Robicelli's

Straight flavors right now because I have an epic recap of WD-50 to write, a million emails to catch up on, and I STILL don’t have Internet in my apartment. Options are staying up until Starbucks opens at 5:30 so I can go use theirs, or delaying the post and grabbing some sleep. Guess which one I’m picking.

And Time Warner Cable, I hate you with the burning passion of 100000000 suns. Almost as much as I hate autocorrect.

Back later today! Promise! Go grab some of these and stay tuned!

Mudslide: Baileys Kahlua chocolate cake, mascarpone buttercream, Mudslide ganache

Blueberry Blintz: brown sugar cake, sour cream Bavarian filling and buttercream, blueberries, roasted almonds

Peach Melba: brown sugar cake, raspberry jam, vanilla buttercream, brown butter roasted peaches, graham crumbs

The Bluth: chocolate banana cake, chocolate buttercream, roasted walnuts, ganache.

I know I said last week that I was giving up my Wednesdays to guest bloggers, but I’ve got something really important to talk about so we’re going to have to bump that back a bit. Note that I said REALLY IMPORTANT, so you may want to make sure you’ve had a cup of coffee or a sack full of rock candy so that you’re fully attentive while you read this. Go ahead and go get that right now if you need to.

A few years ago, we were asked to sponsor the welcome center for the New York City Food and Wine Festival (which we’re a part of again this year! Go buy tickets!).  Matt brought the cupcakes to the meeting point and was ushered into a building that he said felt very familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It was a long, narrow open room. Hanging from the ceiling were giant banners of the smiling faces of various Food Network celebrities. Bright lights everywhere. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been there before, but was pretty sure he’d remember any place that would put Paula Deen’s face on a 15 foot banner.

Then he asked to use the bathroom. And that was the moment where he realized that he didn’t recognize the place because it had been gutted, and he’d never actually seen the room with the lights on. The bathrooms, however, were exactly the same.

Ladies and Gentlemen of New York City- there was a 15 foot banner of Paula Deen’s head inside THE MOTHERFREAKING TUNNEL.

For all of you who only moved to New York after Disney bought most most of it, the Tunnel was someplace a sixteen year old should never, EVER be. What Matt was doing there in the unisex bathrooms I have no idea. I was home studying. The few times I was there with friends I don’t remember at all, more than likely because I was so stunned and repulsed by the debauchery that I had to have blacked it out. Really the only possible explanation.

Never in my life did I think that the excess being served in The Tunnel would be butter. Never.

If that story has accomplished anything, it’s made me realize that I should probably go back and look up what happened in 1996, because I think I missed that whole year (because I was studying so hard).  And for YOU, hopefully it will make you understand why what I’m about to talk to you about is so important:

Remember a month of so back when I was talking about Cake Shop? Many of you may know them as our retail outpost on the Lower East Side, and one of our oldest retail partners.  Many more of you may know them as one of the last clubs in Manhattan to continually feature new music from exciting, brilliant developing bands.  

Most clubs book bands that already have a following- bands that can guarantee them a certain number of ticket sales.  If you’re starting out, or you’re trying to grow, or if every single fan you have comes down with the stomach flu the night of your show, chances are you don’t get to play.  And without those shows, you can’t build fans. Cake Shop has differed in that they’ve always been a champion of the little guy. Little guys like Vampire Weekend. Little guys like MGMT. Little guys like, well, US.

They’ve done a lot for the little guys. And now, us little guys from all walks of life need to pool together to help them.

When you let bands with no following take your stage, you don’t always make a fortune to cover your bills.  Yes, it’s good for music, it’s good for the aesthetic of the LES, but it’s not good for the bottom line.  And now with a new real estate tax on their space, they need help. Which is why I’m asking everyone to check out their campaign on Pledge Music to help save Cake Shop. And the incentives are pretty sweet:

-Got $25 to chip in? That gets you on the guest list for a show plus two drink tickets. I think that’s actually a discount!

-Fifty bucks gets you a punch card for 10 drinks. And they’re open from 9am on, so you can invest in a whole day of sitting in their cafe reading a book while getting crapfaced on Amaretto Sours.

-You get to guest DJ a show for $75! How rad is that! I might do that, put on my old JNCOs and a trucker hat, show up and play Air Supply songs all freaking night! (this is why people don’t invite me to parties anymore)

Then there’s like 500 other incentives as well. Or maybe it’s 20. Whatever- it’s 1am and I can’t count.

Want me to put this in more blatant terms for you guys?

Or how about this one…….

New York, we don’t get a lot of chances to save New York. No matter how much we complain, a store that sells nothing but water will open up on St. Mark’s Place, and no doubt more stores selling things like “air” and “the concept of a lost dream” will soon replace everything we love. 

This campaign? This isn’t just a shot to keep Cake Shop around. This is a shot to keep Cake Shop from becoming a store that sells $600 sunglasses. 

