Buttercup Bake Shop
They are colorful, they smell wonderful and they are, oh so delicious! That’s what customers are saying at the Buttercup Bake Shop on Martine Avenue in White Plains when they taste the cupcakes and other old-fashioned American-style desserts baked fresh on the premises every day.
Jennifer Appel opened the White Plains location in June 2012. This is her third shop, having partnered with a childhood friend to open the Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village in 1996 and later her own Buttercup Bake Shop in Mid-Manhattan.
Appel, who made the move out of Manhattan to raise a family, said she just sold the 2nd Avenue shop and is now focused on White Plains.
Appel is a licensed psychologist who spent many years working with children in the New York City school system. “I burned out,” she said. “Baking was my hobby and I was young enough to take the risk to turn something I loved to do into a business.” And that touch of love shows up in each baked good that reaches the shelves of Appel’s shop.
At the corner of Martine and Court Streets, where the foot traffic is good, you can walk in and watch as a team of bakers mix, stir, bake and decorate.
“We make everything from scratch in small batches,” Appel explained, which accounts for the just like home-baked taste. Using a seven-quart mixer there are about 50 cupcakes to the batch. All ingredients are fresh, including lemon juice and zest. “I use the same ingredients you would use in your own kitchen,” Appel says.
Appel also offers 7-inch and 9-inch cakes and a large half-sheet.
Cakes and cupcakes are decorated to the customer’s requirements and have become the featured items at many private and corporate parties.
There are 12 regular flavors with choices of icing flavors and colors. Seasonal favorites include lemon in the summer, pumpkin in the autumn and winter’s apple walnut. For Valentine’s Day there will be a romantic selection of cake flavors and red and pink icings to choose from.
Appel says she has an order for 1,800 individually decorated and wrapped cupcakes for a corporate party next week. The icing will be butter cream in the corporate colors and theme.
That’s a large order for the shop, which caters to retail and parties. If you place an order by 2 p.m., you usually can have it by the next day. Fordham law School has a regular order of 500 cupcakes in the school colors for numerous student events.
Cupcake trees can hold from 30 to 100 cakes in flavor and color combinations. There are also cupcake flowerpots and individual cupcake boxes for special gifts. A large cupcake tree with a small cake at the top has become a favorite for weddings. Breakfast cookie and brownie platters are also available.
There’s a counter in the shop for customers who want to sit and sip a cup of coffee or tea, or drink a glass of milk. In the summer fresh-squeezed lemonade is a local favorite.
Willing to share her baking secrets, Appel has published three cookbooks available through the shop or at the website: “The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook,” “The Buttercup Bakeshop Cookbook,” and “Buttercup Bakes at Home.”
The Buttercup Bake Shop, 168 Martine Avenue, White Plains, is open seven days a week until 7 p.m.; 5 p.m. on Sunday. Tel: 914-949-5700; www.buttercupbakeshop.com.
