best cupcakes????
Looking for comments/discussion of best cupcakes ie. Sprinkles, Leda's Bake Shop in Sherman Oaks, etc.
Foodie Laurie
Mar 18, 2006 11:49AM
21 Replies so Far
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I love Leda's and Clementine's because they use real butter in their buttercream frosting.
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I like Yummy Cupcakes in Burbank, the cupcakes are fresh and delicious, and mostly because it's only a half mile from my house!
Link: http://www.yummycupcakes.com
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we used yummy cupcakes for a birthday party a couple of weeks ago and they were DEE-licious! Even the birthday girl, who normally uses Sprinkles, loved yummy cupcakes.
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I've been a bit obsessed with cupcakes for the last 6 months. Here's what I've tried:
Buttercake Bakery - the best I've found - great chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet. Real buttercream on the choc & van, cream cheese frosting on the red velvet. They also make mini-cupcakes and are very reasonably priced.
West L.A.
http://www.buttercakebakery.com/
Leda's - I liked the kid's cupcakes better than the other ones, though I really wanted to love the fillings that are so unique. Maybe it was the end of the day, but our cupcakes were really dry. And it's kind of expensive for what you get.
Sherman Oaks
http://ledasbakeshop.com/
L'Artiste Patisserie
We went for breakfast and stumbled upon some fabulous cupcakes. The day we were there (I don't know if this is common or not), they had red velvet and carrot cake cupcakes, both were delicious and topped with cream cheese frosting.
Encino
http://www.lartistepatisserie.com/
Bea's Bakery
I kept hearing about Bea's and live in the area, so I figured I'd give their cupcakes a try. Also very moderately priced, but a somewhat limited variety (and no red velvet!) - we had chocolate/chocolate, chocolate/vanilla, vanilla/chocolate, and vanilla/vanilla. Pretty good for a place that doesn't "specialize" in cupcakes, but not necessarily a destination. They didn't disappoint but aren't standouts.
Tarzana
http://www.beasbakery.com/
Toast Bakery Cafe
Went just for the cupcakes - had a coconut, peanut butter/chocolate and maybe a plain vanilla w/buttercream. They're fine, also were a little dry.
Los Angeles, on 3rd near La Cienega
I've not had cupcakes from Joan's, Clementine or Doughboys, but pretty much everything I've had at Clementine has been great, so I'm sure their cupcakes are as well (they've just been sold out when I've been.)
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I also stumbled on the cupcakes at L'Artiste Patisserie. I went for some macarrons and decided to try a red velvet cupcake. The cake was wonderfully moist and the cream cheese filling was a great contrast. I have a chocolate cupcake to try later and am really looking forward to it. I like Leda's cupcakes a lot, but this was moister and larger.
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Clementine has superior cupcakes that taste like they are made for adults, not children.
Coconut vanilla with coconut-cream cheese frosting
Dark chocolate with cream filling and chocolate ganache
Sprinkles has very little to offer flavor-wise.
Leda's, praised by David Kahn among others, sounds interesting but I haven't tried them yet.
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clementine is very good, the choc ganace frosting on the vanilla cupcake is rich and delicioius not terribly sweet, but very buttery.
sprinkles, is all glitz, wbo knows why they always have a line, just because they've specialized in doing one thing, cupcakes, doesn't mean they even do them at all well.
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they have a good p.r. person. thats it.
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I love the cupcakes at Leda's; particularly the carrot cake with blood orange curd and mascarpone butter cream frosting, the lemon, and the passion fruit. Many of the flavors, however, are definitely oriented towards adult tastes.
Agree with JudiAU about Clementine. They make an excellent product, but last time I checked, their cupcakes needed to be specially ordered in advance, and there was a minimum order. Getting a single cupcake was sort of hit or miss (depending on whether they happened to have some leftovers from one of the aforementioned special orders). Has that changed now?
Also agree about Sprinkles. Too sweet, crowded, and just not very good. It's the Crazy Fish of the cupcake world. Wonder why so many bad-yet-popular places seem to be located in BH?
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Auntie Em's Kitchen in Eagle Rock is definitely up there. They have minis, too!
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I would vote for Clementine and Joan's on Third. At Joan's, the coconut cupcake is fantastic.
