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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsThe Rise (and Fall?) of the Cupcake.
How did we get here? Although the first mention of cupcakes can be traced to Amelia Simmonss 1796 cookbook American Cookerya light cake to bake in small cups, the tome readsit wasnt until 1997 that scores of cupcake lovers began queuing in front of the now-famous Magnolia Bakery in New York City.
Heres a look at the trends ups and downs, from reality shows to cupcake ATMs. (And yes, according to Sax, the lines truly did start forming outside Magnolia before Carrie & Co.)
Is Crumbss downfall a sign that the cupcake is truly on its way out? Well leave that for you to decide.
Are cupcakes... done?!?! Yipes!
5 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
We've not yet reached peak cupcake. | |
1 (20%) |
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We've passed peak cupcake. | |
3 (60%) |
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I'd rather eat real cake. | |
1 (20%) |
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Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)Available in a snap when you are going to someone's house and you think to yourself, "What, were we supposed to bring something for desert? What the hell are we going bring over for desert? Oh, hell, let's just stop at the supermarket and pick up some cupcakes and call it a day."
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)but their standard sheet cakes suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Including the ones in cup form. It's the icing really - not sure what that glop is but it blows. But then they have that special section over there with all those fancy 40 dollar cakes full of fudge and chocolate and raspberry and those are pretty great. But I'm not paying 40 bucks for a 12" round cake.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Baitball Blogger
(46,711 posts)orleans
(34,051 posts)they are the perfect little treat for children
on rainy days
birthday parties
halloween, christmas, valentine's parties
picnics, family reunions & gatherings
cookies & cupcakes for recitals & intermission breaks
the cupcake store may be over but they are still available at bakeries and grocery stores
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Without them... Lord knows what will happen!
Bosonic
(3,746 posts)Make your own in 5 minutes (literally in a cup):
http://www.adventures-in-food.com/2011/01/5-minute-chocolate-cake-in-cup-aka-rich.html
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Cause that may change your view slightly.
I can make a better cupcake, albeit maybe not a prettier cupcake.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)I'm a trained Culinary Arts (job-retraining) program graduate, but I don't work as a chef or a baker. My job-retraining program went a long way to convincing me that as much as I love food, I never want to work in a restaurant. I take the occasional catering job, but that's it.
I will let you in on a secret. There's no place in a cupcake to skimp. Take whatever cupcake recipe you have and use cake flour instead of AP flour. Use organic eggs and real butter. Fresh flavors are better than extracts...but if you bake and use a lot of extracts, make your own. (So easy, it's where most of the spirits that I end up with goes since I don't drink.) Much higher quality. Nothing is a real replacement for aluminum-free double-action baking powder. So on. Learn to make a chocolate ganache...you'll never want for frosting again.
Now you too can make a divine cupcake.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)The lower protein content requires you to add flour. If you're experimenting {for softer mouth-feel, smaller/larger crumb, etc.} you may have to experiment slightly with ratios of flour to butter to liquid, making several batches before you find the one you like exactly.
The sugar article below provides a good overview of how all that works too.
More information on flour: http://www.joyofbaking.com/flour.html#ixzz1kDVpBeYX
More information on sugar: http://www.joyofbaking.com/sugar.html
LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)it was the last one left in the coffee room. Lemon blueberry. DAMN THAT WAS GOOD! Contrasted it with the only Crumbs cupcake I had a part of (because it was humongous) a couple months ago. I think it was red velvet cake. They were giving them away free in a Spiderman promotion. It tasted like it came from a commercial bakery. No comparison.
DinahMoeHum
(21,788 posts)Those ugly travesties of the baking profession.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)Last edited Wed Jul 9, 2014, 12:26 PM - Edit history (1)
Once, there was cake. Cake was good. Cake was rare; a treat for someone's birthday or retirement. We didn't eat cake with any frequency and we were fine. Cake is moderation in baked sweets personified.
