Los Angeles, CA (The Joy of Food) — Sprinkles began as a haute cupcakery to the stars with this location in Beverly Hills in 2005, ushering in the era of designer sweets and the prices to match. Before Sprinkles, charging $5 for a cupcake would have gotten someone punched in the face.
Cupcake legend has it that Barbra Streisand was the first ‘name’ to discover Sprinkles and then introduced the cupcakes to Oprah, as one does. A mention by the talk show queen quickly gained the then-small bakery national attention and the rest, as they say, is history.
In pre-historic times, cupcakes were made with basic ingredients like flour, eggs, and sugar. Then came Sprinkles with its premium add-ins of the finest caliber like Madagascar Bourbon vanilla, Valrhona dark chocolate, and tears from Baby Jesus. The use of fresh fruits was also a novelty, because the world had not yet heard of using, for example, a strawberry to make something taste like a strawberry. Genius!
In present times, Sprinkles has a roster of regular cupcakes as well as rotating and seasonal flavors. Cupcakes are baked fresh throughout the day, resulting in a product that’s moist and decadent. While I love sweet things, I’m not a fan of cloyingly sweet things, and Sprinkles strikes a nice balance with its light cake batters and simple cream cheese frosting, the virtual opposite of most cupcakes out there. Across the board, the frosting is dense yet minimally applied. This adds some richness without making the end result a mountain of sugar.
If you’ve had the strawberry cupcake here, then you know that it tastes exactly like the fresh strawberries that get pureed into both the frosting and the cake, slightly less packed than a muffin in texture.
Sprinkles was my introduction to red velvet, a light southern-style chocolate cake batter that gets topped with cream cheese frosting. They also make a vegan version of this cupcake; aside from the coconut milk flavor in the frosting, it tastes just about as close to the ‘real’ red velvet as you can get.
I’ve enjoyed most flavors here over the years with the exception of the vanilla and carrot cupcakes which, though made well, just taste too ordinary to be worth the price.
Sprinkles has parlayed its original success and frenzy into ice cream and cookies and now has a steady stream of other firsts in its repertoire, including the first Cupcake ATM found right next door to this store. It’s actually a vending machine, but whatever. The ATM takes your money in exchange for fresh cupcakes, satisfying the sugar-crazed any time day or night. Sprinkles was also the Kogi of cupcake-ville, introducing the world to its first cupcake truck in the form of the Sprinklesmobile and, like Kogi, leveraged social media to share logistics and create buzz.
If anything, Sprinkles is now a ‘brand’ and is recognizable through even the smallest of details, like the bright geometric buttons they use as toppers, or the signature spatula’d frosting that’s hand-worked onto every cupcake they produce.
Re-inventing a classic American staple came with a price — a high one. Once the industry introduced premium stuff into a previously non-premium product, mindsets changed. Nowadays, if your salted caramel isn’t topped with fleur de sel crystals flown in from France, then it’s crap. And once people paid the higher price, they became desensitized to the cost and accepted it as the price to pay for nicer things. The concept works for Chanel, so why not cupcakes?
Though the lines are no longer out the door thanks to increased supply and availability in cities across the nation, Sprinkles continues to crank out a quality product that’s better than the competition’s which, by the way, emerged thanks to its success. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but when it comes to cupcakes, Sprinkles still reigns supreme.
Written by Joy
Thanks for reading. The Joy of Food blog celebrates eating well, traveling often, and living la dolce vita. San Diego, California is home base, but thoughts are from all over. Reviews and photos help to highlight wonderful (or not) food experiences from around the world.
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Whoa, I did not know they had ice cream, cookies AND a vending machine! It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a Sprinkles. I see their cupcakes are still very visually appealing!
They do it all well for sure. I’ve started to appreciate their ice cream a tad more than their cupcakes, but ultimately, they are still impressive so many years into the game.
That’s great you visited the original location! Can you walk up and get just one cupcake now?
Yes last time I was there they had the table out front but you could order just one (or get it from the ATM depending on if the flavor was available).