In most Stevens students’ minds, cupcakes are synonymous with Crumbs, but what they don’t know is that a few steps away is another cupcakery with a cozy café sort of atmosphere.
Hiding on the corner of 4th and Garden Street, Sweet’s cupcake display has certainly turned my head many a time, and I’d always wondered how they’d size up against Crumbs. Hoping to determine which bakery serves up a better cupcake, I decided to perform a side-by-side comparison.
Walking into Sweet, I immediately noticed the festive but tasteful Halloween decorations placed around the two or three tables for eating, the crowded (but not overly so) coffee bar, and the window behind the counter showing a sneak peak of the baking magic. The atmosphere seemed great for grabbing a cup of coffee and staying to chat with a friend or reading a good book.
The woman behind the counter was very patient and helpful while my partner and I stood at the display, drooling while choosing our flavors.
Contrast this lively atmosphere with that of Crumbs, which walking in felt sterile and corporate. The cutesy menus seem forced, and the dim lighting and barely filled display don’t particularly make me want to sit and have a cup of coffee.
Now, down to business: the cupcakes. Sweet’s confections are not quite so large as Crumbs’ ($4); Sweet tends to size on the opposite end of the scale, as they are more known for their minis ($2). For a majority of their cupcakes, both Sweet and Crumbs stick to a simple chocolate or vanilla base and then use the icing and decorations to vary the flavors.
Sweet’s chocolate and vanilla bases were surprisingly dense. The flavor tasted as though from a box—I wasn’t terribly impressed. Expecting Crumbs to be better, I found their bases much the same, though less dense and less flavorful. With the vanilla, I felt as if I were eating a slightly sweetened piece of bread. If I had to choose though, Sweet’s slightly more flavorful cake would win by a narrow margin.
What really differentiates the establishments is their toppings. The Crumbs cupcakes seem more extravagantly decorated, and definitely have more of a “wow” factor, but I prefer Sweet’s cupcakes, as they have a neater, more elegant presentation.
The icing on the Crumbs cupcakes was overly sweet—maybe in their minds this overcompensation makes amends for the flavorless base—and in conjunction with the other toppings, Crumbs was just too much for me. I did, however, enjoy the chocolate and mint combination of the Grasshopper, and the salty-sweet flavors of the Salted Caramel.
The Sweet icing was not overly sweet, and was much smoother than that of Crumbs. My favorite combination was the fluffy, sweet marshmallow and creamy peanut butter of the Fluffernutter. The peanut butter was not too salty, the marshmallow was airy, the buttercream had substance, but wasn’t overly dense, and the ganache was smooth.
In a direct comparison of the more popular red velvet cupcake of each bakery, Sweet wins hands-down. The Crumbs version was dry, and the cream cheese icing tasted like pure sugar. The Sweet version was moist, despite smaller cupcakes having a tendency to be drier than their larger counterparts, and the tanginess of the cream cheese frosting balanced out the sweetness.
Sweet also offers a black bottom cupcake (brownie base with a dollop of cream cheese baked in) which, though lacking in presentation, looking like something you’d buy at a local bake sale, packs a deep chocolate flavor and is a favorite of my Cuisine Corner companion. Aside from the chocolate and vanilla, Sweet also offers a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting—my personal favorite of all of the cupcakes—to celebrate the fall season.
Unable to sum up the comparison better than my companion, I will simply restate his words: “I would bring Crumbs’ cupcakes to a party but Sweet’s cupcakes to a friend.”
