Easter is my favorite cupcake holiday. You can do anything you want with pastels and you’re good to go–so many options! Plus, I’m kind of obsessed with bunnies. Anyway, here is my first attempt this year. (For the grass, I used Wilton tip 233.) If you try this, I HIGHLY recommend Starburst jelly beans. I don’t even like candy, and these are delicious!
There’s a new cupcake magazine in town! Cake Decorating magazine has just launched in Great Britain and Ireland. Don’t live there? Don’t panic–you can subscribe!
This weekly publication will help beginners learn to decorate like the pros. And each issue comes with decorating tools! Issue #1 comes with a set of butterfly cutters, pink decorating glitter, and a gingham cupcake stand. And subscribers receive additional free gifts including a portable cake caddy, a set of silicone bakeware, and a biscuit and sugar craft gun.
Learn more at the Cake Decorating website. You can also follow the new pub on Twitter and Facebook!
Are cupcakes a fad? Duncan Bloor recently posted some illuminating visuals on his Search Insights blog that show the cupcake trend sweeping the globe. The deep blue represents strong cupcake interest, see how the deep blue is spreading across nations.
As Mark Twain has declared when confronted with news of his own death in newspapers, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” By the looks of it, the cupcake trend continues to strengthen.
More visuals and data on the cupcake trend at the David’s Search Insights blog.
Hostess Snack Cakes. Gotta love their cupcakes. Golden. Chocolate. Orange. Fondant-y icing. Seven, white squiggles down the middle. Vanilla creme frosting in the middle. Wrapped in plastic. Mass producted.
Hostess is big business. Hostess Brands, which owns Hostess Snack Cakes, employs 21,000 people in 39 bakeries in 41 states across the U.S.A. (In case you’re interested: they’re hiring.)
Hostess is still celebrating its February 2011 launch of the strawberry cupcake, so it’s not too late for you to vote for your favorite Hostess cupcake and get a chance to win $25,000 and other, daily prizes.
According to the Hostess Director of Marketing, “Hostess sets the standard for timeless treats that are loved from generation to generation.” So just how many Hostess cupcakes do Americans eat every year? 600,000,000. And it’s Memphis, Tennessee that’s the Hostess cupcake eating capital of the Hostess empire.
This week my local newspaper, The News and Observer featured an article by a cupcake critic. I know everyone is entitled to their own opinion and as a cupcake lover I am biased to support cupcakes and be upset upon reading anything that says the cupcake trend is over. The newspaper article, titled Keep Your Cupcakes; Cute Doesn’t Cut It, was written by Debbie Moose who states that she “doesn’t like cupcakes. They’re so 2009. They’re done.” She goes on to say that her issue with cupcakes is that they are cute and that is what people are concerned with rather than caring what they taste like. As a baker myself I will admit that I like it when people compliment my baked goods appearance but the highest compliment is when they tell me how good it tasted or go back for a second serving. It’s not merely what the cupcake looks like, although it has to look good to make you want to eat it.
Moose goes on to argue that cupcakes are time consuming and impractical claiming that they go stale too quickly and frosting cupcakes takes too long. I feel that cupcakes are individual cake saving you from having to cut a cake at a party. I also feel that with all good baked goods you need to consume them quickly or they will go bad. Fresh bread from a bakery will go stale quickly. If you use a little planning and bake the cupcakes within an appropriate time frame they will be fresh for your celebration. Read the rest of this entry »
Magnolia Bakery (c Sam Dow)
Let the cupcake wars begin!
Magnolia Bakery – of Sarah Jessica Parker fame – is about to face some serious competition from Georgetown Cupcake – of DC Cupcake fame. The official announcement, made June 7, forecasts the opening of the NYC store in winter 2011.
Can anyone weigh in on who will win this war?
Will it be Magnolia with their “delicately textured lemon cupcake filled with a tart lemon cream and topped with lemon meringue buttercream,” now on its second owner, having already been sold once since its 1996 opening in Greenich Village? Or will it be sisters Katherine Kallinis and Sophie LaMontagne with their “Valrhona chocolate cupcake with a whipped Callebaut chocolate frosting topped with a fondant flower” at the shop in SoHo?
If the yumminess of website photographs is factor to handicap this competition, my money is on Katherine & Sophie.
It appears the Food Network have just commenced casting for Season 3 of Cupcake Wars. With two seasons down, you have no doubt seen the show, and if you have ever wondered… hey I could do that, well now is your chance.
