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“Up yours!” Wendy Noble has said, figuratively, to the corporate world that canned her some months ago. “I will start a cupcake business! And it will prosper! So nyahhh-nyahhh, nyahh-nyahh nyahhhhhh!”
Noble and husband, both unexpectedly liberated from their respective jobs a few months back, refused to take the low road and go a-begging for another grab at the corporate teat. Instead, the Nobles created Not Your Ordinary Cupcake and in a short time have assembled an impressive stable of meticulously decorated cupcakes. Not only is revenge sweet, but, one wonders, why would Wendy do anything besides this when she so clearly excels at it?
Here’s what we’re talkin’ bout.
The chocolate-covered strawberry cupcake (above) has chocolate cake, a filling of strawberry preserves mixed with fresh strawberry bits, a hardened chocolate top crowned with strawberry icing and a massive chocolate-dipped strawberry.
The “GlenMark” (below left) is a lemon-honey cupcake made with honey and free-range-hen eggs from GlenMark Farms just up the street in New Town. It’s lemon-honey cake, cream cheese/honey frosting, and a white chocolate honeycomb shape drizzled in honey. It’s sweet, tart and fresh, like your significant other.
The “Theater Cupcake” (above right) is chocolate cake studded with Raisinets, dipped in chocolate and topped with popcorn, more Raisinets and a red-licorice stick.
The lemon-cherry cupcake has a classy hardened-drizzle chocolate decoration and a cherry filling. The pumpkin cupcake has homemade pumpkin brittle on top, and a pumpkin cream cheese filling. The S’more is stuffed with marshmallow fluff, and features a poofy bed of blowtorched marshmallows beneath a mini Hershey bar; The Almond Joy has a coconut nougat filling; and the Mexican-chocolate cupcake has a cream cheese filling and a garnish of homemade Mexican-chocolate bark.
NYOC is becoming known for their “cupcakes-in-a-jar” (above left) in flavors like Key lime, Neapolitan, and a wild rainbow jar with seven layers. Similarly, “pie-in-a- jar” (above right) comes in flavors like coconut cream, cherry, caramel apple, and pumpkin cheesecake.
Jars can be customized with corporate logos, salutations, and photographs (that's local radio celeb Dave Glover, below left). Mini and full-size cupcake “bouquets” (below right) make for fun gifts, too.
There are plenty of other treats, too, some of which you can view at NYOC’s Facebook page: a cupcake with a gooey butter topping, a turtle cupcake with a pecan-caramel filling and a huge pecan-caramel turtle on top, a Reese’s cupcake with homemade peanut butter frosting, a hazelnut-raspberry cupcake, a caramel-pretzel-Rolo cupcake, a Snickers cupcake-in-a-jar, grasshopper pie-in-a-jar, and Samoa pretzel rods (below) that emulate the Girl Scout cookie.
Wendy’s attention to detail reaches absurd heights in these Thanksgiving cupcakes (below). Wowza!
NYOC also does impressive sugar-free cupcakes for diabetics, like a yellow cake with fresh banana bits (right), pecans and banana pudding, dipped in sugar-free chocolate, drizzled in sugar-free caramel, and topped with a banana chip and more pecans.
What the Nobles have just scored is pretty special – New Town pizza palace Padavan’s NY has just replaced its entire dessert menu with offerings from Not Your Ordinary Cupcake, an assertive endorsement indeed. Those curious about the cupcakes, be they ordinary, not-so-ordinary, in-a-jar, or any-which-way, can try some of Padavan’s deep-fried sushi (not kidding), a “Burgerdog” wrap, or NY-style pizza before sampling the many variations of NYOC cupcakes for dessert.
Not Your Ordinary Cupcake
Available by order here, on the dessert menu at Padavan’s NY and beginning 11/20 at Marsala's Market, both in New Town at St. Charles.
