New York: Magnolia Bakery & Carrie's Apartment

Being the Sex and the City (SATC) fan I am, of course I have a few SATC spots that are on my must-do list while I'm here in NYC. On of those being Magnolia Bakery - home of the famed cupcakes Carrie chows on when she first starts seeing Aiden.

It was a bit of trek to get to the store (they have a couple of stores) but I wanted to go to this one because it's right around the corner from Carrie's apartment (well, technically her stoop - but I'll get to that in a minute!).The store is really cute and the staff were super friendly. They had some amazing sweets aside from cupcakes too. I grabbed 2 butter cupcakes and 2 chocolate cupcakes.
For those of you who've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that I've been known to bake my own cupcakes using the Magnolia cupcake recipe (and those who know me really well might have actually tasted them!). Here's some I prepared earlier...
They're always very popular when I do bake them, so as you can imagine I was really curious to taste a real Magnolia cupcake. I have my own description for my Magnolia cupcakes - heart attack flavour (because if you have more than one, you might have a heart attack!). The recipe uses a lot of butter and a lot of sugar and when I bake them, the cake itself always turns out quite moist and rich.
Although they were quite nice, to be honest, I was a little disappointed with the real thing. The icing was excellent but the cake itself was kind of dry. It's a big call - but I still think My Little Cupcake (who made my wedding cupcakes) in North Sydney are still by far the best cupcakes I've had.

Cupcakes in hand, I took myself off to 66 Perry Street New York - better known as Carrie's Apartment. Well, it's the apartment block they used for the exterior shots of her apartment.
It's funny how visiting the stoop brought back s many memories of watching SATC. All the nights Nic and I used to watch it at her place on a Tuesday night (correct me if I'm wrong there!) when it was airing on TV in Australia for the first time. It was quite a thrill to get to visit a place I'd never been to before, but feel such a connection with.

There was a little donation box on the stoop that asked you to leave a dollar for every photo you take - with the money going to help kitties and pooches. I threw more than a few dollars in. Money well spent, I reckon.