Two Tablespoons Makes Cupcakes Trendy Again with Creative Asian Flavors Alongside Classic Offerings

The craze for cupcakes might have died down a bit since Carrie Bradshaw famously chowed down on one of Magnolia Bakery's decadent offerings in season three of Sex and the City in the mid-noughties, but we have a feeling that craze is about to be reignited in Beijing with the opening of new cupcake bakery Two Tablespoons.

Located in Dongzhimen, the "two tablespoons" in the name are Kuankuan, a café owner and former employee of a multinational company, and Julie, a passionate home baker originally from Hong Kong. Four years ago, Julie left a high-flying career in Hong Kong to move to Beijing and become a stay at home mom. With more time on her hands, she started baking in earnest, baking cakes for her children's international school classmates, offering baking classes, and traveling the world to take classes at culinary institutions like the Cordon Bleu. It was during this time that Julie met Kuankuan, who was looking for a reliable supplier of pastries for her cafe.

When discussing what kind of cakes and pastries they should offer, Julie was adamant that she didn't want to open a traditional, fancy French bakery; rather, she wanted to create something accessible and appealing to Chinese customers. While baking for the international school crowd she had found that cupcakes, in particular, seemed to appeal to both young and old, Chinese and Western customers, so they decided to make cupcakes their focus.

However, these are no ordinary, Magnolia Bakery-style cupcakes. In order to appeal to the tastes of increasingly health-conscious Chinese customers, Julie has created a series of lighter, less sweet cupcakes that incorporate popular Asian flavors such as black sesame, red bean, and even bubble tea. These cupcakes use a base of Hong Kong-style chiffon cake instead of traditional cake mix. Julie also noticed that many of her friends were concerned about the quality and safety of food products in China, so all of Two Tablespoons' cupcakes use imported ingredients such as Valrhona cocoa powder, French beurre d'Isigny, and Elle & Vire cream cheese.

Another thing we found interesting about the cupcakes is that they are designed according to what Julie calls the "four sensations," meaning that each cupcake has 1) a spongy base, 2) a creamy frosting topping, 3) a counter-textural topping, and 4) a surprise in the center. So, for example, the bubble tea cupcake above is not only topped with tapioca pearls and tea-scented frosting – once you cut into the cake you'll find a mixture of red beans and grass jelly (仙草 xiāncăo).

Of course, no cupcake shop would be complete without the classics, but even these have been "lightened-up" where possible; for example, the red velvet cupcake (pictured in lead blog image) is topped with a meringue frosting rather than the traditional cream cheese-heavy version — although trust us when we say that this doesn't detract from the overall richness of the finished product. 

Two Tablespoons currently sells around 15 different cupcake flavors, priced between RMB 25-35.

Delicious cupcakes aside, we feel it would be remiss if we didn't mention that Two Tablespoons employ a number of staff from Bainian Vocational School (BNVS), China's first tuition-free, not-for-profit vocational school aimed at equipping underprivileged youth with the vocational skills they need to enter the workforce. Many of the young trainees from BNVS joined Two Tablespoons straight after graduating, and Julie and Kuan are working hard to teach them English and help them learn about working in a proper Western bakery. 

Said staff can be seen working hard in Two Tablespoons' open bakery and glassed-in frosting room, which make up the bulk of the store front. The outside of the store is designed to look like a food truck and is, rather surprisingly for a bakery operation, painted black, with only a hint of the brand's signature duck egg blue on some of the surfaces. Frankly, we're glad to see they've avoided the cutesy, pastel-hued color scheme that so many other bakery brands go for.

If you can't make it to the store, Two Tablespoons' cupcakes are currently only available to purchase online as 12-cupcake selection gift boxes (RMB 338), but they will soon launch an a-la-carte selection on their online store. 

More stories by this author here.

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Images courtesy of Two Tablespoons