heavenly crumbs

when is a stack of luxurious boxes not a stack of luxurious boxes? when it's a cake. shannon pridgen has been doing custom cakes out of a rented kitchen in bed-stuy for the past 8 years. want a cake shaped like a coach handbag? she's done it. a pair of adidas? done it.

but now she's expanded and taken her operation retail, and her newer offerings look more like this:

which, to my eyes, is just as, if not more, beautiful.... this is, of course, the red velvet cupcake, with cream cheese frosting. now, i'll be up front here: i've never had red velvet cake before, not cake man raven's, not anybody's, so i was judging this cupcake purely on it's own merits. and the verdict is: it's a great cupcake. it was moist, not overly sweet, and the frosting was delicious, smooth and creamy. i also had a small sample of some of shannon's other goods: oatmeal cookie, vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting, carrot cupcake, and buttermilk biscuit. the cookie was great, very dense. the chocolate frosting on the vanilla cupcake was perfect, with the kind of cocoa-y flavor that i really love in chocolate frosting. the carrot cake i can't speak to, since the bite i had had a big raisin in it, which is just not my thing...so you'll have to go in and try that one yourself. and the biscuit was fine, and i suspect that if i'd had a whole one from the serving case instead of the piece that had been sitting out on the sample plate losing moisture, it would have been great. some of the other varieties in the case that i didn't get to taste are: vanilla cupcake with passion fruit frosting, yellow cupcake with triple berry frosting, spice cupcake with rum frosting, and chocolate cupcake with coconut frosting.

the space is tiny, with most of the room taken up by the kitchen. but there's a little table in the front, with a few chairs, two small benches, and a little pink stool for the kiddos that my kiddo at least was completely enamored of. there's also a tea and coffee station, with a drawer full of tea bags (herbal and black) to choose from.

shannon, who grew up in the bronx but has lived in brooklyn for the last 10 years, was working the counter, answering phones, reading cookbooks, and generally looking like a small business owner when i got there. she told me that she thinks of her desserts as "refined american", or "well-done comfort food".

which is exactly what a cupcake should be.

heavenly crumbs 355 franklin ave. @ greene and lexington 718-623-6271 heavenlycrumbs.com