Want a cake? A really, really tasty cake?

Well, then, you're in luck! Serious Eats is giving away a whole Two Little Red Hens cake this week. If you've read the blog before, you know that I am a big fan of Two Little Red Hens' goodies - I'm even serving their scones for breakfast on Christmas morning.

That's an endorsement if ever there was one, in my opinion - but, in case you're not convinced, have a look at some of my past posts about the Hens and their fabulosity. But don't spend too long dawdling here; much as I'd love you to spend the whole day poking around in my archives, you have to enter the giveaway by noon EST on December 24th to qualify!

Go, go, go!

Oh, comme il est si petit!

On Saturday afternoon I popped into Two Little Red Hens to grab a scone to have for breakfast before my flight to California. While I was waiting for the crowds to part so I could see what breakfast pastries were left, I noticed a new kind of cupcake in the display case: pumpkin.

That's right, folks! It's officially fall - the kind folks at Two Little Red Hens say so!

I added a miniature pumpkin cupcake to my scone order and scooted home to enjoy it in private. It was, in a word, delicious. The frosting was a whipped cream cheese, flavored with a touch of pumpkin. The cake itself was remarkably moist, but delicate and with a soft, light crumb. And at about three bites, the miniature version was a perfect afternoon pick-me-up.

And super-cute, to boot!

This scone.

This, my friends, is a strawberry-rhubarb scone from the lovely and amazing Two Little Red Hens bakery.

While my neighborhood (Yorkville, part of Manhattan's Upper East Side) is still woefully lacking a great coffee place (Joe, won't you please open over here?), it does have some seriously good baked goods. For bread, you can hit Orwasher's. And for the sweet stuff, you can go fancy and high-falutin' at Lady M, or down-home and amazing with the Hens.

This scone is a perfect example of how they take rustic to the next level. Yes, it's a slightly misshapen, large, American-style scone. But it's made with the best ingredients, it's seasonal, and it's incredibly tender and delicious. Its top is lightly crusted with crunchy sugar, it's stuffed with rhubarb and berries, and its innards are all creamy and lush. It is marvelous.

Next time, we'll talk about the buttery glaze on their cinnamon rolls. Drool.

Lemony lemon goodness.

Once every couple of weeks, I give in to temptation and pick up dessert at Two Little Red Hens. Usually I spring for a cupcake, or maybe a cookie - but last week, I noticed a new item on offer: a lemon mousse tart.

Since this is an American bakery, it's rare to see anything (aside from chocolate mousse cake) with "mousse" in the name. There are pastries, to be sure, but they're usually of the apple pie variety - or blueberry, in the summer.

My curiosity piqued, I ordered one to go. Once I'd finished my dinner (a penitently healthful green salad with grilled chicken), I pulled the tart out of the fridge and sat down to enjoy it.

From the bottom up: a buttery, crumbly tart shell; a rich, not-too-sweet lemon curd; a light, impossibly airy lemon mousse, more akin to a rich meringue, as opposed to a heavy mousse; three strips of candied lemon peel.

In a word: fantastic. Brava, Hens!

When in Rome.

My friend Nicholas is headed to New York for vacation, and asked me to suggest some places where he simply has to eat and drink. Places that fall into the category of "quintessential NYC, on a budget." Well, Nicholas...ask, and ye shall receive. Here are some ideas!

Frankies Spuntino

You all know how much I love the Frankies. (If not, all you need to know is this: it's a lot.) You can't come to New York without eating at least one Italian meal, and these guys do it right. The menu is incredible, the wine list wonderful and reasonably-priced, and it's open for breakfast, lunch and dinner - especially good when you're on vacation and have so many opportunities for deliciousness. Go, and make sure that at least one of you orders the cavatelli with browned butter and spicy sausage. And the escarole salad.

Momofuku Noodle Bar

Another one of my obvious favorites. The Momofuku empire encapsulates the most recent evolution of the New York dining scene, where casual has replaced sumptuous as the go-to model. You may sit on wooden stools, use paper napkins and bump elbows with your neighbor at Noodle Bar, but you'll also eat some of the very best seasonal dishes around.

Café Sabarsky

This cafe is meant to recreate fin de siècle Vienna on the Upper East Side, and it pretty much achieves its goal. Set in a paneled drawing room in a Fifth Avenue mansion-turned-museum, it's filled with Thonet chairs and adorned with Hoffmann sconces. The savory food is good, but the sweets (especially the linzertorte) and the coffee (especially the einspanner) are the best part. Go early to avoid the nutty lunch crowd that inevitably gathers on weekends.

Two Little Red Hens

Some people will tell you that the city's best cupcakes are to be found elsewhere. Those people are, in a word, wrong. Just...wrong. The Hens make the best cupcakes - not too sweet, full of quality ingredients and bursting with flavor. All that said, their breakfast pastries (scones, muffins, sticky buns and - my favorite - cinnamon rolls) and non-cupcake sweets (date bars, fruit pie, cream pie) are my usually choices. But I do have a weakness for their mini chocolate-peanut butter cupcake, too.

And lest this become a novel of truly epic proportions, I'm going to list the rest of my recommendations a bit more briefly. In no particular order...

Balthazar
Head to this classic SoHo bistro for breakfast. You'll save some dough (lunch and dinner can be pricey here), enjoy delicious pastry, and spy on many a power diner.

The Breslin
Another great place for breakfast. You won't have to wait for a table, and you'll enjoy one of the best breakfasts in the city. After all, isn't eating breakfast out one of the great pleasures of vacation?

