A Sweet Design: Granada Hills, CA

A Sweet Design
Specialty Flavors: $3.75
Regular Flavors: $3.00

We are always on the lookout for a great cupcakery, and while on vacation in California we just couldn't pass up this California cupcakery in downtown Granada Hills! A Sweet Design is a custom cake studio that serves cupcakes. The atmosphere was like Snow White's cottage turned into a cake studio showroom! However, the cupcakes were clearly displayed and ready for purchase.

It was a bit difficult finding parking on the street, but we were there during a downtown Granada Hills food truck weekend... and to our dismay there weren't any cupcake trucks... dessert first people!!!

All of the flavor selections were in touch with what is popular at the moment. Their signature cupcake was the Pink Velvet Cupcake. Don't let the name confuse you! Pink velvet cakes have no relation to our beloved red velvet with it's rich coco and brown sugar taste.

Whether it be pink, blue, green, or whatever the unnatural hue, its genealogy lies with the classic white butter cake. This cake also has a fine crumb that earns the right to be called "velvet", but its lighter texture owes thanks to the whipped butter and egg whites in the recipe. The pink velvet cupcake at A Sweet Design was adorably pink, and strawberry flavored...

Top Right to Bottom Left: Chocolate Cake, Strawberry Cheesecake,
Oreo, Red Velvet, Decadent Chocolate

We liked the Oreo Cupcake which had a good vanilla cake with Oreo cookie bits baked in it, and a fluffy buttercream frosting dusted with Oreo cookie crumbs. The vanilla cake also had a chocolate buttercream filling which added an extra chocolate flavor that the cake was lacking.

The Chocolate Cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting was also a winner with a moist chocolate cake, and a fudge-y chocolate frosting... "fudge-y" is always a good thing!

The Decadent Chocolate cake was very chocolatey with that bitter chocolate taste, which would please any die hard chocolate lover. ChocolateGanache was happy with it :)

Oreo Cupcake with buttercream frosting

The Lemon Cupcake can be a treacherous flavor, because it is hard to balance the right amount of "lemon-y-ness"... but they did a pretty good job.

The Strawberry Cheesecake cupcake wasn't memorable, but had a tart cheesecake-like frosting dusted with graham cracker crust that was pretty.

Of course, we tried their Red Velvet, and it was good! Moist, light, and fluffy with a tangy and not-to-sweet cream cheese frosting. Was it memorable? No... but there is a lot of competition out there.

We asked about gluten free and were told it is available but you have to pre-order. Being that we were in California I was a bit surprised when they told us vegan and sugar free cupcake options were not available.

Inside the Oreo Cupcake, yummy goodness!

We give A Sweet Design the following rating...

Gluten Free: Available via Pre-Order
Sugar Free: Not Available
Vegan: Not Available

Cupcake Atmosphere: 3.5 out of 5 (they advertised it as a cupcake shop outside, but it is really a cake studio showroom... plus finding street parking was a bit of a pain, but we arrived during a food truck weekend)
Flavor Selection: 3 out of 5 (they had all of the popular flavors, but the selections were not very inventive)
Customer Service: 5 out of 5 (the server was friendly and answered our questions)

Overall Quality: 4 out of 5 (the cupcakes were good!)