Fight for New York! Fight for independent music and the spirit of the Lower East Side! Visit Pledge Music and keep Cake Shop alive! Then use whatever money you have left to buy cupcakes and brownies and whatnot! We can’t be saving New York on an empty stomach, you know.

Clockwise from front: Odessa, Key Lime Cheesecake, Root Beer Float, Peach Melba

Odessa: Vanilla cake, sour cream buttercream, sugared sour cherries

Key Lime Cheesecake: Graham cracker cake, key lime curd, key lime cheesecake buttercream, graham cracker crumbs, lime zest

Root Beer Float: Root beer cake, root beer custard, vanilla buttercream, maraschino cherry

Peach Melba: Brown sugar cake, vanilla buttercream, raspberry jam, brown sugar peaches

My internet came back just in time for me to see that we now have over twenty thousand Tumblr subscribers! TIME TO WANG CHUNG!

Seriously, thank you all so much for following.  We’ve seen this blog grow our business, lead to opportunities with television and big events, and it’s even helped us nab a book deal.  And no matter what it is that I’m writing, it’s the fact that you guys actually read this nonsense that has made the magic happen, so THANK YOU.  (side note- you can follow us other places, too! Check Facebook for daily flavors and business updates, and Twitter for 10% business, 80% of me screwing around, and 10% “other”).

Now to conclude the news I began on Friday……

Next Sunday, Robicelli’s will be holding a one day only pop-up at Castello di Borghese Vineyard! In July of 2005 Matt asked me to marry him, and we celebrated with a trip to Long Island’s North Fork, with Borghese being one of our favorites. Now seven years later, we get to return as the married parents of two children, two cats, and one bakery. *sniff* 

Man, I wish I hadn’t cued up that Wang Chung song so early, because I would totally cue up some Kenny Rogers right now.

Oh screw it. It’s my freaking blog- and besides now you’re all humming Kenny Rogers to yourself so let’s just do this.

Coincidentally, I’ve just realized there’s an excellent chance that in 20 years, Matt is going to look exactly like Kenny Rogers. It’s way too soon to know how I feel about this. 

Now back to the point, which is that next Sunday, we’ll be at Borghese with wine inspired cupcakes, and oodles of our “absolutely so good that your eyes will roll into the back of your head” Chocolate Merlot Brownie. If you’ve been saying to your friends “You know, we should totally rent a car and take a trip to the North Fork!”, this weekend coming up is that weekend. Stop putting it off and come take over the East End with us!

You should also go out and eat some of these cupcakes RIGHT NOW, because who wants to wait for the weekend?

o

Clockwise from front: Root Beer Float, Chocolate Cashew, Peach Melba, Lime in de Coconut

Root Beer Float: Root beer cake, root beer custard, vanilla buttercream, maraschino cherry

Chocolate Cashew: Chocolate cake, cashew buttercream, roasted cashews, ganache

Peach Melba: Brown sugar cake, raspberry jam, vanilla buttercream, brown sugar peaches, graham cracker crumbs

Lime in de Coconut: Coconut lime cake and buttercream, roasted coconut, lime zest

The good news…..I’ve been asked to be a featured speaker at this summer’s Social Retail Summit in DUMBO! It going to be about social media blah blah blah community bridges non-linear thinking blah blah blah blah. I’m not really sure- it’s bunch of people who work for dot coms and me. Either the quality content I share with my audience on platforms like this page right here makes me some sort of “expert” in the field, OR they just read the article on Fast Company and have yet to actually see this crapshow blog. Now onto yet another post that has absolutely nothing to do with baking!

Let’s talk the bad news. I need a professional headshot for this thing. It wasn’t something that had occurred to me to have professionally done before, mostly because the top things I despise are, in order:

1. Raisins

2. Getting my picture taken

3. The Islanders

4. When I see that Cheers is on TV and I’m like “YAAAAAY!”, but then I put it on and it’s a Diane episode and I’m like “BOOOOOOO!”

5. Raisins again.

You’d think with all the interviews and press we do, I’d have gotten used to this, but I am hands down my most unphotogenic person that has ever existed. I’m awkward in front of the camera, and what’s worse is that I’m actually aware of the fact I’m awkward and know I’m going to look like crap, which is why photos of me ordinarily appear as if I have 6 chins and am actively pooping.

So once I received this news, was the first thing I did to contact a photographer? Find ways to combat my fear using the sorcery of Google? Of COURSE not! I went on Facebook and started complaining. And my good friend Liz Gutman of Liddabit Sweets suggested I just suck it up, stare longingly into my iPhone and make a duckface. Which, of course, caused me to stop what I was working on and start studying the phenomenon of “Duckface”.

