Warning: The following is the rant of a woman that hasn’t had a carb in 3 weeks…well besides one little taste of a lemon square…shhhh!
I’m going to be the first to admit I’m sick of the cupcake craze. It has been played out. In all fairness, I tend to get sick of trends well before the American public. I was done with capri pants for years and they just kept going strong (longest unflattering style trend ever). By my calculations, cupcakes started becoming trendy in New York City around 2007. A cute little reprieve from the unfortunate Krispy Kreme ordeal. It is now 2011 and cupcake mania has fully consumed the suburbs of America…with “cupcakeries” still popping up. Cupcakes officially jumped the shark this year by getting their own reality show: DC Cupcake starring the owners of Georgetown Cupcake. I did get to try a couple of Georgetown cupcakes recently and I will attest they are yummy. I had a Red Velvet, the “it girl” of cupcake flavors, I confess, it is to die for…earning it’s Queen Bee status.
I wouldn’t mind the cupcake obsession if it had just stayed where it belonged: in the city. See when you live in a big city, particularly New York, you walk several miles a day. You are on the go. You don’t keep a lot of snacks in your kitchen. You don’t have drive-thrus. You can afford the occasional cupcake treat. It’s festive to walk into a little city bakery and get a yummy cupcake to treat yourself and your fabulous New Yorkness. We of the Minivan and Dunkin Iced Coffee Tribes just aren’t as adorable with a cupcake in our hand. We can’t afford to be trying different flavors and ranking different cupcakeries. Neither in our butts or our wallets- those puppies are expensive. And stop believing celebrities when they rave about cupcakes. Skinny girls don’t eat cupcakes. This is how a trend becomes dangerous.
I will make an exception for the original gangster of the trendy cupcake: Funfetti. When Pillsbury came out with Funfetti I think they really changed the game and paved the way for the trendy cupcakes of today. You can whip them up cheap and easy, which is what I am looking for in a baked good…I’d rather save my style trends for handbags. Here is a batch the girls and I made the other day:
So what should replace the cupcake? Well I am pretty sure cakeballs/cakepops are poised for the position. I made for my daughter’s class party, from this recipe on The Pioneer Woman in 2008. They are now popping up everywhere, including Starbucks. I’m over it.
Since I am clearly obsessed with the topic tonight (diet induced psychosis) and a self- proclaimed trendspotter, I will go ahead and speculate as to another up and comer: The Lemon Square. Cool, fresh, stylish, a bit retro and understated, the Reese Witherspoon of baked goods…I think they have a future. I rarely bake but I made an exception on Easter Sunday and made a batch using a recipe I found online, screwing it up and then fixing it enough to come out pretty good. I know I took a pic on my phone- they looked so pretty on an all white, rectangular dish…but I seem to have erased it. Trust me, they were cute.
Cowbells and Dreams...the hockey mom blog 
Both Allan and I are with you on the cupcake thing. Allan in fact may have almost as much passionate distaste for them as you. His reasoning though is slightly different — he hates edge pieces of cake and cupcakes are all edge.
I am so glad my fave Seattleites are with me, I think we need to come out with an edgeless cake!
I do love a cupcake, but lucky for me, am far to lazy to drive over to a “cupcakery”, parallel park, and (gasp!) bring the kids inside to get one. So, unless those cupcake trucks from the city get some old time music and a bell and start driving through the neighborhood, I’ll be able all set.
I read that reply 3 times before I posted it and still missed the typo, thanks to my 5 yr old asking me every 30 seconds to read a book to him.
I’m with you. I’m sick of cupcakes at baby showers, wedding showers, high school graduations, even at weddings! I’m sick of the towers of cupcakes at every event I seem to attend. However, in defense of the innocent little cake, I absolutely love them at any event involving kids! They are so much easier than cutting pieces of cake for any number of kids. No plates, no forks, no knife to cut the cake. Just grab and go. My life made just a little easier. And I’m all for that!!
Stephany,
Thank you, I totally agree!!!! They are great for kids. I like the pull apart cakes that look like a cake but are really a bunch of cupcakes pushed together. So easy. But yes on the towers, enough already.
Meg
Ah, gong into my 5th carb free week on one of those silly shake diets and NO CUPCAKES. Oh but I do drool over them in their fuchsia and aqua frostings that smell of such delectable things as caramel and raspberries. Oh and when they top them with fresh berries or sauce, uh, how can one resist?
Our farmers market has a booth with miniature, ok not just miniature, but tiny cupcake bites. Amazing – but as for my carb free diet – I totally passed on the chocolate cupcake yesterday with the peanut butter icing. The smell was amazing, but there was no way I was going to ruin the 4 weeks of hard work I’d just put in. (Totally worth it!)