Philly Cupcake

Philly Cupcake

1132 Chestunt Street (at 12th)
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-625-4888

Philadelphia, eager to shed it's image as the backwards Italian-American anger-filled crime hole it's thought of by anyone in, around, or far away from Philly, has upped it's culinary cred beyond "steak wit". Part of this culinary up trend is the humble cupcake.  In the last several years the cupcake has moved beyond the case mixed with other sweet confections and cakes to it's own stores and it's own trucks. When it becomes the official food of some city or state, then we know it's hard work will have paid off.

Philly Cupcake is one such shop. The kitsch behind Philly Cupcake is that it's a kids Victorian-era dollhouse writ large, and filled with all of the sweets the kid was denied. The color scheme is pink pink pink, and blue (but a bright sky blue, so don't worry). Cupcakes are behind a series of cabinets that look as if they have seen a good century of wear (yet remain pink). These are then offset by a series of ropes, either to treat the cupcakes as celebrity, or to keep grubby germ-infested hands off of them. With an open kitchen (and hence they don't allow dogs in, but who, really, wants dog hair in their frosting) and the entire size of a small storage shed, it feels like a mix of high class, walk-in closet, and revolving door.

All of the cupcakes are lined up along one wall, evenly spaced, waiting to be chosen by brave carb-loving folks. The cupcakes range from your baseline Vanilla to muffin flavors (ex: Sweet Potato,) to specialties for holidays. There are also other confections which are basically adding sweet fatty insult to sweet fatty injury, such as the chocolate covered Twizzlers or the chocolate covered Oreos (both copyrighted by their respective companies, so keep back lawyers). You can generally find something here for your sweet tooth, and if you eat enough of these, one tooth is probably all you will wind up with.

I went twice, once this past March, and again in June. From the cupboards were chosen five cupcakes, and one confection. The sugar rush, crash, and diabetes come free. There were the following: Vanilla  Vanilla, Chocolate Vanilla,  Red Velvet, an apple cobbler turned cupcake (the Jewish Apple Streusel Cupcake) , and a specialty Bailey's Irish Cream that was available around St. Patrick's day. When they pack them, they want to keep them safe, so they put them in a plastic cup. Cute, but major waste.

First, the baselines; after all, if you can't get the basics right, how can you get the others right, right? Vanilla Vanilla means vanilla flavored cake with vanilla flavored buttercream frosting.  Wow,  disappointing. The frosting was the best part, and it wasn't all that good. The cake was thick and not moist, which is a no-no for cupcakes. There was also no vanilla taste, but there was butter, which came as an after-taste. The frosting was smooth as silk and buttery, but again, the vanilla came as an after-taste.

The cake of the red velvet was not bad: moist, chewy, held together, red. The cream cheese frosting, however, was incredibly sweet and slightly dry. Not the best, not the worst, but due to sugar content, I wouldn't order another without dental insurance.

The chocolate cupcake cake half was by far the best. Super moist to slightly sticking to the fingers level, definite taste of cocoa, and airy enough to not be heavy. The buttercream frosting was the same as on the vanilla cake.

With those turning me into more buttercream than man, I bravely dived into the apple crumb-cake impostor. Dry, simply put. The apples didn't add moisture and even seemed to have had their flavor sucked out. It just was not as good as it looked, which is disappointing when you have high hopes.

Lastly, the Irish cream. Now because this cupcake is a special, normally reviewing it isn't too helpful, but it speaks to the bakery's abilities, so here goes: The frosting was good: Light, fluffy, not sweet. The cake, however, was dense to the point of almost being too much, as it fell apart and stuck to the foil too easily.

So out of 5 cupcakes, there were really two with decent to good cake, but none of them had good frosting.

The chocolate covered Oreo was ok. The specific tastes of oreo overpowered the chocolate (I had milk, but you can get dark and white chocolate versions). The chocolate held the cookie together, so there were fewer crumbs than normally.

No eating in the store, there just isn't room. Recently they added a handful of tables on the side, They also serve other baked goodies and coffee, and now have an ice cream window on 12th street.

Classic cupcakes are $3, Fancy are $4, other items start at $2.

Two classic, one fancy: $10.
Two classic, one confection: $8.

This little goose went to market, this one went to the Delaware Canal Tow Path Part 2

Day two of my Memorial Day bike ride found me back in the heat of things, but with the added indignity of humidity. Humidity is good when it comes to keeping science projects, cigars, and wine at optimal levels, not for exercising.

My first attempt was to find one of the breaks between Bristol and Morrisville. Though I found the road next to it, there was a gated electricity transformer area and road construction blocking any signs of a) parking and b) an entrance. So off to Morrisville I went.

Getting there is really easy, and the parking is free along the waterfront. In fact, there is a pathway that runs between the two bridges in town linking PA to NJ, so you can get a good circuit of about a mile in on crushed stone, with a river view (there are also benches). There are also a couple of parking spots at various locations along the route where it intersects with roadways, in case you want to start some where else.

