Crumbs Bake Shop (8th Street)
37 East 8th Street
New York NY, 10003
Let’s face it. If there’s one big food phenomenon that has made its mark on America, it is definitely the rise in trendy, adorable and delicious cupcakes. From Georgetown to Sprinkles, there are so many trendy cupcakes shops popping up that it’s a little bit ridiculous. But then again… it’s perfect. With an abundance of flavors from PB & J to Dulce de Leche, Cupcakes have become the new ice cream.
Last week, I ventured to one of the most popular cupcakes shops in New York: Crumbs Bake Shop. Being an NYU student, I usually indulge in crumbs in the dining halls because I can buy them with my dining dollars. I always go for the red velvet because, like almost every other American out there, I’m obsessed with red velvet cake.
I had never actually stepped foot inside of Crumbs Bake Shop until a week ago when I decided to pick up four cupcakes for a blog photo shoot. I was only there for about five minutes, but I noticed that it had a cute coffee shop kind of vibe. It felt like a nice place to sit with a friend and enjoy conversation, cupcakes and coffee.
I ended up getting the red velvet, chocolate sundae, half-baked (which is not on the website for some reason), and cookies and cream.
Due to the photo shoot, I didn’t eat the cupcakes for a few hours, but to be honest, once I did eat them I noticed the icing was hard. I know the hardness could be due to the fact that I waited a couple hours to eat them, but this is not the first time I have heard about Crumbs’ cupcakes having “hard” icing. Also, a lot of people pick up cupcakes for parties and do not eat them until later as well, so if you’re going to do that, do not go with Crumbs.
The hard icing aside, my favorite cupcake of them all was the red velvet because the cake itself was very moist and it wasn’t too much to handle. On the other hand, the chocolate sundae cupcake was a bit too sweet and intense and the cherry tasted very artificial because it was covered in liquid sugar. Also, there was a lot of vanilla buttercream in the middle which made the sweetness about 10x more intense. If you’re really in the mood for sugar, go with the chocolate sundae cupcake. Next, the half-baked cupcake was also pretty good because it also had a good balance of flavor and was not too sweet. The marble cake was moist and the cookie dough on top was a little hard, but flavorful. Lastly, I ended up eating the cookies and cream cupcake the next day…for breakfast. It happens. So anyways, I ended up heating it for 20 seconds so that the icing would melt a little since the cupcake was in the fridge over night. When I took a bite, I couldn’t really taste the “Oreo,” it kind of just tasted like a plain chocolate cupcake. But, the cake tasted very good and was very moist as well! Just take note that the Oreo flavor isn’t very prominent unless you get the Oreo cookie in your actual bite.
(Up close and personal with the cookies and cream cupcake)
Overall, I feel like Crumbs really isn’t giving its customers a “Grade A” cupcake. I don’t think that a couple hours should be enough to make a cupcake taste a bit stale, and I have heard from a lot of friends that whenever they have been to Crumbs, the icing is hard as well. However, the actual cake is really good! So if you go to Crumbs, get a traditional cupcake because some of the other ones (ie Chocolate Sundae) are a little too much to handle. 2.5 stars.
Food by Skyler 