So today a few of my friends and I headed up to Palo Alto and stopped by Sprinkles Cupcakes. Now, if you haven't already heard of Sprinkles, it started up this whole gourmet cupcakes craze down in Beverly Hills, and, by word of mouth and media exposure of celebrity fanatics like Katie Holmes and the Girls Next Door, eventually grew into a huge trend, spurring the opening of many other mini-cake hot spots.
I've always been a cupcake fanatic. Not a huge fan of frosting, so the idea of a piece of cake with LESS frosting than a slice of cake from a whole cake is great to me...PLUS they're so damn cute! After hearing about this place, I was determined to head down to Bev Hills and try them out. Lucky for me, they opened one up in NorCal and the Husby drove a bunch of us up there today.
Welcome to Sprinkles Palo Alto.
They make certain flavors on certain days and display them behind a plexi glass as you walk in the door. I was kinda surprised by how small they were though. In pictures, I imagined they were a lot bigger, maybe because I heard how much they costed. Alas, they were just the same size as your average cupcake.
They told me to do the honors of opening the box.
Altoghether we bought 6 for about $20. One "Black & White", which is a chocolate cake with white frosting, one Red Velvet (your regular red cocoa with vanilla frosting), three Mochas, and a Banana Dark Chocolate for me.
Kurt & Ann had the Mocha cupcakes,
JN with his Red Velvet, and Christine about to dig into her Black & White
Banana Dark Chocolate
yellow & light blue "nipple" haha
Sprinkles Cupcakes tend to have a signature "button" on top. I like to call it a cupcake nipple. At first I thought it was fondant and would be really soft, but really, it's kind of gross. It's a really hard piece of candy that takes forever to crunch down in your mouth. I bit half of it and threw the other half away...
At $3.25 per cupcake or $36 for a dozen, they're not exactly the kind of everyday snack for the average wallet-ed Joe Schmoe, but I gotta say, they were pretty damn good. As a curious cupcake aficionado, I didn't mind shelling out the money for one. Mine was a banana cake with dark chocolate frosting.
Okay, so did I think they were worth $3.25? Not really. It tasted
really good, the cake was really moist and had a really good flavor to it, the frosting was thick but not too overwhelmingly sweet, but I don't think it's worth upwards of $3! Not gonna lie, they
were really good--definitely miles up from your regular Safeway/Costco cupcakes and completely deserving of being called "gourmet". It's a nice once in a while kind of thing or for a special occasion, but I think it's a little stupid to spend that much on a little cupcake...
Sprinkles, you taste amazing, but unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to afford your indulgence very often at your prices... Thank God there isn't one in Sac. After trying an authentically "gourmet" cupcake, I can understand the hype. The cupcakes at my work are nothing in comparison and
do not deserve to be called gourmet if having the title "gourmet" puts them on the same level as Sprinkles. Maybe we should call them "semi-gourmet"? Now that I've tried Sprinkles, my next venture will be Kara's. I didn't wanna try those first because I wanted to base my judgement after having the
original, and now that I've tried Sprinkles, I'm ready to critique the rest. Kara's, you better be ready for me.
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