The call has come through Reality Wanted and has a closing date of the 28th February 2011, so you don’t have long. Casting is open to every city, nationwide. Here’s what they say:
If you think you and your cupcakes have what it takes to compete against the best bakers in the country, then we want to hear from YOU! The winner of the show will have their cupcakes featured at a HOLLYWOOD EVENT and receive WORLDWIDE PRESS! The winner of each episode also wins $10,000!!!
So for more information check out the details at Reality Wanted above or on the Food Network website here.
I’ll admit, I’m not usually one to read the business news, but yesterday, an article in Business Insider caught my attention. (Or maybe it was the picture.) The article, Here’s How Cupcakes Became America’s Favorite Sweet Treat, could also be called “Cupcake Fairytale” or “The Cupcake’s Meteoric Rise to the Top.” The engrossing article highlights some of America’s favorite cupcakeries, and looks at the rise of the cupcake from a business perspective. What shocked me were the dollar signs. I tend to take life one cupcake at a time, taking the time to stop and smell the cupcakes, if you will, but this article taught me that for some people: cupcakes is big business!
Jacob Goldstein of NPR posed the question today: Are We in a Cupcake Bubble?
The article is hilarious, though any reader of All Things Cupcake would certainly find his logic flawed. No, we are not in a cupcake bubble — cupcakes have always been the superior dessert! Duh!
Goldstein, writing as part of NPR’s Planet Money series, expresses his befuddlement about the cupcake craze, the fact that cupcakeries are springing up all around him, and the fact that employment in the restaurant and bar industry is picking up in New York City — with particular strength in the cupcake business, according to the WSJ’s Metropolis Blog.
He too, gives Sex and the City all the credit.
But you and I know … cupcakes have earned their place at the top. Goldstein, obviously, just hasn’t had a good one lately. Maybe we should send him some.
That is what springs to mind when reading and watching the news clip on NewsNet5 about Ohio based American Greeting Cards‘ new range of cards called Tasties.
So ‘yesterday’, are cards which stimulate the other four major senses, visual cards, textured cards, cards which play music or that smell. We now have cards that we can lick and apparently ‘eat’.
Each ‘Tasty’ will be themed and come with a deliciously dissolvable flavor-strip, safely sealed inside the card which matches the theme. One such card will feature a mouth-watering image of a cupcake and reads “If nothing else, birthdays are a great excuse to eat cake”. Of course you want to know the flavor, this one is vanilla cupcake!
Though this isn’t the limit of the new ‘Tasty’ cards, you can get everything from donuts to margaritas, though I am not sure if they meet the newsreaders requirement from the above article and have a bacon card just yet. No doubt the bacon, burger and hot dog cards are not too far away!
Are cupcakes in danger of losing their popularity to other desserts? Back in March we shared with you an NPR article which claimed macaroons to be the new cupcake. Now two other desserts are threatening to take the cupcake’s spot. The August issue of Food and Wine Magazine had an article about the increasingly trendy pie which asked “Are pies the new cupcakes? They’re becoming just as ubiquitous at online stores and new restaurants with pie counters.”
And now that the hot summer here, the popsicle is another proposed successor to cupcakes. On July 7, 2010, a blog post from Allegations of Deliciousness titled “Popsicles are the New Cupcakes” claimed unique popsicles are all the rage. Last summer, Hooks for Cooks might have prediected the future with their post titled “Popsicles will rival cupcakes” She even quoted a friend saying ” I predict they will take over from cup cakes as the hottest new craze this Summer.” I know here in North Carolina, we have Locopops, a hand-crafted, gourmet popsicle company that began in Durham, NC and has expanded to have four locations and various venders in the Research Triangle Park region. So cupcake fans, what do you think, will cupcakes lose their top spot?
On Sunday, the LA Times paid tribute to beautiful cupcakes by posting a gallery of gorgeous cupcake images!
Here’s my favorite:
Or maybe this one is my favorite:
I just love it when cupcakes get the attention they deserve!
Making headlines since it was announces earlier this week was the news that a Cupcake Vendor will now be located outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The 5th Avenue spot once featured a Hot Dog Vendor but now cupcakes are seen as a possible money making possibility for the city. Cake and Shake will be providing the cupcakes and have already said that flavors have unique names but are based off of childish ideas. Since New York is often a trend setter, it is no surprise that the company is green, featuring organic ingredients, solar powered carts, and eco-friendly packaging. Cakes and Shakes will set up shop in June.
NPR recently featured an article titled: Move Over, Cupcake: Make Way For The Macaroon. The article claims that each decade tends to have a definitive sweet and that the cupcake’s time is up. According to the article, our beloved cupcakes will soon be replaced by macaroons. Do you agree, are macaroons the new cupcake?
In my search for quality cupcake news, I’m keep seeing one word: trendy. As with every trend, two questions come to mind:”When will the bubble burst?” and “Is all this hoopla a good thing?”
