Sweet Fleet

Good cupcakes with quality ingredients and friendly service, but somehow falls short of the bar set by Curbside (food truck) and Sprinkles (brick & mortar). Some flavors show promise though, so worth more visits.
The only reason that I feel they are shy of five stars is the limited selection (yes…I understand they are on a truck) and availability (a single truck vs. multiple for their arch-​rival). A solid option though and I will go back anytime.

I’m updating my review and adding two extra stars. One star, is for customer service alone. After my negative review, the owner contacted me and asked me to give them another shot. The fact that the company cares about their customers experiences says A LOT about them.
I got a six-​pack and had a taste-​testing session with my coworkers. I wanted to get the opinions of others to be completely fair.
Red Velvet = Everyone was in agreement that this one has the most flavor.
Blueberry-​Lemon = If it was just a TINY bit sweeter, this one would be phenomenal! I love the flavor combo but it’s just not enough flavor.
Apple Crisp = looks fantastic, tastes like nothing. There is just no flavor at all.
Pumpkin = at first bite, it’s almost good, but again just not enough pumpkin flavor and not very sweet.
My fellow taste-​testers all agreed, they just don’t have enough flavor. They aren’t awful but they aren’t worth it either. If they were a bit sweeter, a bit more flavorful, they’d be great cupcakes. They have potential to be delicious. Someone asked if they were healthy cupcakes and that’s what they taste like.
My advice is to amp up the flavor, add some sugar, and keep up the excellent customer service. I really want these cupcakes to live up to what they could be!

Wow, I wanted to like these cupcakes so much. They’re a bit small, but that’s okay. The problems are 1– the frosting and 2– some of the cakes are dry.
The frosting is too dense, and either they’re not using real butter or they haven’t allowed it to mix enough because there’s not a lot of air in them. Frosting should be sweet and whipped and delicious, not greasy. I think if they added more sugar and whipped it longer, and/​or used butter it would save the quality.
As for the cake part, I tried the chocolate cake and it was really, really dry. I couldn’t finish it. On the other hand, the carrot was spectacular! It was so delicious. The frosting was terrible, but after I removed the frosting and just ate the cake part, the carrot was really delicious.
I want these guys to succeed, but it’s going to take some adjustments to the recipe for them to compete with the dozens of other cupcakeries in this area.

Update: I was able to give Sweet Fleet a second try. I received a half dozen assorted flavors and tried several. Overall, the quality was improved over the initial experience. The issues with the truck’s temperature control obviously impacted the quality of the cupcakes negatively the first time around. This time they were presented well and had a much better consistency. However, the cake itself was moist, but unremarkable taste-​wise. Having said that, I’ve improved the rating for what I believe is the most important thing behind any business: customer service.
Everyone has their own preferences and this just happens not to be mine. However, this business is truly being run by intelligent folks. John Cox, the owner, reached out to me after reading my initial review and actually offered me the complimentary half dozen. He kindly explained the issues they experienced with the truck temperatures and offered to make it up to me. He was extremely professional and courteous. It couldn’t have been a more pleasing experience. Throughout our correspondence, he was friendly and non-​pressuring. I really value this, which is why I updated my rating to 3-​stars. Thanks, John.

This was a waste of calories, I’m so disappointed as to the bland flavor. My husband brought a chocolate and vanilla home today so as a cupcake lover I happily indulged. First bite, I pondered if these were for diabetics. Tasteless, bland icing the chocolate one thad a cheap jello-​esque texture. I was so disappointed. To top it off they charged $ 4 when it was supposed to be $ 3 for this madness. This place has a long way to go before being able to compete with the cupcakeries in the area. So far iced gems in Baltimore is the best!

Yet another individual throwing his hat into the mobile cupcake arena, Jason Reaves is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a future contestant on the Food Network show «Challenge.» So I guess the streets of Arlington will act as his testing ground before entering the competition. If I were the judge, and I am at least in this small case, he has a little ways to go to really show off his pedigree. While none of the offerings were bad (like the horrendous Sidewalk Sweetsations), most of them left me wanting more (like Curbside Cupcakes), and none of them were excellent (like my favorite Sweetbites Mobile).
The premise as far as the cupcakes go is 4 regular «gourmet» flavors (since when is vanilla cake w/​chocolate frosting gourmet?) and a weekly «special gourmet» flavor. The regular flavors run $ 3 a piece and the special is $ 3.50, with various pricing schemes for dozens and half dozens. Apparently they offer cookies as well for $ 2, but there was no mention of the options available. They did just start up though, and are already taking credit cards, so that’s a huge bonus for me and many other consumers.
As for the flavors and my impressions, here’s a quick breakdown:
1. «Apple Cart» Caramel Crumble: apple spice cupcake with vanilla bean buttercream frosting, topped with oatmeal streusel crumble and drizzled with sea salt caramel — I guess this was my favorite one? But mainly because it was the only one that had something going on multiple levels. After having tried the fantastic salted caramel versions from Sweetbites Mobile and Cake Love though it really falls short of both of them, although slightly better than the Georgetown Cupcake version.
2. Caro-​Lime: their rendition of a key lime pie — Why didn’t they do anything with the cake? The frosting was actually a pretty decent replication of key lime flavors, but they totally wasted an opportunity to have a well rounded cupcake here.
3. The Girl Next Door: vanilla bean cake with milk chocolate buttercream frosting — This was easily the most boring of all. This is pretty much the definition of an OK cupcake, no wow factor whatsoever.
4. Red Velvet: red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting — This cupcake was done pretty well, and is certainly the prototypical way to pull off a classic red velvet cake. The problem is that everywhere does this cupcake, and when you want to be compared to so many others who do it well you’re just going to fall short unless you do something exceptional.
5. Dark n’ Dreamy Cup n’ Cake: devil’s food cake topped with dark chocolate buttercream frosting — Much like the red velvet, I kept waiting on this cupcake to hit me with something different, but no it was basically just two kinds of chocolate together. While both were done well, it just left me wishing for more.
While it may sound like I’m not entirely enthusiastic about Sweet Fleet, I should say that all of the cake portions themselves were cooked perfectly, with just the right amount of moistness, and that the icing on each cupcake was well done as well with the right consistency. I just really wanted more depth from the flavor profile. Having just tried 5 flavors, and not having a single one leave me saying WOW, it’s not a huge incentive to leave the District again to sample their wares. If I was organizing the cupcake truck hierarchy I would probably place them somewhere in between Sweetbites Mobiles (being the top) and Curbside Cupcake (being in the mediocre middle). If you’re going to try and use the fact that you graduated from the C.I.A. as a selling point, I really expect a different level of quality than simply having «technically well prepared» items.