For her birthday last year (in October twenty TEN), I got my fab roomie a few gifts courtesy of Groupon, for some fun activities that we could do together.  Unfortunately, we let time get away from us and didn’t use any of them for over a year.  The Butter Lane cupcake class expiration date was creeping up on us so in December (the same night we scheduled our painting class at Paint Along), we sat down and booked it for last Thursday.  I was pretty excited to finally be able to take this class because as you guys know, cupcakes are basically my best friends.  And I’ve made and decorated cupcakes on tons of occasions, my favorites being those decorated with the LOST numbers for the finale (I still cannot talk about the finale without getting incredibly frustrated) and the ones I decorated a few years ago for the Superbowl (I still cannot tell you who won or even played).  I sadly cannot find a photo of the NFL logo-ed cupcakes so you will have to settle for this one, which still boils my blood because it is reminiscent of the reason why I gave up dramatic television.

The Groupon was originally advertised as a class in which we would choose two cake flavors and two icings and make everything ourselves, but by the time Nicole and I went, the class had changed to an icing-only affair.  There were about 12 people in the class and we were told we were going to make three types of icing – vanilla, chocolate, and cream cheese.  ANYWAY, our class was at 5:30 so I tip-toed out of work and made my way over to the East Village in the rain.  The class was in a “studio” right next to Butter Lane bakery and all students got a free beverage and cupcakes to eat while we waited for the class to start – I chose a yummy caramel popcorn cupcake with actual popcorn on it because I had never seen this before.  (It’s only appropriate that I wrote this post on National Popcorn Day.)

Nicole and I rushed to the chocolate table because it was obvious to us that it would be the yummiest.  We got to use those really nice Kitchen-Aid mixers that everyone puts on their wedding registries and that will never end up fitting in any NYC apartment I will ever live in.  We poured in lots of butter, cocoa flakes, and confectioner sugar and drooled as the icing got fluffier and fluffier.

Our instructor, Sunshine, then taught us how to make a variation of each frosting.  She made us raspberry vanilla, chocolate peanut butter, and a cinnamon icing out of the cream cheese base.  We were then taught how to ice cupcakes in the Butter Lane way, the icing is so fluffy that you can just roll it into a ball with your icing tool, plop it on the top, and rotate your wrist while tapping down on the icing.  The icing just kind of ends up falling where it wants.

We were brought non-iced cupcakes in vanilla, chocolate, and banana flavors and we each took four.  The frosting part took a while because the icing placed at our end of the table was not what we wanted to use and the other students were being particularly hoggy of the good flavors.  Sorry vanilla and cream cheese, there were just way better options out there.  I went home with a chocolate-chocolate, a banana-chocolate peanut butter, a chocolate-raspberry, and a vanilla-cinnamon.

I’d also like to share (because I am extremely proud of this) that I didn’t eat them all that night.  BUT I did eat them all without actually sharing with anyone.  One step at a time.

xx