I tried Sprinkle's and wasn't terribly impressed. Too much emphasis on cute over quality baking.
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For me, CLEMENTINE's cupcakes are by far better than SPRINKLES or JOAN'S ON THIRD. I have heard good things about DOUGHBOYS and LEDA'S.
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We got Auntie Em's cupcakes for a birthday in a bunch of assorted flavors and they kicked sprinkles butt. My favorite was the lavendar, and the chocolate with strawberry buttercream.
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We live in Echo Park and hit Auntie Em's weekly. There is always a line on the weekends, but if you hit them on a weekday you get a great selection, and no line. A must try is the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
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um, normally i don't have hugely negative reactions to anything in the sweets category - butter, sugar is all good right? however, i did not like sprinkles at all. it really depends on what you like.
i did however, think leda's were good, though i only tried a half dozen (yes, ALL of them) of the mini ones. the cake was finer, lighter than sprinkles, and the frosting wasn't overly sweet. better balance of sweet throughout rather than dull cake with overly sweet frosting.
Link: http://thedeliciouslife.blogspot.com/...
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if you are on the westside - try Stroh's in Venice on Abbot Kinney. They have a small assortment of cupcakes that are always great - the buttercream is definitely made with real butter, and the cake is always moist. They don't make them 'in house,' they get them from a local bakery.
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sprinkles = dry, fell apart. thank goodness i didn't have to wait in line ( i was there on a early friday afternoon).
joan's on third = delicious & moist.
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reading sprinkles=dry, fell apart reminds me of my recent and first visit to sprinkles. i waited in line for 10 minutes, and after buying that overpriced little confection i stepped out the door, licked the top, tried to take a bite, and watched half of it fall onto the ground. no big deal, unless you pay 3.25 for a tiny cake. booo
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I really feel like Leda's in Sherman Oaks are the best cupcakes. At first the size was off-putting, but now I appreciate and expect it. I've found all the flavors to be quite tasty and never dry, as a previous poster said.
I had an awful coconut cupcake at clemtine recently. I'd still give some of their other flavors a try, as I love everything else they have, though. the coconut cupcake was just remarkably dry...
I only like the red velevt cupcake (and red velevt cake) at Toast on 3rd. I've found the other flavors to be very dense, sugary and dry...like old bake sale cupcakes.
At Doughboys (across the street from Toast on 3rd) the cupcakes are more like mini cakes (huge!) and the red velvet is by far the densest (and maybe oiliest?) version I have had thus far. Good, but I personally prefer the cakier version at Toast.
I have no desire to try Sprinkles, as I have heard nothing but bad things on this board and elsewhere about them. However I will definately try L'Artiste in Encino shortly as it is very close to my yoga studio and i can eat it while on a caloric "deficit" so to speak.
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I really enjoyed a tart lemon cupcake from Yummy Cupcakes in Burbank, and I think their chocolate ganache icing is really good, too.
And if you don't feel like a cupcake, you can just go in and get "a spoonful of frosting" to go!
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I am going to open a cupcake bakery soon. So a few weeks back I took my friend and my daughter on a LA bakery field trip.
When we got to Sprinkles the line was almost to the corner!
My daughter counted 68 people in line ahead of us. It was an hour and 15 minute wait for our cupcakes.
(Crazy I know but we were commited and my guest had never been there.)
So the scoop from people in line was that Barbara Strisend recently gave Oprah some cupcakes from Sprinkles and then she raved about them on the show and gave everyone in the audience some. So that explains the line.
When we were at Boule they mentioned that Sprinkles had leased a production kitchen up the street from them recently to handle the demand.
Our opinion of their cupcakes... my guest, also a pastry chef, was not impressed at all. She said she even let some of her 6 go to waste the next day.
My daughter loved hers but was disapointed that they did not have her favorite pumpkin flavor that day.
I have had some there that are great and some that are not great. How they can be dry when they are selling them as fast as they can bake them I do not know. Same thought about Magnolia in NY.
Out of our trip that day including Leda's, Joan's, Toast, and Sprinkles (we never made it to Clementine since the Sprinkles line was so long) Leda's was the best by far. Quality ingredients, great intense flavor and texture. Yumm!
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