Sprinkles Cupcakes

What makes a good cupcake? The quality of ingredients, the mix of flavors, or maybe the presentation? Well Sprinkles Cupcakes does all of these things to produce a product worthy of celebrity enjoyment.

Sprinkles cupcakes is the world’s first cupcake bakery, started in 2003 by Candace Nelson in Beverly Hills. There are now 11 locations across the country, including a Newport Beach location, located at 944 Avocado Ave, which is convenient for Long Beach residents.

Sprinkles La Jolla
 Bottom right: Eggnog cupcake & Triple Cinnamon cupcake
Photo taken by: Britta Garsow

Sprinkles recently added a cupcake ATM outside of the original store. That way sugar addicts like myself can get a delicious cupcake any time of the day. A Sprinkles Ice Cream has also been born and is located right next door to the Beverly Hills location.

Sprinkles offers 10 standard flavors on a daily basis, including their most popular cupcake, red velvet. They also have 12 rotating flavors that are offered on specified days of the week, along with certain seasonal flavors. Sprinkles has vegan and gluten free options as well, so there really is something for everyone.

German chocolate, a seaonal flavor. Photo taken by: Britta Garsow

 Now you don’t have to live close to Sprinkles to experience its goodness. They offer delivery of their cupcakes and ice cream nationwide. Sprinkles can also create custom cupcake boxes for your party needs.

The cupcakes are priced at $3.50 each, or $39 for a dozen, and its worth every penny. If you follow Sprinkles on twitter they often provide a daily “whisper word” that, when whispered to a Sprinkles employee, will grant you a free cupcake!

 Mark Summers, of the Food Network, says “[Sprinkles Cupcakes] is turning a simple cupcake into the next star (www.sprinkles.com),” and I couldn’t agree with him more. I like to describe Sprinkle’s Cupcakes as “little drops of heaven,” and that’s an understatement. Try one, you won’t regret it!
Website: http://www.sprinkles.com/ 

Little Cakes Cupcake Kitchen

Little Cakes Cupcake Kitchen is located at 30 Main St. in Vista, CA. They specialize in cupcakes but offer a variety of other desserts.

I ventured to Little Cakes on Saturday to fulfill my cupcake craving. To my surprise there were at least eight different flavor choices. Little Cakes offers unique flavors like Almond Champagne and Pancakes and Bacon. Look at these beauties:



Top: Almond champagne cupcake & Chocolate peanut butter cupcake
Bottom: Vanilla cupcake & Chocolate hazelnut cupcake
Photo taken by: Britta Garsow



They also had mini New York Cheesecakes and Becksters available. What is a beckster you may ask? Only the best invention to ever come out of the dessert world. A beckster is two cookies, sandwiched together with buttercream and dipped in chocolate ganache. I asked the employee working, Teresa, why they are called becksters, she said “The owner’s wife is named Becky, and she specializes in cookies. These were her creation.” She informed me that becksters are usually available Fridays and Saturdays and they are always a different flavor. The one I have pictured here is two espresso cookies, with a coffee buttercream, dipped in dark chocolate ganache.



Coffee Beckster, see description in photo for details
Photo taken by: Britta Garsow



Little Cakes cupcakes run from $2.95-$3.50, and they always offer “yesterday’s batch” for half off (until they run out). Little Cakes hours of operation are 11:00am-8:00pm Sunday-Thursday and 11:00am-9:00pm Friday and Saturday.

Website: http://littlecakeskitchen.com/