Yes, I said it..CUPCAKES!!!
I don’t know about you, but I ADORE cupcakes. I have contemplated writing about cupcakes since shortly after my first posting to this blog. Then, about a week ago somebody posted an article on Facebook about the cupcake “bubble”. “Cupcake bubble?” you might be asking. Yes indeed, it seems that there is a “bubble” even for my beloved cupcakes.
It is interesting to me just how popular these yummy little treats have become. I mean, I am sure that you all at some point in your life were the proud bearer of cupcakes to be passed out to your friends at school to celebrate your birthday. I remember how exciting it was to be the kids passing out those tiny delicacies, proudly wearing the class birthday crown. But when on earth did this cupcake “explosion” occur?
There is a cupcake store in Beverly Hills (of course) named “Sprinkles” that claims to be the first cupcake store ever. Somehow I find it hard to believe that (don’t know why) but I’ll let them live in their dream world. It seems that they spun off many existing stores. What I do know is that Magnolia begat Buttercup and Buttercup begat The Little Cupcake and a lot more. BTW – can you tell I went to Catholic school for 12 years?
So now it seems that people are buying cupcakes for everything, from an afternoon snack to a wedding “cake”. I have to say I have no complaints. There even seems to be a mobile unit that drives around NYC selling cupcakes. Who knew? And the stores are popping up EVERYWHERE. Crumbs seems to me to be the “Starbucks” of cupcakes. They are delicious, pricey, and popping up everywhere. For those of you who have never tasted a Crumbs cupcake, you must do so, as soon as possible. They come in many flavors, and they even sell packs of mini cupcake assortments. So moist and delicious…….it’s a good thing that I don’t live close to one!
Something that surprised me about this cupcake craze is that recently a gourmet market in my neighborhood, Robicelli’s, decided to close its doors last week and focus on…….cupcakes. A few months ago the owners, a husband and wife team, had a cupcake “war” to see whose were better. There was so much response to this contest that they had another one, and slowly started adding the winning cupcakes to their menu. They soon found that the thing that was generating the most business in the store was the cupcakes. So they are now launching a wholesale cupcake business. Will it work? Maybe. They say that they have people as far away as California requesting cupcakes. I hope they are successful – they are nice people with 2 children under the age of 3.
So is it really a “bubble”? I think that the jury may still be out on that one. But I do know that even the most expensive of the cupcakes I’ve seen out there (a cool $4.00) is still what can be considered affordable in this economy. I have been out of work for a year, but I still take the kids every Friday to buy cupcakes at The Little Cupcake Bakeshop. So I think we will have to wait and see what happens after the frosting settles. Until then, I will be eating cupcakes.