Bay Area Foodie

You’ve heard me discuss my Sprinkles obsession in the past. Now I’m taking it to a whole new level. There are 23 regularly featured Sprinkles cupcakes plus 17 seasonal and I am on a mission to try them all! My plan is to go once a month to the Palo Alto store and buy no more than 6 flavors at a time. By my calculation it will take me 12 months to accomplish the task of eating all 40. Are you up for the challenge? Join me! MISSION COMPLETED SEPT 2009 but when new flavors are introduced I add them to the list.

I adore these cupcakes but all are not created equal. Here is how I rank them…

1. Red Velvet – super moist, the light chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting are perfect complements
2. Banana – very moist, bananalicious!
3. Brown Sugar Praline -  best seasonal cake, fantastically crunchy and sweet, should be a regular flavor
4. S’more – simply genius… the graham cracker bottom is divine & the gooey marshmallow finger lickin’ good, pls make it a regular flavor! *NEW
5. “The King” (banana cake/peanut butter frosting) – I’m all shook up… the peanut butter was like skippy, needs to be a regular flavor
6. Strawberry – hint o’ strawberry is lovely
7. Peanut butter chocolate – soft chips, moist cake, flavors remind me of a See’s Milk chocolate Bordeaux candy
8. Lemon – yummy light lemon flavor, dense cake
9. Pumpkin – awesome cinnamon frosting
10. Eggnog spice – eggnog frosting rocks
11. Salty caramel – good caramel flavor frosting, salt on top is nice
12. Lemon blueberry – think blueberry muffin w/ lemon frosting – another good morning treat
13. Almond dark chocolate – flavor of a poppyseed muffin minus the seeds. I wish it didn’t have sliced almonds in it.
14. Vanilla milk chocolate – a classic cupcake
15. Cinnamon sugar – a cupcake with NO frosting, great for breakfast
16. German chocolate – cool chunky frosting, wish it tasted more coco-nutty
17. Flourless chocolate – dense yet moist, similar to a super rich chocolate brownie
18. Orange – similar to lemon but with orange flavor
19. Vanilla peppermint – great combo,very festive
20. Peanut butter chip – creamy cake, like a mouthful of peanut butter
21. Key Lime – very subtle lime flavor initially but has a zesty finish   
22. Orange cranberry – tasty combo
23. Raspberry – solid cupcake, nice raspberry flavor
24. Milk chocolate – not overly chocolaty
25. Dark chocolate – didn’t think I was going to like this since I prefer milk chocolate but it was good with a glass of milk
26. Caramel apple – didn’t get any real caramel apple flavors, just spice
27. Irish Chocolate – wish the frosting had more Baileys flavor
28. Vanilla hazelnut chocolate – if you think this is going to taste like nutella…you’re wrong
29. Chocolate marshmallow – like a ding dong but needs more marshmallow
30. Coconut – great coconut frosting, cake a bit dry though
31. Raspberry chocolate chip – nice combo but cake was dry
32. Vanilla- sprinkles on top were too sweet
33. Ginger maple – nice frosting, too much ginger
34. Chai latte – herbal flavor with spice frosting
35. Chocolate coconut- dry cake, didn’t like dark chocolate frosting
36. Carrot- if you like carrot cake, you’ll like this (I’m not a fan)
37. Ginger lemon – good on their own but a weird combo
38. Mocha – had high hopes for this – very good mocha flavor but with the choc cake was just bla
39. Banana chocolate – the chocolate frosting masks the banana cake
40. Lemon coconut – dry,dry,dry
41. Chocolate peppermint – too much chocolate
42. Choco loco – cinnamon and chocolate is not my favorite combo
43. Black & White – really bland
44. Summer Cherry – tasted medicinal like cough syrup
45. Red Hot Velvet – frosting tasted/smelled like Dentyne gum (which I despise) & overpowered the cake

How about you? Which flavors make you drool? Leave a comment or two…
General findings:

• The cake to frosting ratio is not consistent. The cupcakes are all the same height but sometimes there is lots of cake and a thin layer of frosting other times less cake and tons of frosting. I guess the discrepancies have to be attributed to the bakers/frosters. On our first trip we had an abundance of frosting the second trip the amount was just right.

• Eat the cupcakes the day you purchase, they really don’t taste as good the next day.

Note: As I continue to devour Sprinkles cupcakes (& gain weight) this list will be updated. For quick access to this list in the future look for the banner below on my sidebar:

Not familiar with Sprinkles? Where have you been? j/k  See this past post.

the flavors (0 to go):

banana
banana w/chocolate frosting
black & white
carrot
chai latte
chocolate coconut
chocolate marshmallow
cinnamon sugar
coconut
dark chocolate
ginger lemon
lemon
lemon coconut
milk chocolate
mocha
orange
peanut butter chip
peanut butter chocolate
pumpkin
red velvet
strawberry
vanilla
vanilla milk chocolate
caramel apple*
orange cranberry*
ginger maple*
chocolate peppermint*
vanilla peppermint*
eggnog spice*
red hot velvet*
irish chocolate*
brown sugar praline*
flourless chocolate*
choco loco*
lemon blueberry*
summer cherry*
almond dark chocolate*
raspberry*
vanilla hazelnut chocolate*
key lime*
salty caramel*
the king*
german chocolate*
raspberry chocolate chip*
S’more*

*seasonal/ limited edition flavors

Update August 2009: You may have noticed recently that Sprinkles each week has been tweeting about secret cupcakes (that only exist for a day and in small qtys) composed by mixing their regular flavors. For example: vanilla & peanut butter or strawberry w/ choc — I WILL NOT be trying all these. I would probably drop dead.

Proof that I actually ate all these cupcakes

Round 1: peanut butter choc, red velvet, banana w/ choc, coconut, strawberry, banana

Round 2: lemon, caramel apple, carrot, choc coconut, peanut butter chip, vanilla

Round 3: ginger maple, pumpkin, lemon coconut, orange cranberry, choc marshmallow, milk choc

Round 4: eggnog spice,vanilla peppermint,vanilla milk choc,choc peppermint,B&W

Round 5: red hot velvet,cinnamon sugar, ginger lemon,dark choc

Round 6: irish chocolate

Round 7: brown sugar praline, flourless chocolate

Round 8: mocha & choco loco

Round 9: key lime & chai latte

Round 10: lemon blueberry

Round 11: summer cherry

Round 12: raspberry

Round 13: orange & almond dark chocolate

Round 14: vanilla hazelnut chocolate

Round 15 (new flavor May 2010): Salty Caramel

Round 16: "The King" (new flavor Jan 2011)

Round 17: German Chocolate (new flavor Jan 2011)

Round 18: Raspberry chocolate chip (new flavor 2/2011)

Round 19: S'more (charity cupcake by Blake Lively Jan 2012)

Filed under: Peninsula, PLACES TO EAT/DRINK, REVIEWS OF PRODUCTS, Sprinkles (Palo Alto) Tagged: | baking, best, cakes, challenge, cupcakes, flavors, food, Peninsula, rankings, sprinkles cupcakes, the original cupcake bakery, top