Crave Cupcakes

"If Sprinkles was the Yankees, Crave is the Red Sox."

Store Presentation: Crave has two different store locations, both of them are in ritzier areas of town so they both are not your poor mans cupcakes. The stores look very elegant and carry their own weight as far as "designer" goes. A point of irony is that the Uptown Park location is right next door to a "My Fit Foods" store.

Web Presence: Crave doesn't use twitter, Not that that's a bad thing. They do some free giveaways from time to time.

What set them apart: Crave doesn't try to be Sprinkles, but they do do a great imitation of Sprinkles in their presentations and delivery of their cupcakes. If Sprinkles was the Yankees, then  They are trying to move into the market that I first saw Celebrity Cupcakes do in that they are offering Mini Cupcakes. They also offer this Starbucks like drink called a "Chiller" which looks good but I haven't tried yet. They also have breakfast cupcakes with glazes on them instead of frosting.

Variety: They do well, the have their staple cupcakes such as vanilla, dark chocolate, vanilla on chocolate, chocolate on vanilla, red velvet and strawberry. Crave does a rotation of about 10 different types of cupcakes besides the daily staples and even has their breakfast cupcake lineup.


Frosting: Their frosting, while I did try some tart flavored cupcakes, was very sweet. Probably the sweetest cupcakes that I have experienced so far in trying all of the cupcakes that I have this summer. I wont bash them, but I do find them almost hard to eat in one setting because of this. You can virtually taste the the sugar grains at some points.

Cake: Now for what they lack in frosting they make up for with cake batter. The cakes do lead most of the tast of whatever cupcake you try, but their signature to all their cupcakes is their preparation. They make very small loads of cupcakes allowing them to not use preservatives or hydrogenated oils.

Strawberry/Red Velvet: I believe that the day that we visited Crave in Uptown Park I tried the Strawberry and didn't get the Red Velvet yet, however I remember the strawberries cake tasting amazing and the frosting while overly sweet being a dead on compliment. I hope to try the Red Velvet next time.

Number of Cupcakes: We got the set of 4 as you can see in the pictures. I got the strawberry and banana while Corrie got the coconut and carrot cupcake. It was great.

Photos:

Sprinkles Cupcakes

"The Gold Standard of Cupcakes"

Store Presentation: Sprinkles suffers from this in that they are trying to keep a chic look within while having to deal with the fact that they lease a building that has been going through transformations the past 2 years. For one year the left side of the building was being renovated to be used by a company that apparently didn't work out too well so they left and another group came in. That group is redoing the outside too so the whole place from the outside looks like a mess. On the right hand side of the store my favorit company, Apple is putting in their first stand alone store in Houston. Sprinkles has had to deal with alot to survive there, but I will say they have done quite well. There was even an article in the Chron about it here.

Web Presence: This is one of the biggest strengths of Sprinkles is how they use the web and social media to leverage business. First off they have an iPhone app, which has become a pretty well respected practice that will give you a list of what cupcakes are being served what day and where the nearest Sprinkles is from where you are located. There isn't a lot to this app, but it wasn't like we should expect a ton. What Sprinkles does do, and I think they were the pioneers in this is that they use social media like it was going out of style. Because of the naturally expensive cost of designer cupcakes, Sprinkles offers secret words for the day for each and every day. The first 50, 100, 200 people who walk into a store having checked their Twitter or Facebook accounts normally know a word that will get them and each member of their party a free cupcake. I've done this several times. Ironically, I remember one day where the first 50 to say a certain word would get a certain cupcake and it wasn't 3-4 hours later and they had already met their quota.

What set them apart: Besides amazing cupcakes, which I'll get to later. Sprinkles has the celebrity factor going for it. Their owner, Candice Nelson, is considered the Paula Dean/Rachel Ray/Martha Stewart of her industry. The woman went from high power attorney to giving it all up and baking cupcakes. She is a judge on the famous "Cupcake Wars" on the food network. Sprinkles to me has great cupcakes too, they know how to balance the level of moisture in the cupcake with the sweetness of the frosting at just the right level.

Variety: Sprinkles does a few cupcakes daily, such as their chocolate marshmallow, vanilla, dark chocolate, and red velvet, but where i think they excel is their rotating list of different cupcakes. You can get a "flavor card" to know what day what cupcakes come out, but honestly, would you want to know. I enjoy being forced to try other cupcakes that I haven't tried yet. Another cool factor with their schedule is that they bring in seasonal cupcakes such as right now they have Key Lime and Vanilla Hazenut Chocolate

Frosting:The frosting is not "sick to your stomach" sweet, but it is sweet. They use a little fondant top as decoration. I liken it to an old stick of gum that has been exposed to air for quite some time. It's still edible, but it's not tasty.

Cake: This too me is where they make their money, the batter makes the cupcake taste the flavor, not the frosting which is so key! The moisture level of the cupcakes is perfect, they don't fall apart but aren't so dry that you don't tast the flavor.

Strawberry/Red Velvet: My litmus test of these two types of cupcakes would have me rate them at about an 9 out of 10. The Red Velvet is particularly amazing. I won't lie.

Number of Cupcakes: We generally get four cupcakes when Corrie and I visit Sprinkles, two for each of us. At 3.50 each, we walk out having spent 14.00. It's worth cost though.


Photos:

Yummy Finds

Criteria for Reviews

These are some of the criteria that are I want to use in evaluating our trips to the store.

Store Presentation: Stores tend to give you an overall impression of what the product will be, if a store is very overly decorated it is probably because they are over-compensating for something else that is lacking.

Web Presence: Do they have a website that you can preview their cupcake flavors? Are they giving you coupons for their cupcakes, or special surprises for their social media followers?

What set them apart: This is their X-factor, what makes them different from others?

Variety: Does this shop have a 1-trick pony or are they versatile in their offerings? It's always better to have options.

Frosting: Is it too sweet? Does the flavor not add up to the name or the overall presentation? Was I disappointed, underwhelmed, or frustrated with the topping? Did they add too much?

Cake: Where is the level of moistness with the cake? Does it keep for a while? Does most of it stick to to the cupcake cups?

Strawberry/Red Velvet: This is the litmus test. Most if not all cupcake shops offer these two cupcakes. I am sure to buy these two at least.

Number of Cupcakes: I'll let you know here how many and what type of cupcakes we purchased (if we can remember the specifics.

Photos: This is self-explanatory.

Cupcakes-The New Pie

I have a friend of mine, Chris Hokanson, who is a charter member of "The Council of Pie." He as well as some guys from A&M fell in love with pie during college and created "The Council of Pie" as a group of friends that when they would be able to get back together would have pie and have great conversation.

While I don't have a group of close friends, I do have a bunch of people I know that like cupcakes. The purpose of this blog is completely for me to visit, enjoy, rate, criticize, berate, and sing praises to the cupcake factories of Houston.

I envision a blog that has literally every known shop in the Houston area and some non-storefront options as well reviewed here in this blog. Then again, it could be simply me blogging about my experience as I try to seek out and find them all!

Over the next few days, I hope to have my reviews on the first four cupcakeries that I have visited this summer. Stay tuned.