Travel Snacks: Crumbs Bake Shop

More Than Crumbs at this Bakery

NEW YORK
OK, you know I can't travel somewhere and not try either their local gelato/ice cream or ... cupcakes!

I read before heading to New York that Crumbs Bake Shop supposedly has the best cupcakes in Manhattan. But with all the running around I was doing, I didn't know if I would have time just to hunt down a cupcake. Luckily for me, Crumbs has several locations around Manhattan and I conveniently bumped into one as I was heading to the subway station on the East Side.

Crumbs is more than a cupcake shop, although there are plenty of them. It's a bakery with a lot of cakes, cookies, scones, donuts and stuff.

What I noticed about their cupcakes were they weren't the sophisticated, pretty looking cookies. They were just huge mess of sugar, and in a fun playful way they looked like the kind of cupcakes that you could eat and not worry about how it looks because it would just go straight into your mouth anyway.

On their Web site, Crumbs lists many varieties of cupcakes, some with interesting names like Lolly Lacrumb to Squiggle. Some names were like typical cakes such as carrot and Devil's Food, and some I definitely wanted to try like tiramisu. But of course when you're in the store, only a few flavors are available. But if you can't decide, they also have a tasting box with a variety of mini cupcakes in a tray.

I ended up getting the Reese's Peanut Buttercup cupcake, which I bought as a snack later back at my hotel. The cupcake, did I say already?, is huuuge. Even for $3.75, which is the same price I pay for Kara's Cupcakes back in the Bay Area, it was a lot of cupcake. (Sorry Kara, but your cupcakes will be dwarfed by these huge Crumbs cupcakes.) And the chocolate cupcake was moist and chocolatey, while the frosting was filled with bits of chocolate and peanut butter taste with a few crumbles of the Reeses candy. Crumbs also makes it where some of the frosting from the top oozes down to the center of the cupcake so that you can get some while you're still eating the huge cupcake.

This Crumbs cupcake was a lot, but very enjoyable. It's definitely one of the value things I found in Manhattan given the size and price. You don't get any crumbs here, these are full fledged mini cakes.

Crumbs Bake Shop, various locations (even in California, but only in Los Angeles, boo!). www.crumbs.com

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