It is no secret that cupcakes are the IN dessert of the moment. From whimsical wedding cakes redeux to the shopping snack that is just too cute to pass up, cupcakes are the new double-tall-vanilla-non-fat-no-foam-extra-hot-latte. Who’s Starbucks? That would be Sprinkles, the little Beverly Hills cupcake shop that could.

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Featured in every pop culture media outlet, from the NY Times to NPR, to In Style and In Touch, Sprinkles is moving on up, and out of Beverly Hills’ palm tree lined boulevards and into neighborhoods near you. In addition to new stores opening up in cities across America, the home baker can partake in the madness by picking up a package of Sprinkles Cupcake mix from Williams-Sonoma, for 14 greenbacks. Which is just what I did last week. Of course I needed the requisite muffin tins (I opted for the mini-muffin tin, smaller means I can eat more).

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Sprinkles claim to fame is their minimalist presentation, a la Jill Sander if you will. Cup cakes in the sunshine state are frosted in a flat top crowned with a “modernist” double layer candy dot. My container included 12 such dots, which on taste inspection, closely resembled craft candy, having decorated a gingerbread house in 1984, still on display in your grandmother’s china cabinet. Very untasty.

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After mixing in my eggs, milk, and lemon zest into the baking mix the cup cakes went upstairs to bake and I set about to make my frosting. I was instructed to sift my three cups of powdered sugar, and I set out with good intentions, fat skimmer in hand, but after sift or two, grew impatient and dumped in the powdered sugar in the mixing bowl.

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This exercise in cupcake baking, I should add, is the longest workout my Kitchen Aid mixer has seen ever. Shaking like one of those 1950’s weight loss machines, I could see why Cooks Illustrated recently rated this series with a “not recommended.” Rather than puffing out over the sides and creating a rounded mound to frost, my cupcakes shrank a tad after cooking.

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As suggested by Sprinkles, I used a small offset spatula to create their iconic flat top rounded edge. Sinking my teeth into the dense lemon sponge cake I wasn’t impressed. The sugar sent my mouth screaming for the toothbrush. To me the cake felt heavy, but Kevin thought otherwise, happily wolfing down more than his fair share. Which brings me to a question. Does food taste better if you don’t cook it?

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