Ceci-Cela
Best croissants in the city. For reals.

The Dutch
My favorite things here are the cocktails, the oysters and the brunch. Go for drinks or go early.

Five Points
This place isn't new, but it was one of the flag-bearers in the local-and-seasonal-but-not-obnoxiously-self-righteous movement of the early-to-mid aughts. Fantastic cocktails and really great emphasis on seasonal veggies. The kale Caesar is to die.

Acme
My new favorite restaurant - also a great place for a drink. New Nordic cuisine with local ingredients and really cute waiters.

Sripraphai
First of all, this will get you out of Manhattan. Second of all, it's the best Thai food in the city. Take the 7 to Woodside and make sure to order the papaya salad and the pork with chili and basil.

PDT
Really delicious cocktails in a quiet bar. Entering through the phone booth in Crif Dogs only makes it more fun. (You can order hot dogs to your bar stool or booth, too.)

Speedy shortcake.

The other night, on my way home from work, I got a hankering for something sweet. I try not to eat "real" dessert very often, but sometimes the voice inside will not be denied. I had some gorgeous strawberries just sitting at home, on the brink of going bad, so I decided the time was right for some strawberry shortcake.

However, it was already 7:30, I wasn't home yet, and I wasn't much in the mood for cooking dinner AND baking dessert. So, I crossed my fingers and stopped off at Two Little Red Hens on my way home. Sure enough, they had a few buttermilk biscuits left. I snagged one and ran home with my treasure.

After I'd eaten dinner, I sliced a few berries, sprinkled them with sugar, and set them aside to macerate a bit while I whipped a little cream (spiked with a touch of vanilla extract). I sliced open the biscuit, saved half for breakfast the next morning, and put together my half-homemade, half-storebought delight. Juicy, sweet berries spooned over buttery, flaky biscuit, with a generous portion of whipped cream on top.

Who says you have to do everything from scratch, every time? Not I.

Sometimes, it just has to be done.

Generally speaking, I'm pretty good at turning down sweets. My cravings tend to run in the salty/greasy direction (bad Chinese, fried chicken, Pirate's Booty), but, every so often, a need for cake worms its way in.

Last Sunday, just such a craving hit me like a sack of bricks, and I decided to assuage said sack with a marble cupcake from Two Little Red Hens. Conveniently located about half a block from my Yorkville apartment, it's an adorable bakery specializing in traditional American treats. They have ridiculously good maple scones, beautiful cakes, and witty frosted cookies (featured on Sunday: hot dogs and watermelon slices). They also make a mean iced coffee.

The marble cupcake was good - especially the cake part, which was white sponge swirled with chocolate. The buttercream was tasty, but a bit too cold from the fridge. It just didn't give enough, and as a result broke off in little pieces. It was a bit like eating (really, really) buttery fudge. That said, it did hit the spot.

So, is it bad that this was my dinner on Sunday night?

Someone was listening!

OK, so, it's not as good as the real thing - but it's 58 degrees out today, and headed to be about 65 before things are all said and done. We don't get the asparagus or the strawberries or the ramps yet, but we do get the sunshine and the opportunity to break out the dresses and flats!

To celebrate today's preview of spring, I took a walk along the East River and then hit my favorite local bakery, Two Little Red Hens, for a coffee and a cinnamon roll. Totally sinful, but totally worth it. The roll was a delicious, yeasty nest of buttery icing, plump raisins, and spicy cinnamon. I highly recommend a trip to the Upper East Side (or Park Slope!) to indulge yourself.

What are the rest of you doing to welcome our little burst of springtime?

Out and about.

Yesterday, I took advantage of my hangover-free Saturday morning to get up, at 'em, and out the door before 9 AM. I grabbed a cup of coffee at Two Little Red Hens, a bakery up the block from my apartment, and hopped on the subway. 15 minutes later, I emerged in brilliant, crisp sunshine at Union Square, where the farmer's market was in full swing.

I wandered through the plants and flowers - my gardening goals for the spring include a big pot of succulents, so I was really excited to see the variety of beautiful ones available. I haven't bought the big pot yet, though, so I passed up the plants for some groceries. I pondered the duck eggs, but ended up going for some more typical brown chicken eggs at a stand a bit further up on the west side of the park.

A good rule of thumb for farmer's market outings: when in doubt, always pick a stand with a line. A long line means the wares are worth waiting for. I waited in a line of about ten people for my eggs - sold alongside the eggs were chickens from poussin to full-size and pasta made from the eggs. A chicken bonanza.

After the eggs, I picked up onions and shallots at the root vegetable stand, then made my way to the Tonjes Farm Dairy stand, where all sorts of cheesy goodness were on display. Loyal readers of this blog know that I've historically been a bit ambivalent toward the cheese, but when I saw that they were selling handmade, locally-produced fromage blanc at ridiculously reasonable prices ($2 for eight ounces) I leapt into action.

I headed back to the subway and up to my local Italian market, Agata & Valentina, to pick up some odds and ends, and on the way passed Orwasher's Bakery, a Yorkville institution (It opened in 1916.). For some reason, I've always had it in my head that - as a kosher bakery - Orwasher's wasn't open on Saturdays. But, turns out, it is! So I ducked inside and grabbed a loaf of bread.

A quick stop at Agata & Valentina for some tomatoes (I know, shamefully out of season), cucumbers, lettuce and oranges, and I was home again. All before 11 AM. Aren't I so grown up?