Cupcakes for Crystal Meth - Sprinkles Cupcakes

Holy Matrimoly, it’s Wedding Week! no. 2

It was to be a bridal shower of historic proportions. So much to plan, so many details, so the tangerine troupe divided and conquered, and I lucked out with...dessert duty. Whatever it would take, provide the dessert with the budget in mind. Oh, please. This is sooo my thing. This was going to be...cake. Literally. Small ones, since those are in fashion, and well, this bridal shower was going to a very fashionable event.

For several weeks, I prepared. I practiced technique. I tested flavors. Espresso mocha babycakes with vanilla cream frosting were good. That is, if they were being honest with me, those lying babycake-nappers! I even succumbed to the hormonal insistence of mommy-to-be and promised red velvet. I had done disco-conut with fuzzy white afros, and, well, I trusted myself enough that a first pass at lemon-ginger with ginger cream cheese frosting would probably turn out okay. I was ready. Cake flour. Perfectly pastel paper liners. Even...garnish.

But in the last minutes before Friday turned into Frinight, whilst last-minute shopping through pink and white and sheer black lacy naughtiness , I had a momentary lapse of culinary. I don’t know what came over me – maybe some deep, booming bass? It was a fleeting thought of “wait, should I...” that turned into a semi-psychotic desperation of "yes, I should, but..."

411...Beverly Hills...a pastry 911...and can I still order? They said yes. Yes! I thanked them for saving my nightlife. Insanity had turned me into a nasty hypocrite and in the end, I let the Funk win out over the Fashion. I am horrible. I am terrible. But I did dance my a** off :)

strawberry - pretty in hello kitty pink

Sprinkles cupcakes are, without question, pretty. A dozen in a box are all uniform in size and shape – regular cupcake size (not like overgrown dewberry muffins - and if you get that reference, you are my hero) and perfectly smoothed-over dome-shaped frosting. On a tiered cake plate, pastel pink and white frosted cupcakes with tiny sugar flower decorations looked so incredibly girlie cute it made me want to oh, I don’t know, punch Hello Kitty. But only lightly. Like a girl.

too pretty to eat, really

The thing with Sprinkles is that they remind me a lot of some girls I know. Very pretty, beautifully done up. But unfortunately, they cost a lot and once you get past the 2 inches of sugary makeup and expensive accessories, they are dry, bland, and dense. Funny, just like Sprinkles, they're from Beverly Hills, too! Alright, I’m just kidding. I only make fun because I'm jealous ;)

Three of them I had tried last time: black and white, red velvet (just for Jen), and strawberry. Strawberry was the only one that I thought was decent, with real strawberry puree in the cake and in the pink tinted frosting. But on all of them, the frosting was so sickeningly sweet I could feel it in my teeth, literally. The sugar had not been blended into the butter or the cream cheese, so it was sandy, and I felt like I was getting my teeth cleaned with that gritty fruit-flavored polish that the hygienist scoops out of the tiny plastic pot attached to her finger. I hate that. *shudders*

please excuse coconut, she's blonde

The flavor I ordered selfishly just so I could try it was coconut. I had made coconut before for Figi, had planned to bake them again for the BS (that's BS for bridal shower, of course LOL!), and now wanted to see why people get their tastebuds tangled over Sprinkles’ coconut. Hm, I still don’t know why. Over-sweetness aside, the frosting didn’t taste anything like coconut. The cake was way too dense and heavy, had only the faintest flavor of coconut, and sadly, it really tasted like undercooked pure flour bread dough. Again, it looked pretty all done up with white blonde coconut teased into a flurry, but, well, I did say it was blonde.

The cupcakes had gotten many a cooing oooh when they were served, but by the end of the BS, I saw many a half-eaten cupcake on the tables, and a few with just a single bite taken out. If it weren’t for The Crystal Method, there would have been wrappers only strewn all over the tablecloths. I just know it.

tags :: food : and drink : dessert : bakeries : restaurants : reviews : los angeles