A "Sprinkles", In Time
SPRINKLES CUPCAKES | 780 Lexington Avenue (bet. 60th & 61st Sts.) | 212.207.8375 | sprinkles.com | 
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I'VE ALWAYS APPRECIATED NEW YORK for being the city where a great many culinary trends are born. And even when we run out of food items to create, we have the same skill of bringing back a common food and making them great—or at least trendy—again.
In the last decade alone, Gotham has breathed renewed popularity into long-standing pedestrian items such as BURGERS, PIZZA, GRILLED CHEESES, even macaroni and cheese. It seemed every month some new restaurant opened up touting upscale, downscale, and re-imagined versions of foods we've all eaten since childhood.
And late in that last decade the effort to repurpose those familiar dishes extended to sweets as well, as we have also experienced exciting new spots giving concentrated love to doughnuts and cupcakes as well.
So even with the zeitgeist that was Magnolia Bakery settling down to more subdued appreciate, it seemed unnecessary for NYC to need another big cupcake place, as the avid fervor for them has declined recently.
Enter Sprinkles Cupcakes, a still rather appreciated national cupcake chain that started out west and is now eager to make a name for themselves in the food capital of the world, opening a shop just last week on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan's (lower) UPPER EAST SIDE.
Most New Yorkers I know were scarcely aware of Sparkles Cupcakes, but for the last two weeks or so, have been inundated of news that some cupcake chain was installing a cupcake ATM in the city. Word spread quickly and tons of press, foodies, bloggers, Yelpers, and Instagrammers alit to 60th and 61st Streets on Lexington to be the first to check out this contraption. (A cupcake ATM at the Los Angeles location of Sparkles has been enjoying some success there for months.)
Having no patience for the crowd and mayhem that surrounded the NYC location once it opened last Tuesday, I decided to wait until early Saturday morning to see this thing for myself. Unfortunately, even though the cupcake ATM is listed online as being available 24 hours, it was not yet running when I got there at a quarter to 9 in the morning, much to the disappointment of not just me, but the handful of like-minded curiosity seekers who also wanted to avoid the aggravation of long lines.
The ATM would be operational until 9:30 a.m., but the actual Sprinkles shop—that it is adjacent to—opened its door at 9, much to the delight of the surprising number of people there who didn't weren't aware of the affiliation. All of us deciding it was more important to sample the cupcakes than to use the ATM, we all filed in to check the full operation.
Yes, rows of nicely decorated cupcakes of a variety of creative and mainstream flavors were prominently displayed and all looked very appetizing. Knowing full well I would chose the more "out-of-the-box" options, I bought a Lemon Meringue cupcake and a Cinnamon Sugar cupcake.
The Cinnamon Sugar cupcake had all the familiar morning comforts of cinnamon toast in flavor and aromatics, and the reminder of texture of nice coffee crumb cake. To that effect, the cupcake doesn't come with frosting, and was a little dryer than I expected, although I'm sure would be nicely assisted by a dip in a hot cup of coffee or cold glass of milk. (I had neither, so needed a cup of water to finish it.)
The cake part of the Lemon Meringue cake, on the other, was perfectly moist, and also had the slightly over-baked, cookie-like crisp edges that I love in cupcakes, was topped with a deliciously browned meringue top that wasn't too gummy, and hid a ideally sweet/tart center of gooey lemony goodness. Most bites I was able to get a bit of cake, meringue, and lemon cream, and those bites were heavenly.
Sparkles had several others to try and, although I don't have as much as a sweet tooth as most, I could see myself popping in to try some other flavors (maple bacon!) if and when I find myself back in that part of the UES. (I, of course, still have local favorite TWO LITTLE RED HENS just two blacks away for any sudden cupcake "jonesing".) If you plan to swing by, they have pretty boxes of different sizes for you to take any number of sample home in.
And if you still want to try the cupcake ATM—which was operational by the time I left the shop—go earlier than later, and expect neighborhood locals, tourists, bloggers, Yelpers, and Instagrammers to take pictures and videos of you while you're using it. Because even if Sparkles is a bit behind the height of cupcake popularity that was the early 00s, spring and April mark the (unofficial) start of a new "foodie" year. (Warm weather brings out back out to the restaurants, food carts, etc.) So, in enough ways, Sparkles—and their media-"buzzing" cupcake ATM—is right on time.
Bun Apple Tea!
KACNYC
SPRINKLES CUPCAKES | 780 Lexington Avenue (bet. 60th & 61st Sts.) | 212.207.8375 | sprinkles.com |
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