Though cupcakes have moved past the “indy cool” stage, the trend is only just going mainstream and cupcakeries are still popping up all across the country. You’d think this would be a bonanza for cupcake fans, but in reality it’s a mixed bag.
At All Things Cupcake you can see the best side of this trend: great recipes, lots of creative ideas, and many entrepreneurs making a go of it, even in a poor economy. However, both Carmelized OpiNIONS and Kat with a K have posts this week about the downside of the cupcake bubble: overpriced product, inferior quality, and the annoying fact that cupcake have been co-opted for the purposes of conspicuous consumption.
The good thing is that all trends pass. The bursting of the cupcake bubble , whenever it happens, will have the effect of winnowing out cupcakeries- while many will go out of business, those with the best recipes and sound business plans will survive. In the meantime, I hope that talented bakers everywhere will use this opportunity to raise some capital and that cupcake hobbyists will have a lot of fun reading all the press.
This NPR discussion looks at why cupcakes and cupcake shops have become so popular. The explanation is that we are in an economic bubble similar to what the coffee industry went through. Cupcake shops like Magnolia, in NYC, started the trend that quickly caught on. Now cupcake shops are popping up all over the country. The good news is that according to the this discussion, cupcakes are still going strong and we can expect cupcake shops to continue opening up.
Some people say that the cupcake bubble has reached a pinnacle. This is most likely true for certain areas of the country. Most prominent are the Los Angeles, New York, and Washington DC areas; each boasting many quality cupcakes stores to enjoy and compare against. Have certain US metropolitan areas reached saturation point for the number of cupcake stores it can support? Yes, definitely.
Are there other areas other than the major US metropolitan areas that cupcakes have not spread to? Yes.
Here are some other cupcakes stores that have found a home in areas you would have never have thought possible:
After falling in love with the cupcakes and baked goods, Fadi Jaber started “Sugar Daddy’s” in his home in Amman, Jordan. Business has been doing so well he opened new stores in Beirut and Dubai. Aside from the original American flavors, Jaber tries to appeal to regional tastes, creating a date cupcake with cream cheese frosting, as well as pistachio with orange blossom frosting.
Mexico City’s cupcake king, Tom Grant, started “Cupcakes by Tom” in the middle of a country who has not been introduced to cupcakes. About 60 customers descend on the bakery each day to scoop up a few hundred cupcakes and a hundred muffins baked every morning. Tom is a true cupcake ambassador.
As Britian celebrates its National Cupcake Week (Sept 14-Sept 19), various cupcake bakeries are vying for attention in the news. Today, Sayers and Hampson’s, a UK chain of stores and Cafés, launched their version of the world’s smallest cupcake. Measuring 1.5 cm wide and 3 cm high, it is truly a tiny morsel. Sayers said the Guinness Book of Records entry for the World’s Smallest Cupcake has never been recorded, so it is hoping its mini baked good will be a worthy contender.
The iconic Hostess® CupCake celebrated 90 years as America’s squiggle-topped cupcake on Monday September 14. Americans eat more than 600 million Hostess® CupCakes every year more than any other snack cake. I was most likely given my first Hostess® CupCake as a small child and I still enjoy them when looking for a little treat. Happy Birthday CupCake!
Cupcake photos represented on this post are from the website of Cupcake Royale
“Welcome to Seattle Style’s Perfect 10, where we pick a topic and bring you what we feel are the top 10 from that category … be it make-up for your wedding day, wedding resource books, or best places to honeymoon! You’ll find it here on Seattle Style’s Perfect 10!
Today’s perfect 10 tastes AMAZING! Seattle Style is giving their tastebuds a little party with … CUPCAKES!!! … Plus, if you know our Senior Editor, Heather, then you know she’s OBSESSED with cupcakes :) We’ve done our research and believe that we have the 10 yummiest cupcakes in the Seattle area. So, get ready to be pretty hungry as you read our Perfect 10 Cupcakes post! Also, keep in mind that our Perfect 10 posts are not in any certain order … we love all our Perfect 10 Cupcakes equally and for different reasons :)”
Read the rest of the article here.