I believe that the first popular usage of Duckface by was by Walter “Duckface” Berman on Full House, as pictured above. My first headshot ended up like so:

Which is hands down 10 times better than most of the pictures I’ve ever taken! Gutman, you’re a genius!

Then I Googled “Duckface” and found about a billion photos that looked NOTHING like what I took. I tried copying it all……

“Pensive Philosopher” Duckface……..

“Stumped by Long Division” Duckface….

“Actual Duck” Duckface.

The more I looked at these, I realized that actually NOTHING looked like a duck. In fact, I don’t know why poor ducks got dragged into this at all. I’ve seen this look before - in fact, we all have………

It’s BLUE STEEL! Very simple to do- pucker lips, suck in cheeks, create the illusion that behind your eyes, there is an endless soul-sucking pool of nothingness. 

Unfortunately my head is still too big to pull this off, so I’m stuck with my default- the Carl Spackler.

Which, I guess, is the next best thing.

Hey, at least the cupcakes are sexy.

Clockwise from front: Ebinger, Tres Leches, Peach Melba, Strawberry Shortcake

Ebinger: Chocolate cake, chocolate custard buttercream, chocolate fudge, chocolate cake crumbs

Tres Leches: Three milk soaked brown butter cake, dulce de leche buttercream, caramel shards

Strawberry Shortcake: Vanilla cake, strawberry syrup, mascarpone buttercream, strawberry compote, vanilla cake crumbs

Peach Melba: Brown sugar cake, mascarpone buttercream, raspberry jam, peach compote

Cupcakes, brownies, whoopie pies, and more are available at Robicelli’s at DeKalb Market and select Robicelli’s retail partners. Selection at retail partners is at the discretion of their management, not us, so call them directly if you’re looking for something specific!

I think I’ve finally discovered my destiny. And that destiny…..is for me to be big in Japan.

Over the past few months we’ve been doing some pretty heavy thinking here in the Robicelli’s household. We’ve been letting our little mom & pop grow organically for the past few years, sort of seeing where it takes us, keeping ourselves open to new opportunities, and allowing ourselves to make changes that best suited our customers. We always said that we wouldn’t consider opening another store or anything major like that until the kids were in school. Time moves fast, because that happens this September.

I’ve been doing tons of research this year- writing about 10 versions of a business plan (that changes every day), talking to potential partners and investors, and all in all determining the best way to go about achieving our ultimate goal: making millions of people happy. 

Then a few weeks ago, I read this article about different flavored snack foods all over the world. Further investigation led me to learn that my favorite candy in the whole world, KitKat, has like, a billion different varieties in Japan. Seriously! Orange KitKats! Red Bean KitKats! Soy Sauce KitKats! I mean, that last one sounds like it would be totally gross, but still!

Mind blowing revelations like this meant that more digging was needed, and I needed to stop researching industry trends and growth patterns and study important things, like finding out why did I not have access to caviar-flavored potato chips, yuzu glazed Kentucky Fried Chicken or 100 flavors of KitKats. Turns out that in Japan, they’re apparently totally obsessed with both “limited edition” and “off the wall” flavors. And though KitKat just so happens to be the #1 candy in Japan, they’re not the only company who subscribes to this method when doing business overseas.

Behold such wonders as:

Salty watermelon Pepsi! 

Salami Doritos! Other flavors I’ve found: Anchovy & Garlic, Clam Chowder, Teriyaki Mayonnaise, and “Krazy Mixed Up Salt and Steak Special Flavor”

Beef tongue Cheetos!

Balsamic Vinegar Pringles! (also found Marinara and French Onion Soup flavors)

And this is just the stuff I could find picture of on NapaJapan.com, which is quickly becoming my favorite site because you can order all of these things. And because flavors in Japan change so much, their inventory changes every week or so. 

I think it’s obvious that the Robicelli’s could be the biggest thing to hit Japan since Anvil (I bet you thought I was going to make a Godzilla joke here, didn’t you? Well I didn’t. Because THAT’S RACIST).

So call us, Japan! What can we do for you guys? Yuzu honey cupcakes? Ume plum and sea salt ice cream sandwiches? Calamansi caramel brownies? Or maybe you’d like something like these:

Clockwise from front: Triple Chocolate Raspberry, Tres Leches, Peach Melba, Ebinger

Triple Chocolate Raspberry: Chocolate cake, ganache, chocolate raspberry buttercream, fresh raspberry, ganache & raspberry drizzle

Tres Leches: Three milk soaked brown butter cake, dulce de leche buttercream, caramel shards

Peach Melba: Brown sugar cake, mascarpone buttercream, peach compote, raspberry jam

Ebinger: Chocolate cake, chocolate custard buttercream, chocolate glaze, chocolate cake crumbs

These cupcakes, plus brownies, whoopie pies and more, are available at Robicelli’s at DeKalb Market, and select Robicelli’s retail partners. Availability is determined by individual location.