, making the trip always feels a little bit like going home, where you can expect to see the same people and do the same things.  This time, however, I had two missions: see the cherry blossoms and eat a Sprinkles cupcake.

Washington, DC, while only 230 miles south of New York City, is about one full month ahead of us seasonally.  Springtime comes earlier and so do the cherry blossoms.  My visit coincided perfectly with the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which commemorates the 1912 gift of 3000 Cherry Trees from Japan to the United States.  Madeline and Sarah had never been, and I had only been once.  Here are some glamour shots.

 

Post Cherry Blossom ooing and ahhing, we headed to Georgetown for some shopping and eats, specifically, cupcakes from the newly opened cupcakery Sprinkles.  Sprinkles was started in Beverly Hills as the “original cupcake bakery” and is credited for started the cupcake craze that has swept the nation and is alive and well in New York City.  And while the other cupcake shops in Georgetown, Baked and Wired, and Georgetown Cupcake (which unfortunately stars in the Food Network show DC Cupcake) do offer gluten-free options, I was on a mission to taste-test the cupcake that would soon be arriving in the Big Apple (May).

Sprinkles feels very much like Pinkberry, modern, bright, clean, but in an appealing way that makes you want to sit and enjoy your purchase.  However, on a Saturday afternoon in busy Georgetown, the line was out the door and the space didn’t allow to relaxed seating and crazy lines.  As I approached the woman to place my order, I was nervous because I didn’t see any gluten-free cupcakes in the case.  There were, however, about 10 other flavors ranging from vanilla to peanut butter banana.  I inquired about gluten-free, and indeed it was available, but only in red velvet. Each cupcake is marked by the signature concentric candy circles to indicate flavor, and my gluten-free cupcake was marked with a red candy G.  It was cute and practical.

Even though I saw folks enjoying their Sprinkles cupcakes with wooden forks and knives, I decided to forgo this option for the traditional cupcake eating method and took a huge bite.  What I got, was a big mouthful of cream-cheese frosting.  It was delicious, but where was the cake?  I had to resort to cutting it in half with a fork, because without it, the frosting heavy cupcake would fall over.  That being said, I really, really enjoyed my cupcake.  The red velvet was moist and rich.  The depth of flavor was impressive for a cupcake; it actually tasted like chocolate devil’s food cake (which is what red velvet is, dyed red).  It passed my gluten-free baked goods test: no xanthan gum aftertaste, no crumbling when manipulated, and NOT DRY!

 

I left DC satisfied.  I had spent time with important people in my life, played tourist for a bit, and discovered a new, delicious, gluten-free treat that I can enjoy in NYC as well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Gluten-Free Wedding: Cupcakes Redux

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It’s the end of March now, and that marks our 4 month countdown to the big day.  We’ve hit the three-quarter mark of planning.  While I do feel that we’ve gotten a lot done in terms of big stuff, I have a feeling the devil is in the details.

One thing I’m excited to be able to check off our list is deciding on our cupcake vendor.  I am excited to announce that we will be working with Donna Marie Gluten-Free Bakery.

Although I was pretty psyched about the vegan bakery, Eco Bella, Alex wasn’t.  He just didn’t love the dairy-free frosting and preferred Donna Marie’s traditionally sweet, moist, and creamy cupcakes.  This was also a moment where I put the guests wants before mine.  I wanted my guests to have the best possible first gluten-free experience.  That meant to me, not knowing it was gluten-free.  Donna Marie delivered on this point, where Eco Bella’s more hearty, whole-grain cakes would definitely have raised some eyebrows.

Glad to be done with the hard part, it’s time for the fun part: cupcake flavors and decor.  Even though we’ll be having cupcakes, we still wanted them to look like a wedding cake.  Enter the tiered cupcake stand:

 

Original Round Cupcake Stand from Cupcaketree

 

This is what it looks like decorated, image courtesy of Cupcaketree.com

LIke the image above, we’re having a small cake to cut into as well.  When Donna Marie asked me for decorating ideas, I just sent her a bunch of my inspiration photos and an explanation of what the decor theme would be.  What I should have done was look for images of cupcake trees and send those because when we chatted to talk about her ideas, I wasn’t entirely prepared to be commenting on them, I mostly just said, “yeah, that sounds great.”  Right afterwards, I regretted not doing my homework here.

Here’s what we decided via our phone conversation.  There would be four flavors of cake: lemon, red velvet (squeee), chocolate and vanilla.  We’d have 100 mini cupcakes and 100 regular cupcakes.  I had the idea of having each flavor be decorated different to identify the flavor.   The regular cupcakes be frosted in off-white, with accent frosting flowers in coral, robin’s egg blue, pale orange, and a coffee-colored brown (for the chocolate).  The mini cupcakes would be frosted entirely IN these accent colors.  The cake on top will be frosted in off-white and the focal point will be our lovebirds cake topper.

That sounded great in the moment.  Now, I’m not so sure.  My main concern is that it will be too colorful, as most wedding cakes are white.  My other concern is that it won’t be formal enough and won’t match the overall look of the wedding, which is more subdued in the color palette and natural/rustic in the feel.  One thing I’m not concerned about it them being delicious.  We’re meeting with Donna Marie in May, and hopefully it will all come together then!