For this route, I made it to about a third of the way between Washington Crossing, PA and New Hope, PA where RT 32 main and RT 32 River Road splits/merges (depending on which direction you go).

At Morrisville (my trail start/end), the entrance to the D&L tow path is conveniently by public toilets (I did not use them so I can't tell you how good they are inside). The path has a short section to the left that leads to a dead-end at a road, so unless you want the little extra workout, turn right. Parking is across the road along the river bern. Note that the parking symbol on the traillink site is NOT accurate.

Looking to the left at Morrisville

Looking to the right. Direction of trail to go.

From the trail head towards parking, all along the other side of the blue water tower

The path is crushed stone with some areas of well packed ground, and a short section of pavement when it oddly becomes a roadway for a handful of houses. On this particular day, it seemed that no matter where I stopped along the canal, be it by houses or in the woods, I was immediately set upon by the humidity and a phlanax of blood sucking insects.

Along the route you encounter several low bridges, so duck. These bridges are often used by cars and pedestrians, but every so often there  is a bridge solely for the use of pedestrians. One in particular seemed to go off into the woods, perhaps to grandma's house.

Typical of most of the bridges

Some are low, some carry cars, some pedestrians

and some go off into the woods....

You also encounter several geese, and since these where with their young, they hissed a lot. One of them was in true form and actually came at me. I guess they could care less that it's a *shared trail*. I let them go since at least one will get a comeuppance on Christmas. Other wildlife I encountered were a family of ducks and several birds.

The path itself is quite flat and straight, which makes sense since it's only slightly raised above the canal water level. Do keep in mind that if you ride after a rain, it gets muddy and may be flooded out. Also, there are two concrete dips along this part of the route; I can only speculate that they are for flood control, but they did surprise me with the quick drop.

You or your ride mates are tired, cranky, hungry, or sore-assed. What to do? You can get off the path into Washington Crossing, which did a nice job of connecting it into the park and the downtown. The other option is to get off into Yardley, where there is a bakery, a Starbucks, and other shops up to a block from the path (head across the bridge). If you opt for the Starbucks, go around to the backside of the store, that's where parking and bike racks are.

The bridge at Yardley

Minus the humidity and the swarm of insects, it's a pretty good ride, and a nice relatively safe connector for the towns along it. (well, at least the part I rode). I can't say the same for the area south of Morrisville. That was just a disaster in planning.

Total miles round trip: 20
Bug bites: probably the same.

This little goose went to market, this one went to the Delaware Canal Tow Path

This past Memorial Day weekend I hitched up my bike to the car rack, and drove out to take on the Delaware Canal Tow Path trail. The game plan was to do as much of the path as possible. The first day was cut short by a massive storm. This was split into two days.

Day One

Though I was aware that the path from Bristol, PA to Morrisville, PA had gaps in the path, I figured that they were like small ones I have seen before where you simply cross a road, usually well marked. Hmmm... NO.

The path in Bristol is right by a park with a HUGE parking lot (at Prospect St. and Jefferson Ave) and  the Bristol Regional Rail SEPTA stop, for those who don't want to drive there. This area is fairly nice, but the trail-head is hard to notice. Look for the crushed gravel path that is on the opposite side of the water from the gazebo. The trail ends at US-13 and a Wawa gas and market station, so good for those that need a snack or liquid. There is also an Amish Market.

The breaks exist in most (though not all) spots since when they hit major roadways, such as US-13 and US-1. Impassable. My favorite is the path that "starts" halfway in the woods next to a motel at US-13.

looking towards that entrance from no-where

So let's leave it at this: Going FROM Bristol to the US-13 end is a fine ride, but if you want to try any of the other sections before Morrisville, be prepared to get back to the car and hunt for entrances and parking. I found one such behind a pizza joint somewhere down the line, which linked up to the aforementioned motel "entrance" and went through entrances to a busy strip mall next to...you guessed it! US-13 (13 being a lucky number since I survived I guess).

It IS a good idea to try to get to this middle section since you can see a full old style canal (with a crap load of graffiti) which doesn't exist a whole lot on the rest of the pathways. So park in that pizza lot and head on out (and hell, if you're hungry and don't want pizza, there's the strip mall with a Sonic).

Full Canal along US-13 around Edgley, PA

Full Canal along US-13 around Edgley, PA. One wonders if the taggers got swept away.

Sonic. I did not attempt to see if they do bicycle-side service. Note the frequently used and non-marked road you have to cross.

If you zoom in, you can see the TWO non-marked, non-signaged for path users, entrances into the Home Depot/Wal-Mart section. Use Caution!

Ssshh! The pizza joint parking lot.

The route gets VERY narrow and hard to climb up due to large red-rock chunks rather than the crushed version on most of the path. It also dead-ends when US-13 gets high-speed. Don't cross unless you wish a dead end.

I didn't include all of the photos of the entrances, but do know that they aren't the easiest to spot.

This ended my first day. Total mileage was a little over 10 since I went to another path to round up the miles (these paths round trip was 8 and change).