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First came the craze for gourmet coffee. Then America went nuts for frozen yoghurt. Now, the craze is a throwback to childhood - or perhaps a hint of naughtiness disguised as all-American wholesomeness - in the humble cupcake. They are everywhere.
In New York, the queues to buy them at the Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village stretch out the front door. In Los Angeles, Oprah Winfrey and other stars frequent Beverly Hills cupcake emporium Sprinkles.
Parents are serving cupcakes instead of cake at children's birthday parties. Courting couples are planning cupcake weddings instead of the more traditional tiered cakes with white royal icing. You can buy chai latte cupcakes, mojito cupcakes, cupcakes filled with chocolate ganache and coated in a light dusting of fleur de sel, cupcakes made to look like flowers, even cupcake-motif T-shirts and cupcake underwear.
No national cupcake chain exists in the US yet, but it is coming. Sprinkles has branched out from southern California to Dallas, Texas, and is planning outlets in Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and Las Vegas. Starbucks, the main beneficiary of the coffee craze which began in the 1990s, has started selling its own cupcakes.
What is the appeal? That's a bit of a mystery. Some say it is a way for adults to relive their childhood, with gourmet accoutrements. Some say it is pure sex appeal - the trendiest cupcake in LA by far is red velvet with cream cheese topping.
Others see it as the latest illusory form of dieting, much like the low-carb diet a couple of years ago. Eat a cupcake and you can kid yourself you are controlling your craving for sweets, in a neat, petite package.
"When you hand someone a slice of cake, sure they're happy, but, hand them a cupcake and they are dazzled. They spin it around and look at it from every angle," says New York food writer and aficionado Isa Moskovitz. "Cupcake eating is more of an experience or an activity. With other baked goods, you're just having dessert."
Whataver the reason, the craze is unmistakable and, it seems, uncontrollable. The US now has at least 300 gourmet cupcake outlets, mostly in the coastal cities but also in the heartland. Women sport cupcake tattoos. A Boston mini-chain called Johnny's Cupcakes sells cakes - as well as "Make Cupcakes Not War" T-shirts, and women's undies that ask "Have you had your cupcake today?"
There is some disagreement on where the trend started, but one big push certainly came when the stars on TV's Sex And The City ordered cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery. Until then, Magnolia was a multi-purpose bread and cake shop, but then cupcakes took over.
It proved too much for the bakery's two founders, who parted ways as a result of the pressure and ensuing disagreements about which way to take their business.
Sprinkles got a kick-start two years ago when Barbra Streisand sent some of its cupcakes to Oprah Winfrey. She featured them on her show and, before long, half of Hollywood was hooked. Courtney Love complained that Sprinkles had caused her to gain 4kg; Tom Cruise's wife, Katie Holmes, couldn't get enough of them. Star sightings at the Sprinkles store became common - Teri Hatcher from Desperate Housewives, Kevin Bacon and the tennis star Serena Williams among them.
The phenomenon has spread to the internet, and cupcake-themed blog sites are springing up everywhere. Perhaps the best is Cupcakes Take The Cake, managed by Rachel Kramer Bussel, an editor of erotic literature and former sex columnist for the Village Voice. She doesn't buy the return-to-childhood theory.
"I consider a hand-delivered cupcake the perfect way to seduce someone," she says. "Since there are so many ways to eat a cupcake, watching a lover delicately lick the frosting or savour both layers can be an intimate act, especially under direct, voyeuristic supervision. The very word 'cupcake' has become a double entendre of the sexual variety."
- Independent
