Over on Serious Eats, one of my favorite sites, Ed Levine lists attributes of the perfect cupcake for him. Do our cupcakes qualify? Let’s see…

The cake has to be moist, light, and tasty in its own right, a difficult combination to pull off

Moistness was always one of the top deciding factors when we were recipe testing for our cakes. I’ve also found that “lightness” usually follows, as the moister the crumb is, the less dense it is. As to whether our cakes our “tasty”- oh, yes. Very tasty

The frosting has to be smooth, also light, not too sweet, and deeply flavored

We’re especially proud of our frosting. It’s too easy to mix up some powdered sugar and butter and call it “frosting”, and we never do that. Also, our customers’ first reactions are usually, “Ooh, not too sweet!”

A cupcake doesn’t have to be huge. Cupcakes have become like bagels in this town, and like bagels, bigger is most assuredly not better. Size matters in cupcakes, but not in the way that you think

Our cupcakes are standard American size, which means they aren’t too big, and aren’t too small.

Listen up. This last quality is really important. A great cupcake has to have the proper ratio of icing to cake. Other people may have different ideas, but I think there should be a 1 to 3 ratio of icing to filling. This hasn’t been scientifically proven, but my guess is that Harold McGee and/or Jeffrey Steingarten will weigh in on this topic very soon.

While I respect this frosting-cake ratio preference- indeed, I personally agree with it!- the fact is that many, many people want a lot more frosting on their cupcakes than that. For example, I’ve gotten more and more orders for “frosting shots” (they want to do away with the cake completely!)

So do I bake perfect cupcakes? I don’t know- but I do know that not a single cupcake leaves my kitchen without passing my own “perfection” test.