Pretty, petite, and wildly popular, they satisfy a sweet tooth in just two or three bites. Edible works of art, cupcakes are showing up everywhere—from fancy soirees, complete with stemware and linen tablecloths, to raucous pre-teen birthday parties.
By choosing to serve cupcakes, hosts can offer something to suit everyone’s taste. Rather than committing to one set of flavors baked into a single cake, they can dazzle guests with dozens of combinations of batter, fillings, and colorful frostings.
Cupcakes, which rank among the world’s most appealing finger foods, require no slicing or serving, and rest as easily on a napkin as they do on a plate. For the budget conscious, these attributes eliminate a lot of party-time fuss, as well as the often expensive cutting fees charged by many caterers and banquet halls.
At Gina’s Piece of Cake (922-7866), voted Best Bakery by Sun readers in 2010, cupcakes are cleverly used as an architectural element. In doing so, the bakery has elevated the sweet treats to dizzying new heights.
One of the bakery’s signature specialties is
assembled from a dozen or more individual cupcakes and looks like an undivided cake. To enjoy the complex construction for dessert or at a party, simply pull it apart, cupcake by cupcake, and savor each lavish bite.
In Orcutt, Windy City Cakery creates unique works of art couched in fluted paper cups. One line of confections resembles so many petite dolls wearing fluffy princess dresses made of piped frosting.
The cakery also offers single-serving cakes (minimum order of 12) in a variety of themes and shapes. Among them are bunnies, clowns, goblins, trains, hearts, and flags.
For Dawn Peters, owner of Decadence Wedding Cakes (686-2860), cupcakes make a fine addition to any occasion, no matter how festive or solemn. She offers flavors ranging from vanilla raspberry and peanut butter, to carrot and pumpkin, with a frosting of buttercream, cream cheese, or ganache. She’ll even decorate her cupcakes to match the colors, flowers, or theme of the event.
Although simple vanilla cupcakes topped with chocolate icing reign as America’s No. 1 choice, bakers nationwide continue to brainstorm evermore creative flavor combinations. For them, the sky is the limit when it comes to crafting their favorite sweet.
Popular among the campfire set, s’mores cupcakes include a layer of graham cracker incorporated into the cake batter. Crowning these chocolatey delights, a mound of toasted marshmallow completes their remarkably faithful approximation of the original.
Some white cake cupcakes come with a whole strawberry baked in the middle. Topped with fresh whipped cream and maybe a few mashed berries, they taste like mini-strawberry shortcakes.
Certain cupcakes may rest on an Oreo cookie base, while sporting cookie chunks in the batter and sugar cream (much like the cookie’s filling) on top. Alternatively, margarita cupcakes feature coconut flour in the batter and several shots of tequila in the icing.
There are even Guinness cupcakes based on the Irish brew that are filled with a gooey mixture of ganache and whiskey. As if that’s not sufficiently spirited, they come drenched in Baileys Irish Crème Frosting.
Some debate has risen about the difference between cupcakes and their closely related kin: muffins. Both represent an individual portion designed to be enjoyed any time of the day, with muffins presenting a “healthy” alternative for munching at breakfast time.
Generally, cupcakes boast a finer texture, sweet flavors, and frosting on top. Muffins, on the other hand, sometimes contain fruit, may or may not be sweet, and are often made with coarse flour in the manner of a quick bread.
Santa Maria’s Panera Bread (349-9800) offers a variety of goodies perfect for those who love cupcakes, but feel better about eating muffins. Their pumpkin muffin is made with real pumpkin and honey, and topped with a dusting of powdered sugar.
Panera Bread’s carrot walnut muffin derives even more sweetness from the raisins and pineapple bits distributed through the batter, while another offering contains cinnamon and chunks of apple, and is finished with a cinnamon-sugar topping.
Cupcakes originated in the United States and have been around at least since the mid-1800s. They likely are so named because cooks measured their ingredients out by the cup, rather than by more traditional methods that relied upon weight.
Diminutive cupcakes baked more quickly than standard-sized cakes, freeing up the oven for other tasks, such as baking bread and roasting legs of mutton. With the advent of advanced bakeware in the early 1900s, busy housewives began making their tiny cakes by the dozen in muffin tins.
As popular now as they were a century ago, cupcakes have evolved from simple to wildly creative. Whether they contain vanilla, chocolate, or a crazy combination of fruits and essences, they remain amazing works of edible art and welcome on any occasion.
K. Reka Badger is occasionally filled with ganache and spirits. Contact her a rekabadger@hotmail.com.
This article appears in Jun 2-9, 2011.