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What’s up with the cupcake craze?

posted by ChickSpeak
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 11:20am CST

If the Muffin Man really does live on Drury Lane, he has some stiff competition just around the corner. I recently discovered this rivalry as I was strolling through trendy Covent Garden, London in search of a quaint British café for High Tea. What I found, however, was a much more American-style venue and an updated take on traditional tea-time. What I found was every chick’s guilty pleasure. I found cupcakes.

As I blissfully entered Central London’s chic cupcake café, it was difficult for the bakers at Candy Cakes to hold back their smiles while I ooed and ahhed at the glowing display case. A luscious chocolate ‘fairy cake’ (the British term for cupcake) was smothered in generous swirls of frosting and bedazzled with candy of all sorts. My amazement did not stop here.

Candy Cakes’ menu of extravagant delights wooed my palate. The café offered a variety of signature creations from ‘Blueberry Cheesecake’, a blueberry cheesecake flavored cupcake frosted with an indulgent scarlet icing and topped with blue gummy candy, to ‘Chocolate Charmer’, a double-chocolate cupcake frosted with rich chocolate icing and topped with chocolate candy, to ‘Popcorn Burst’, a banana cupcake frosted with luscious caramel icing and topped with sweet toffee-glazed popcorn.

After much deliberation, I treated myself to the ‘Technicolor Mouse’ and experienced ethereal joy as an oven fresh blueberry cupcake, liberally slathered with berry flavored icing and crowned with a colorful marshmallow mouse, arrived at my seat.

Bewitched under a sugared spell, I wondered: who dreams up these masterful creations worthy of even Royal approval? More so, what charm so beguiles me that I effortlessly relinquish my cash, simply to experience one of these baked delights? It could only be my sweet-tooth.

While I confess to this guilty pleasure, I am not unique. I am reminded of the cupcake craze across America, especially among the college crowd of students looking to sweeten up their study breaks.

On the west coast, USC student Amanda DeMarco says that she will gladly drive the distance from downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills just to hit up SoCal’s posh Sprinkles in between classes. “Their red velvet cupcake is the best cupcake in the world. It’s made of a moist chocolate cake, frosted with an oversized dollop of cream cheese frosting. If I’d had a particularly bad day or my craving was strong enough, I would brave twenty minutes of Los Angeles traffic just to get that cupcake,” Amanda said. Sprinkles offers a wide array of the tempting treats, including cupcake flavors of both vegan and gluten free options so all can enjoy.

On the east coast, Georgetown student Danielle Valle-Fitzgerald has her own favorite cupcake hot-spot at Georgetown Cupcake. Danielle said, “Georgetown Cupcake makes my favorite cupcake because they are filled with flavor and just sweet enough. They are the original in DC, and nothing comes close.” On Sunday afternoons, the line outside of Georgetown Cupcake can easily be a 45 minute wait, but people still say that the cupcakes are worthwhile!

A decade ago, one would never have predicted cupcakes to be the recipe for such a lucrative business-except, maybe, the cast of Sex and the City. While cupcakes are fashionable with today’s college crowd, it was Sarah Jessica Parker who first initiated the trend. Back in the late-1990s, she popularized New York City’s modish Magnolia Bakery by biting into a moist red-velvet on primetime television. Since then, Bleecker Street’s Magnolia Bakery has become a tourist attraction and model for other cupcake cafés baking up their own show stopping desserts. In NYC, across America, and even over the pond in England, it looks like cupcakes are here to stay. From one trendy chick to another, thank you, Sarah Jessica Parker.

Katherine Relle is a junior at Georgetown University and is currently spending a year abroad to study at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Katherine is always on the lookout for new and stylish trends wherever she may be-especially one that please the palate!