D & cupcakes: a history

In case you didn't notice the oversaturation yourself, or read it here first, let me just reiterate/confirm: the cupcake is no longer cool.

Know how I know this?

The trend has trickled down from Magnolia and Sprinkles, through regional large-ish cities, and made its way through the pipeline to little old Small-ish Town, Louisiana. We now have four little cupcake boutiques; this one is by far the cutest:

I have something cupcake related that I need to get off my chest (that's a sentence I never thought I'd say):

I do not like cupcakes any more than the average person.

Somehow, I became everyone I know's poster child for the cupcake. I receive gifts with pictures of a cupcake on them, or even just the word "cupcake". People tag me in photos of random cupcake stores. I get sent clipping after clipping of news stories about cupcakes. And while I love that people are thinking about me, I'm always curious if my friends and family just picture my head as a giant cupcake.

I mean, I like cupcakes, sure. But -- who doesn't like cupcakes?

I think I know what started this: In 2007, I was an intern at an ad agency with a lot of downtime. A lot of Perez Hilton was consumed, thus, so were a lot of pictures of celebrities eating the cool new thing: cupcakes. That spring, Y and I went to Portland, Oregon. My sister introduced us to a cute little place called Saint Cupcake.

I must have come home talking about the genius concept of cupcake boutiques. And since the trend hadn't trickled down to us mere Louisiana-folk yet(other than Carrie and Miranda eating cupcakes outside of Magnolia Bakery on HBO on Sundays), I must have sounded like a crazy person. I even made my best recreation of fancy cupcake boutique cupcakes. I think they turned out less "fancy cupcake boutique" and more "third grade bake sale".

In 2008, I was finally able to get my first taste of this "Sprinkles" place that all of the celebrities worthy of their own category on Perez Hilton were visiting. I even went so far as to use a picture of myself biting into a pumpkin cupcake as my profile picture. Mistake #1.

Because Y and I have such great memories of our first big vacation together, to Portland, we thought about ordering cupcakes from Saint Cupcake as our wedding cake. Yeah. That was expensive. But we still decided to use cupcakes instead of a cake. Mistake #2 (but not really. They were delicious).

I do still make cupcakes occasionally (and I have to say they look a lot less "third grade bake sale" than they used to).


But you know why? Well first of all, I like to bake, and they're easy. It isn't because I have some weird obsession with cupcakes. It's also because when you show up somewhere carrying a dozen cupcakes, it makes people happy. And who doesn't like making people happy? The same people who don't like cupcakes: Communists.

As a side note, I also make hummus and bring it places often. I'm glad no one has picked up on this and started sending me hummus-related merchandise, because I imagine it's not nearly as cute as the cupcake stuff.