Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Cupcakes, Sprinkles Cupcakes!

Well here is the second posting about my vacation to California. After spending almost 6 days at Huntington Beach we went down to visit our family for a day. The adults split up and my cousin and I headed to Beverly Hills. We had it planned, we knew we'd be having lunch and for dessert cupcakes from Sprinkles! We both have heard of the place and people rave of how it is so "good." So we had to try it. Just the name is cute! Well for lunch her Aunt mentioned a french type of restaurant that specializes in sandwiches and salads. We said perfect because we wanted something light and dainty. The place was called Le Pain Quotidien. They are everywhere like Australia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Spain, and several other places internationally. I must say it was a very cute place inside. I loved the fact that the middle of the restaurant is 1 long table. Something you'd see in Italy at their Trattorias. Then they had several tables that served 2-4 people. It was unique because they also sold their own baked goods, jams and spreads. I noticed a spread that was a praline spread. I really wanted to get it but I knew when I got back home, it was time to focus on being healthy and cutting out added sweets! So I behaved. Plus I knew I was having a cupcake. At lunch we both ordered tartines, which are open faced sandwiches. They have a delicious whole wheat bread they use made fresh in their own bakery inside the restaurant. My cousin ordered their Grilled Chicken and Smoked Mozzarella tartine with arugula and basil pesto. As for a drink, she ordered their homemade lemonade. I took a taste from her and it was so delicious! The lemon flavor wasn't overpowering and it was sweeten perfectly. Very refreshing. I ordered from their special menu the Turkey, Avocado and Sprouts tartine. They were both delicious, but I liked mine a bit more because I'm not a huge arugula fan (weird huh?), but if that wasn't present then it would of been a tie with mine! Both our plates came with cantaloupe, cucumber, and radishes. My cousin plate had these cute little pickles on them, which were really good. I can't remember the last time I had a pickle!! I wish I had a place like this in Las Vegas. We felt so healthy and not bad about anything we ate afterwards. We figured our cupcakes would even out everything. ;)
The restaurant. My cousin took this photo on her camera. Here with my cousin and I waiting and chit chatting! Here was my plate. Definitely not cheap on the avocado! As soon as I got home I made this again but without the turkey. Just as good!
After lunch we walked around! The stores were very expensive but we found some affordable stores like Coach and Juicy Couture. We even ended up going into Tiffanys. Can you believe I've NEVER been into a Tiffany's store before? This one was huge, I think it was 2 or 3 levels. I found a cute silver peace sign charm. I love jewelry, I can never have enough! Of course I emailed a picture of it to my mom. ;) We walked some more, took pictures with the beautiful flowers and just pretending to be like "tourists." Then I saw another bakery. Crumbs! Now silly me I thought they were known for their compost cookie that has like potato chips, pretzels, and coffee grounds in it. Cookie Madness would talk about the cookie on her site, well I ended up remembering it is a bakery in New York called Milk's bar. So I went into Crumbs asking about this cookie and they looked at me all weird! I checked out their cupcakes and they looked delicious. They had fun ones like twinkie, ding dong, and such. They were a nice size for their price as well. I overheard the people working there that the cookie is described would actually make an interesting cupcake! Sadly, we had our heart set on Sprinkles and decided next time we would try Crumbs!
I'll be back!
Once you get to Sprinkles you know you made it because it always has a line outside the store! The place is small inside and only so many people can fit. Also they don't want their door to constantly stay open because it ruins the freshness of their cupcakes. We waited for about 10-15 minutes. It didn't seem long at all really, plus the weather was great outside! So I can't complain. We had to get 6 cupcakes because everyone in our family heard we were going and wanted us to bring some home for dessert that night. My cousin had her heart set on a red velvet cupcake and I had no idea what I wanted! We finally got in and this is what they had for the day: black and white, chocolate coconut, chocolate marshmallow, cinnamon sugar, dark chocolate, ginger lemon, peanut butter chocolate, pumpkin, red velvet, strawberry, vanilla and vanilla milk chocolate. We ordered a box of 6 and were only saving 4 cupcakes for that night. My cousin got her red velvet and I decided on chocolate marshmallow. I've been on this marshmallow kick lately so that wasn't a hard decision at all for me. The remaining cupcakes we ordered was another chocolate marshmallow, dark chocolate, peanut butter chocolate and vanilla milk chocolate.
Sorry for the blurry words, but I think you can figure it out! ;)
We stayed inside and ate the 2 we chose for ourselves. I never had red velvet before so my cousin let me try her cupcake. The cake was moist, good flavor and held well together. The cream cheese frosting, delicious. I really liked the red velvet but I don't think it is something I'd ever make at home. I think it is too messy!
They gave a nice cake to frosting ratio. I don't like when frosting overpowers the cake.
The chocolate marshmallow cupcake was good. It was like one of those hostess cakes with the marshmallow creme filling. It had a chocolate ganache top that was very rich. Being a chocolate girl it was my favorite part of the cupcake! I spilt the cupcake open and it had a nice filling of marshmallow. It was light, just like the chocolate cake. It was good, but I thought it would be different. I guess I was expecting s'mores!
I wish I could have one now! Only 5 hours away. LOL Beautiful!
My overall thought of Sprinkles. It something we had to try because everyone raves about it. They had a line out the door. They are cute! Were they the most amazing thing in the whole wide world? No, but they are good. Are there better cupcakes out there? I can't say yes, but I'm sure there are. I'm sure I could come up with my own cupcakes and they would taste just as good. Afterwards I kind of wished I tried a Crumb's cupcake! They were bigger and they had different flavors than Sprinkles, kind of felt like a candy shop when we were inside. Out of 5 stars, I give Sprinkles a 3. Average cupcakes, in my opinion. Later on, we spilt the remaining cupcakes into 4 slices each so everyone could taste each one once. My favorites were the peanut butter chocolate and the dark chocolate. Those were amazing! I enjoyed it more then the red velvet and chocolate marshmallow. The peanut butter chocolate had chunks of peanut butter cups and a peanut butter cake which was dense and had a firmer hold. The dark chocolate one was heavenly. This was my cousins favorite one out of the bunch. The frosting was dense and rich, and the cake was moist packed with chocolate flavor. The vanilla milk chocolate was also good. It was light and the milk chocolate frosting pair well with the vanilla cake. We had fun and that what matters! I can't wait to get back there and have another day with my cousin. Being so far apart it hard to get together. We are 3 years apart and now that we are both older we can talk about anything! We try our best to keep in touch. Usually facebook and email works best. It is better then nothing. What can I say, I love my cousin and if she lived closer to me I would spoil her! I tend to spoil the people I love. I'm good like that! Goodnight, Fallon

3 comments:

Katrina said...

Fun times! Fun post. Yummy food!

Pam said...

What a great day with your cousin. Those cupcakes are calling my name.

Cookie said...

OMG those cupcakes look amazing!