Cupcake Road Trip '11 - Day 1: Sprinkles Cupcakes - Palo Alto

When I graduated from grad school, my mom came out so she could help drive me back home to Alabama.  As my graduation present, we decided to make the trip a Cupcake Road Trip, hitting one cupcakery each day as we traveled across 7 states.  You can't do a cupcake road trip that starts in California without hitting one of the many Sprinkles Cupcakes. The original cupcakery, the Palo Alto location was a great start and helped set us on the right foot. In order to facilitate a good comparison across bakeries, we opted to get a red velvet at each, since that is one of the more common cupcake flavors it seems. For this stop, we chose four cupcakes.

From top left going counter clockwise: Red velvet, salty caramel, chocolate marshmallow, and black&white

CupKate's Truck - Oakland

Before I graduated and left the area, I had to make one final cupcake stop: hunting down the CupKate's cupcake truck.  As it turns out, it was parked the Thursday before graduation right outside a BART station and close to a Peet's Coffee (where I was determined to get a Hibiscus Tea as well which you can see next to the box below), so with SR in tow (my official Bay Area Cupcake Shenanigan's Partner) we went out for one last adventure.  Finding it was pretty easy and, despite a rather long line, it wasn't long before I ended up with these (forgive the cellphone pictures, I didn't bring my camera with me for some reason and couldn't resist):

Kara's Cupcakes - Walnut Creek

Before I moved out of the bay area, I had the chance to go to Kara's Cupcakes three more times, each time trying different flavors.  It has cemented itself as my favorite cupcakery in the SF Bay and is a place I will miss now that I've moved away... So what did I try?

Baking Adventure: Banana Pudding Cupcake

I am not a fan of public speaking, so presenting my thesis wasn't something I was looking forward to. Fortunately, it was only infront of my thesis committee and my classmates, but it was still stressing me out.  When I stress, I bake and I figured bringing in cupcakes would help to distract my audience while I presented.  When I found this recipe, I just had to try it out and this was the perfect time!

Too Nice To Slice Bakery - Oxford, AL

Over Christmas break, my mom and I went to check out the only cupcakery near my hometown - Too Nice to Slice Bakery in Oxford.  We selected a half dozen flavors to try and, after some running around, set about trying them out.

Kara's Cupcakes - Walnut Creek

I've had Kara's before when I went to a street festival with SK and they had the Kara-van there, so when I heard that they were opening a location in Walnut Creek (only 20 minutes from me) I had to check it out.  That, combined with the fact that they sell a pretty decent gluten free chocolate (which is what I had at the street festival) which is great for Than, meant that it had to happen before the end of the semester.  So off SK, Than and I went.  I bought two (and one for Than) and by adding the other one he bought himself to my total I was able to get this super cute reusable tote.

Crafts or Homework... the eternal debate for me.

So this week has been a nightmare of homework and other stressors... so what did I do to cope? I crafted while procrastinating. Yup... and somehow it made the homework seem less daunting.  So the combination of origami and crochet projects has helped to keep me sane (and allowed me to give some pretty rockin' gifts to my dear friends).