MARTINI & ROSSI® INTRODUCES SPARKLING ROSÉ
ENHANCING ITS PORTFOLIO OF ITALIAN SPARKING WINES
Sip into Summer with Martini & Rossi’s New, Fun and Flirty Rosé
MIAMI (May, 2009) – MARTINI & ROSSI, the leading name in Italian winemaking, proudly announces the addition of its sparkling MARTINI & ROSSI Rosé to its portfolio of fine wines. Cultivated in the finest growing areas of the Piedmont and Veneto regions in Italy and made with handpicked Moscato Bianco, Malvasia and Brachetto grapes, this delicious, aromatic Sparkling Rosé is the perfect complement to the MARTINI & ROSSI sparkling wine collection. By expanding its portfolio and adding Rosé for the first time, MARTINI & ROSSI completes its “sparkling trio,” which currently boasts a naturally sweet Asti (dosage: 90 grams/liter) and an extra dry Prosecco (dosage: 15 grams/liter), providing a unique style and taste for every occasion. Light and crisp, the MARTINI & ROSSI Sparkling Rosé (dosage: 49 grams/liter) is flirty and lively enough to get you away from the elements of winter and think of spring.
Sparkling Rosé wines are taking the nation by storm, gaining in popularity* and showing a growing presence on restaurant wine lists and at home dinner parties nationwide. Available just in time for spring and summer when Rosé wines are most fashionable, MARTINI & ROSSI Sparkling Rosé is perfect for a variety of occasions, from a romantic dinner at home to a celebratory party or a special girls night in, all enjoying MARTINI & ROSSI Rosé in a responsible manner.
Soft pink in color and fully sparkling, MARTINI & ROSSI Sparkling Rosé is characterized by enticing aromas that blend hints of citrus, elderflower and soft peach with delicate notes of wild Rosé. It pairs perfectly with an assortment of foods, especially lighter flavors of fruits, cheeses and fish. MARTINI & ROSSI Sparkling Rosé can be enjoyed in any mood or occasion, whether you are starting off your night, looking to enhance a meal or celebrating with friends.
One of the most iconic brands in the world, MARTINI & ROSSI is the leading name in Italian winemaking and a purveyor of the highest quality wines, with MARTINI & ROSSI Asti the number one-selling imported sparkling wine in the United States and MARTINI & ROSSI Vermouth, the number one-selling vermouth brand in United States, and the world. Since its founding in 1863, MARTINI & ROSSI has fostered a pioneering spirit to develop unique products that represent the very best in Italian quality and style. The winemaker’s dedication and passion for excellence is tasted in every one of its products and the new Sparkling Rosé is no exception.
MARTINI & ROSSI Sparkling Rosé will be available in a 750ml bottle and 187ml 4-packs that are perfect for sharing with friends and make a great addition to picnics or beach parties. MARTINI & ROSSI Sparkling Rosé can be found at fine wine retailers this spring and retails for a suggested price of $12.99.
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*According to Nielsen, volume of sparkling rosé grew nearly 22% since last year.
ENJOY OUR GOOD TASTE WITH YOUR GOOD JUDGMENT ® ©2009. MARTINI & ROSSI AND THE MARTINI & ROSSI BALL AND BAR LOGO ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS. IMPORTED BY MARTINI & ROSSI WINE COMPANY, MIAMI, FL. ITALIAN SPARKLING WINE.
Babycakes cookbook: It’s coming! This title will be released on May 5, 2009.
BabyCakes, the Book of Recipes: It’s Here (Almost)! from BabyCakes NYC on Vimeo.
Robins Jewelry Box had a Magazine Centerfold Spread in Maniac Magazine.
Congrats Robins Jewelry Box! We love your jewelry!
Cupcake Wars
Mike Vicic – February 15, 2009
Article and photo are from TVTango.com
The national media went on a sugar high late last year, and it’s still buzzing about cupcakes. First, it was a Washington Post newspaper column. Now, is the cupcake craze ready for primetime TV?
Apparently so. Food Network is considering an entire TV series devoted to cupcakes, and it’s tentatively called “Cupcake Wars.”
The Washington Post took coverage to another level when they started their own Cupcake Wars on September 10, 2008. Over an eight-week period, food critics sampled 141 varieties of cupcakes inside the Beltway, documented their results, and told their tales of flavor. After all was eaten and said, The Post declared the chocolate ganache cupcake from Georgetown Cupcakes as the winner.
And now this. About 10 days ago, Food Network filed a trademark application to protect ‘Cupcake Wars’ for “a continuing program about food and cooking.” I can’t find any other details about the show and my requests to Food Network for more information went unanswered. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Food Network and The Post teamed up to do a “Cupcake War” series with each episode focusing on a different region? Manhattan one week, Chicago the next, then LA, and Orange County and on and on.
For those of you in the Los Angeles area who want to do your own personal Cupcake War, here’s a link to an LA-area cupcake map to get you started. The map’s not all inclusive, but it’s pretty comprehensive. Plus, I added a legend (with links) at the end of this post. Enjoy!
BTW: I’ve sampled cupcakes from about 20 places, and I pick Delilah Bakery as the best.