I recently had the pleasure of participating in a private cupcake baking class at Butter Lane in the East Village in New York City as part of a bachelorette party for one of my best friends from college.
Butter Lane has two spaces, the bakery and then the private classroom in the space next door. When you enter the classroom there is a large, wooden picnic table with two benches (perfect for indulging and gossiping) and then the back portion of the space is the kitchen. Here is our instructor, Tracy, setting up:
Tracy set up three tables for us. Each table would be baking a different flavor of cupcake. The flavors of the day were vanilla, chocolate and banana.
Naturally I saddled up to the chocolate table. Right on the edge of the table was our recipe.
Check out our set up! Tracy had already measured all of our ingredients. I am going to go ahead and say they make these classes idiot proof.
Unlike the vanilla and banana tables, our table had a bowl of piping hot chocolate. Yes, please!
Before we could utilize that bowl of chocolate, we had to cream our butter and sugar.
Then we cracked the eggs. Note, my friend's fabulous blue nail polish! I had manicure envy.
The egg yolks were a brilliant yellow.
Our butter and sugar were swirling round and round in the mixer, working their way to a smooth base.
Before adding in our eggs, we added the fragrant vanilla extract.
We then combined the creamed butter and sugar, egg mixture, chocolate and our dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, etc.) which resulted in this gorgeous bowl of chocolate batter!
Tracy then delivered us three lined cupcake tins.
We used an ice cream scoop to fill each liner with our soon to be cupcake goodness.
After we filled each cupcake tin, Tracy whisked them away to put them in the oven to bake. I call this shot "the aftermath":
While the cupcakes baked we spent ten minutes drinking wine and gabbing. Then it was time for phase two: frosting!
The banana cupcake team got to make cream cheese frosting. Check out the bowl that was waiting for them at their station!
Our station had not only cream cheese, but a pound and a half of butter!
A pink scale also appeared at our station. How cute is this? I want one for my kitchen! It's very Barbie's dream house.
Per Tracy's instructions, we dumped the pound and a half of butter into the mixing bowl.
Just to help you understand the magnitude of the butter, please note the butter's size next to our wine glasses. Yup, that's real.
With one push of the mixer "start" button our frosting was under way!
We then added in more chocolate.
Ta da! The finished product!
Yes, I did lick that spatula in case you were wondering.
Once our frosting was ready, Tracy brought us our cupcakes and we were free to frost away! This tray of cupcakes represented 1/4 of our total batch!
Look at those beauties!
We spent the next half hour frosting. We had three kinds of cupcakes (vanilla, chocolate and banana) and many kinds of frosting - cream cheese, cinnamon, chocolate, chocolate peanutbutter and more. We were in sugar heaven!
The bride-to-be's sister-in-law made her this cupcake with her new initials on it. Cute!
After we were done frosting our masterpieces, Tracy gave us boxes to take home every single confection.
The private cupcake class at Butter Lane was a great way to spend quality time with friends while also making something delicious! Everyone, even those who are normally intimidated by cooking or baking, got into the spirit.
For more information on Butter Lane and their private classes, visit their website.
Have you ever taken a cupcake class?
