Merry Christmas

It's that time again!  We had our annual Holiday party, and as usual had way too much food. 

I love the little boxes of candy from Sugarfina. They have so many options of colors and flavors it's out of control. 

Easy to make festive cookies and cupcakes. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Holiday Party

Last weekend my roommates and I held our second annual holiday party, where I overdecorated our tree with Candy Land themed ornaments.

Gingerbread Village

Cozy Decorations

Candy from Dylan's

Champagne with Pomegranate Seeds

Savory Table 

Caprese Skewers

Sweet Table

Snowflake Sugar Cookies 

Funfetti Cupcakes

Peppermint Oreo Balls

Of course we had way to much food, and so many left overs, but it was so hard to limit ourselves we got excited!  Everything turned out great and I can't wait to do it again next year.  

Happy Holidays!

Sprinkles Ice Cream

The famous Sprinkles Cupcakes opened their new Ice Cream parlor this week, and obviously it has been packed everyday. Unfortunately I allowed myself to wait in the TWO HOUR line to see what all the fuss was about. Sadly, I was not impressed.

 

The store itself is very minimalist, but the flavors and sundaes seemed to be exciting and unique.

However, the exciting flavors like Peanut Butter Cup, or Capt'n Crunch were not offered at this time. Not only was that disappointing but the actual menu was physically in a place that was blocked by the masses of customers so everyone ordering had to have the servers recite all the options. Incase the wait wasn't long enough..

The TWO girls scooping the ice cream had very interesting methods of building the sundaes and sandwiches. Unfortunately I saw them throw out the cupcake bottoms once the tops were pulled off. It was like Seinfeld all over again.

A Red Velvet ice cream sandwich, with two cupcake tops and their Red Velvet ice cream.

A rather flavorless Red Velvet cone with Red Velvet ice cream and Rocky Road.

This mini cone might have been the savior. At just $1 this cone held more flavor than the other, and this portion of Rocky Road was perfect. The flavor was good, but not any better than Ben & Jerry's.

The Sprinkles Sundae

A double chocolate Sprinkles cupcake cut in half with a scoop of Red Velvet ice cream in the middle. This flavor cupcake is usually my favorite, but for some reason it tasted old. The ice cream was fine, but just tasted like vanilla, and not a special vanilla.

I didn't try these other goodies but they looked good. Overall I was completely underwhelmed, and honestly pissed. I expected so much more from Sprinkles! If you're going to eat real ice cream go to Milk or Sweet Rose. Maybe when Sprinkles has all their kinks worked out, like having a visible descriptive menu, serving the unique flavors promised on their website and staffing more than two people on a weekend night, I might give them a second chance.

Valentine's Day at La Provence

As usual, La Provence has whipped up the most adorable sweet treats for Valentine's Day! The chocolate heart cake is still my favortie dessert they've ever made. It's dense, it's rich, it's perfect.

Cupcakes from Lark

These two cupcakes from Lark in Silverlake were amazing.

The one on the left is a Red Velvet, topped with one of the best cream cheese icing's I've ever had.

The one on the right is an Old Fashioned Ice Box cupcake made of molasses gingerbread wafers (instead of the traditional chocolate wafers). I don't usually love gingerbread, but this was insane. The whipped cream was incredible, and the wafers were soft and flavorful. I literally shoved it in my face.

Frosted Cupcakery

I've been wanting to try Frosted Cupcakery forever (mainly because I knew they had cupcakes stuffed with ice cream!) So I was very happy when I finally went, because these cupcakes are really something special.


Red Velvet with Vanilla Ice Cream - The cream cheese frosting was exceptional, the cupcake seemed to have been muted in flavor due to freezing, but it was still so good, and of course, adorable looking.


Hi-Top Mini Cakes - Red Velvet. I Love these! Don't let the small size fool you, these are packed with flavor. This was so good, and would be great to bring to a party.


Chocolate with Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream - Always my favorite! This was jam packed with fresh flavor, the ice cream itself is great, and the thick ganache icing really took it over the top.

MILK

When I think of Summer, I think of Ice Cream. And when I think of Ice Cream, I think of MILK. They have amazing homemade Ice Cream, Gelato, Bars, Bon Bons and an enormous selection of baked goods. They also have real food, but who cares about that?

This Cupcake Sundae was too cute to pass up. The vanilla/cream cheese icing was delicious...

...and the chocolate cake inside was great!

I love "Make Your Own" Ice Cream Sandwiches, we tried two: Mint Chocolate Chip with Chocolate Cookies, and Coffee Ice Cream with Chocolate Chip Cookies. The ice cream is amazing, but the cookies are INSANE.

What I love about MILK is that they are open late! Great to go to after dinner.

Mini Cupcakes

I know I have written about Vanilla Bake Shop before, but I got these for my birthday and had to share! They are completely assorted, and ALL amazing. Mini cupcakes are the best, because you can try all the flavors!


This is the one that stood out the most to me. It caught me completely off guard! It was a vanilla cupcake stuffed with passion fruit filling and topped with a whipped blackberry frosting. So good.

S'Mores Cupcakes

A friend brought these cupcakes over from Gotta Have S'More and they were such an unusual treat!


The cake part is made of graham crackers, the consistency is very much like the bottom of a cheesecake - very crumbly. The base is dipped in some kinda of green candy melt, to hold it all together. In the middle of the cake is a layer of chocolate, much like a Hershey bar. And finally on the very top is a torched marshmallow. It was delicious. Plus, nothing beats Christmas decorations.. I ate that part too...

Yura's Mini Cupcake

I love mini cupcakes, because you can eat two! This one from Yura on the Upper East Side was really good. I actually liked the cake part better than the icing, which never happens. Chocolate, simple, good.

Yankee Cupcake

Last week I was lucky enough to watch the Yankee game in a box that was very well catered. They appropriately had blue velvet cupcakes with white cream cheese frosting in honor of the team. They weren't extremely tasty...but so cute! The chocolate covered strawberry, however, was delicious.

Magnolia Bakery, LA

It finally opened! I'm not the biggest Magnolia fan ever, but I was excited for this to come to LA. I like Magnolia, it's very charming, I just think Sprinkles cupcakes are much better. Magnolia, however, does have something no one else has: the best banana pudding ever!! I picked out a few things to try, which were all good, but the pudding outshines the rest.

(Click Photos to See Full Size)





The inside of the bakery resembled the NY locations, especially with the long lines, but was larger and more industrial. It's very cute, but no where to sit!










Banana Chocolate cupcake, the special of the day.


Chocolate Brownie


Banana Pudding, a whipped banana cream with chunks of banana and cake.


"The Fat Kid Bite"