The Cupcake Phenomenon

After hanging out with Diane I did a few errands and then decided to succumb to the "new" cupcake trend that seems to be going on. I realize this isn't that new, since they have had cupcake shops in Vancouver and Calgary (and who knows where else) for a number of years now. In fact, a few years ago Leah bought make a cupcake birthday cake (it was just a CAKE though, so I didn't really understand what they were trying to pull with that)! Now it seems to be exploding a bit and cupcakes are everywhere! Have you seen all of the complicated cupcake cookbooks you can buy now? Of course, no one can forget the awesome hamburger cupcakes that I made last month.

There are two cupcake shops in Edmonton within a few blocks of each other: Fuss Cupcakes and Flirt Cupcakes. Is this really sustainable? Are cupcakes here to stay or will one (or both?) of these businesses be collapsing in the next while? Is a cupcake really worth $3.10? Why are cupcakes so popular these days?

I decided to find out and went to Fuss Cupcakes and tried their Soul Mate concoction. The Soul Mate has chocolate cake infused with vanilla butter cream frosting and then is dipped in chocolate ganache. The cake itself was nothing special- dry actually, but the presentation is really fun and whimsical. The whole shop is quite the novelty and that's my opinion of all these cupcake shops. We're in a recession and $3.10 seems pretty inexpensive for something fun even though it is actually quite expensive for the product itself. I am sure that all of the cupcakes are tasty but it's a silly expense when you could just bake your own at home.

Maybe cupcakes are for the weight conscious? It makes sense- you just have one and put the rest away. Cupcakes are adorable and as a result, their size makes you think that you're not really indulging. The problem with baking them yourself is that rarely does anyone just eat one cupcake and give the rest away. When you bake you end up eating a lot of the batter, icing and then a number of your creations (or is this only me and my zero willpower?). Really you would be better off making a cake since it is less time consuming and you'll probably only eat a piece of it. Or have a cupcake party with a bunch of people so that the decorating work and the eating is more evenly distributed.

What do you think? Have you noticed the increased cupcake popularity? Are they worth the hype? I just keep thinking about how ridiculously popular they would be in Korea (are there cupcake shops there now? I miss Korea!!).