Then came the cupcake. The cupcake was personalized, individualized. The cupcake was libertarian antisocial cake, you could have your cake how you liked it and so could the person next to you. Lost was the communal experience of cake. Because of its dainty size, the cupcake could be a rare treat. No longer just for the birthday or the retirement, the cupcake could celebrate "Fuck yeah, it's Saturday!" We ate cupcake more often and we were less fine.
Cupcake begat mini-cupcake. Mini cupcake was just like cupcake but smaller...the ultimate in portion control sold in boxes of 6, 5, 4, fuck it, I'll diet tomorrow. Mini-cupcake celebrated smaller victories, like "Look, 7-11 has mini-cupcakes!" We could mini-cupcake every day and we were no longer fine, though we thought we were if we looked askance at the treadmill.
That brought us to cake-pop; a single mouthful of cake served on a stick. What harm could one bite of cake do? I'll have 20 please, don't scrimp on the frosting and decorations. Every day I'm cake-popping and holy fuck when did I get obese? How could you do this to me, cake pop?! I thought we had an understanding.
Amazing.
charlie and algernon
(13,447 posts)Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Basically it should be an OP of it's own!
PasadenaTrudy
(3,998 posts)It's just me so I don't want a whole damn cake!
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)And you seem to get more frosting with a cupcake than with a piece of cake.
Inkfreak
(1,695 posts)Avalux
(35,015 posts)From The Ashes
(2,629 posts)I think 'Crumbs' went out because, who in their right mind would pay that much for *1* freeking cupcake?!?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)If you're going to splurge on carbs for a snack, make it worth the price and weight gain, but Crumbs somehow seemed incapable of making a cupcake with cake that tasted like anything. Buttery? Yes. Light and fluffy? Yes. But the red and pink and turquoise cakes all tasted exactly the same.
Aristus
(66,369 posts)It must be the small business with the shortest life expectancy.
I don't know why they went out of business, unless their proprietors were poor business people.
Their cupcakes were delicious.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)It's a hard market and a lot of people who have no bakery experience or real experience in retail food jump into it having no idea what they're doing.
To successfully run a cupcake shop...you don't just have to know how to bake cupcakes. You need to know how to market and sell product, run a business, how a bakery runs; it wouldn't hurt to be a trained barista either, nobody wants a cupcake without a beverage to accompany it. Beyond all that, you need something to set you apart.
The difference between a successful cupcake shop and unsuccessful cupcake shop is tiny. If you want to learn how to run that kind of business the best advice I can give isn't "Learn to make cupcakes", it's "go do 9 months at Starbucks"...not to become a barista (doesn't hurt) but because it's a tutorial on how to run that kind of business.
Reter
(2,188 posts)All that stuff is doing is killing us and causing excessive body fat. But I guess I'm the bad guy here. Want a snack? Snack on fruit or even natural peanut butter.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)You aren't wrong by any means... It's just not the most popular idea.
See this Harvard law blog entry:
If soft drinks are a problem, surely cupcakes are too. A twelve-ounce can of Coca-Cola contains 39 grams of sugar. A seasonally-appropriate red velvet cupcake from Sprinkles contains 45 grams of sugarand who can eat just one? National cupcake consumption increased 52% between 2010 and 2011, and U.S. consumers ate over 770 million cupcakes last year. Sugary soft drink consumption, on the other hand, is down 23% since 1998 and 37% since 2000.
While the FDA cant regulate sugar as a bioweapon, it probably could regulate sugar as a food additive. Under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, a food additive is any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to resultdirectly or indirectlyin its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food. This broad definition would include sugar. The FDA does not, however, regulate food additives that are generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Presumably the FDA considers sugar to be GRASfor now.
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/02/14/can-the-fda-ban-cupcakes/
Iggo
(47,552 posts)Iggo
(47,552 posts)I ain't worried.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Where cupcakes lived on top of one another and had to share their frosting to survive.... This was known as the time of the whoopsie pie. It was a dark time.
Iggo
(47,552 posts)Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Malnourishment was rampant, in the land of whoopie.