When It Comes to Cupcakes, You Can't Go Home Again

"The story of the world’s most famous bakery begins in 1996 on a quaint, cobblestone corner in the West Village where Magnolia Bakery opened its doors for the first time. The sweet smell of cakes and cookies and pies and pudding tumbled out, wafting down the streets, beckoning all in."

The words above come straight from the website of Magnolia Bakery, which was once a magical sort of place fit for a fairy tale. I was among the adoring acolytes waiting on long lines that snaked around the corner and down the block from the bakery, no matter the weather. If it was snowing, you bundled up. If it was raining, you brought an umbrella. The cupcakes were that good. 

Once inside the tiny shop, in view of the glass cases displaying the goodies, you got busy deciding what flavor cupcake topped with which kind of frosting. By the time it was your turn you ordered enough for a small army since it had taken you half an hour or more to get there, and who knew when you'd be back. 

In the early days, when there was just one store in the Village, the cupcakes were literally to die for, topped with ethereal frosting that swirled a few inches up to the heavens. They were epic, unlike any other baked goods anywhere. So a trip to Manhattan to visit friends and family always included a stop at Magnolia Bakery.

Recently, all these years later, my husband flew home from a visit to New York and excitedly announced that he had brought some of the iconic cupcakes with him. How, I asked, remembering them as wonderfully fragile and fabulously messy to eat. Seems they had grown so popular they were able to expand all over the city, including an outlet at LaGuardia airport. Mitch made a few selections and flew those babies back to Maine with care.

Sadly, these cupcakes look nothing like those cupcakes. Now they are supermarket quality, half the size of the originals and grimly packaged for a long shelf life. Worst of all, the list of ingredients one cannot pronounce is distinctly unappetizing. So far I haven't tried one, whereas in the old days I had scarfed down two in the car before we'd even gotten to the Bronx.