The Great Cupcake Expedition

With October being a month of sweets, treats and tricks what better way to start the month blog with the tale of the cupcake expedition. The fact that starts this little tale: I have a love affair with cupcakes. That was a simple fact turned into an adventure by the discovery that cupcakeries existed! Cupcakeries my friends are like bakeries but only for cupcakes.

The story begins quite a few months ago, one afternoon when I decided to give blood. In the same shopping complex as United Blood was a little store called Cupcakery. The Cupcakery is located on Thousand Oaks Blvd. in the city of Thousand Oaks, it's a fancy dancy little shop with a cupcakes on a tree in the window. That was the first ever Cupcakery I saw and visited. A strawberry shortcake cupcake with delicious strawberry frosting. But that was the end of the book, or so I had thought.

Sometimes I get on kicks, cravings that drive me to Vons at midnight in search of things like cupcakes. An old friend suggested that I try a place called Sprinkles in Los Angeles. She pretty much swore her life on the fact that this Cupcakery was the best. And so the expedition began!

The first and foremost place was indeed Sprinkles. We rode around Little Santa Monica Blvd in search of our cupcakery for the day. A car full of five young adults, trying to decide what exactly this place was going to look like. We had decided it would be bright colored and have rainbow umbrellas on top of tables. This imagined images might be why we missed it the first time, because it was just a building. A brown building with the word sprinkles in pink, very very small word on the top of the building. So we missed it, turned around and parked. We waited in line, my friends declaring that this place better be the best damn cupcakes they've ever had for the wait. The wait was well worth it! I ordered a red velvet cupcake and a key lime west cupcake. The key lime west is a seasonal item and that idea makes me want to cry because I dream about this cupcake. We all dream about those cupcakes, we are slightly convinced they put some kind of addictive substance into their frostings. And the red velvet, one of their most popular flavors I happen to save for later and let me tell you that cupcake is amazing cold. I actually have gone back several times since that first time to Sprinkles, and still only eat the red velvet after its been in the fridge for the night.

Here is where the expedition really took off because, I raved about those cupcakes. I dreamed about those cupcakes. I was pretty sure that Sprinkles was cupcake heaven. But others, seemed to disagree. So I started getting suggestions of other places that were better than Sprinkles. First place was Suzy Cakes in Calabasas where I ordered a red velvet cupcake to have some comparison point. It was good, but the frosting was different. The frosting at SusieCakes is the original cream cheese frostings while at Sprinkles the frosting was not completely cream cheese but some combination with vanilla maybe? Whatever it is, it makes it better at least to me because I don't like cream cheese frosting.

The week after that I tried a place literally across the street from SusieCakes called Crumbs. Aside from Sprinkles, Crumbs is the cupcakery I have been to the most since my first try. The conclusion of these visits is that Crumbs ranks 3 out 5 in cupcakeries. At Crumbs the chocolate cupcakes are definitely the better ones - they are wonderfulness. The red velvet runs into the same problem for me because of the cream cheese frosting bit. I also tried the raspberry swirl which is also sort of awesome. The interesting thing about crumbs is that there is inserted frosting/ topping inside the middle of the cupcake. Another great thing about Crumbs is that there marketing campaign is sort of wonderful and reminds me of Disneyland's current marketing strategy. It's about celebrating the everyday little things and I support that.

The last cupcakery I went to was Dots! In Pasadena an adorable little place, windows with painted dots and cute little seats and tables. What is even better about Dots is that there are regular sized cupcakes and  baby cupcakes! They are cheaper than the other places and because of the baby cupcakes you can try more flavors. The red velvets are delicious, because they also use the mixed type frosting that is not just the cream cheese. The flavor selection is vast and they really are very good. Dots is definitely number 2 out of 5 and though its even further from me than even Sprinkles its worth the drive.

Sprinkles is still number 1 but I recommend that if you have the chance you try each of these places. I have added the links to most of the places below and pictures of my favorites!

http://www.sprinkles.com/index.html
http://susiecakesla.com/
http://www.crumbs.com/
http://www.dotscupcakes.com/