Cupcake woe

[resonant]

This is why I hate it when things I like get popular.

Since cupcakes are all trendy now, has anyone noticed how everywhere you go, the world is now full of really, really horrible cupcakes? And I buy them, because when I see something that looks like a cupcake, I crave something that tastes like a cupcake -- but they don't.

The cupcakes at Barnes & Noble Cafe were probably pretty decent when they were fresh, but they've been sitting in the display case for lord only knows how long, looking more beautiful because they're unwrapped, so that when you buy one, the frosting is too hard to bite through. (The cheesecake suffers from a related problem. But I digress.) The cupcakes at Starbucks are just weird, man, I don't know; they taste like they were grown from crystals in a laboratory.

The cupcakes at Kroger are best not spoken of at all.

Looks like I'm going to be forced to make some.

Comments

[kaizoku]

I don't think the cupcake fad has hit rural Vermont yet. But I feel your pain because every time I make cupcakes they end up being rather dull.

[resonant]

I always have to be careful not to overbake them, but they're always good. My frosting, on the other hand -- well, I've just never yet found a frosting recipe that I really liked.

[carolyn_claire]

It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.

[resonant]

For a while I had mini-cupcakes in the freezer (the result of a birthday overbake, I think) -- yellow cake with honey buttercream frosting -- and I could pack one in my lunch any time I wanted, or heat them up in the microwave for five seconds and eat them ... it's amazing to have a cupcake any time you want one.

[carolyn_claire]

I think heaven will be like that. And they'll all be GOOD cupcakes.

[carolyn_claire]

Somebody was listening to us!

[resonant]

Cute! Wonder what they taste like?

[giglet]

I'm blessed to live with one of the best cake-and-cookie bakers I've ever met. One of his work colleagues couldn't decide whether she wanted a carrot cake or cheesecake for her birthday, so he's making her both. He made cheesecake cupcakes this evening, and they look fantastic!

[resonant]

Oh, man. I'm coming to visit you. I would even dust in exchange for desserts like that.

[giglet]

I would even dust in exchange for desserts like that.

It's a deal!

You should tell me what you like so he has time to practice making it. His chocolate cake is too sophisticated for me, but his cream-cheese espresso chocolate-chip brownies are just insanely good. And the only person in the world who makes better chocolate chip cookies is his dad.

[sarah]

I was tempted on a rare trip to Whole Foods by the beauteousness of their cupcakes. I couldn't believe how dry and tasteless they were.

Fortunately there is a local shop here that does cupcakes which taste better than they look (which is saying something). If you really do wish to be saved from making them yourself, perhaps a small, local bakery?

[worn_words]

Baltimore has some really amazing bakeries/chocolate shops! there's a chocolate shop right across from a Whole Foods in the Inner Harbor (I think, I only went there once) that has the most amazing truffles. way too expensive! but good chocolate always is.

[resonant]

I am so jealous. We have a couple of local bakeries, but they're both really mediocre. Everybody's so crazy about Trefzger's, but their frosting is salty and grainy.

[worn_words]

I've noticed cupcakes have been pretty trendy lately, but only online. I haven't seen any new shops springing up near me. all I know is that my friends in NY are obsessed with Magnolia cupcakes... and I've always wondered if they're really worth the price and the hype.

personally the most satisfying cupcakes are the homemade kind.

[resonant]

A lot of the ones I see pictures of are decorated with elaborate creations of fondant, which makes me think of what Julia Child said about nouvelle cuisine: you just know somebody's hands have been all over it.

[worn_words]

haha, ohsnap! that is definitely true. plus I am not that huge of a fan of fondant, the texture's a little too weird for me and it doesn't taste as good as icing.

[schemingreader]

The cupcake fad has been going strong for several years, here. That doesn't mean you should buy some. (Not even from the all-cupcake bakery around the corner from my house, WTF.) No, the point is that they are fun to bake.

I'm going to do a batch for my son's birthday party Sunday. I wonder if we should make icing tomorrow during the snow day.

[resonant]

I think I'll make yellow ones with chocolate frosting for Valentine's Day.

[tevere]

I was back in Sydney in about mid-2008 (when the cupcake thing was in mid-swing? seems to be fading now) and was so excited to see entire shops devoted to cupcakes! But despite being absolutely beautiful, the insides were just bland sawdust that had no resemblance whatsoever to 'vanilla' and 'cupcake'. Sad.

I think I prefer muffins anyway. (Although muffins are going through their own strange phase-- when did they become as big as my head?)

[delurker]

I had the same experience in Sydney a few months back. (Although the little container/bag thing to carry your cupcakes in was adorable! Pity about the cupcake though.)

(Although muffins are going through their own strange phase-- when did they become as big as my head?)
Speaking of strange muffins, I did see a "muffin-top" pan in my supermarket yesterday: for cooking only the tops of muffins. 0.o

[resonant]

The trend is going strong here in Corntown, but maybe the big cities have already gotten bored and moved on to ... what? breadsticks? sorbet? radish roses?

[laurajv]

It's horrid. What is even more horrid is that there are two local cupcake shops near me, right? And one of them is AMAZING -- tender, perfect cupcakes with flavorful, not-too-sweet, delicate frosting.

And one of them has dry cupcakes topped with, I don't know, whipped lard product.

For some inexplicable reason, one of my closest friends really likes the second place, and always wants to stop there when we go out, and doesn't understand why I don't ever buy anything. I canNOT convince her their cupcakes are HORRIBLE and it makes me question her food sense in general.

Though I feel less bad about questioning her food sense now that I know she wastes perfectly good spinach by putting it in fruit smoothies, and that "fish" for her means "frozen generic white fish in a 5 lb bag".

[resonant]

Oh, dear. Sounds like someone who was ruined by school lunches and never recovered.

(Like: I really, really like Hamburger Helper. I know! I know it has no real ingredients! But it reminds me of Thursdays at my grade school.)

[laurajv]

Man, Hamburger Helper takes me back to grade-school "beef stroganoff", which I suspect was neither beef nor stroganoff!

Actually, there's one thing I took from my grade school cafeteria that is AWESOME, and that is Baked Potato Bar.

You get a bunch of fixin's & set them out -- cheese and onions and chili and bacon bits and whatever you think might be good on a potato -- and everyone gets their own baked potato and can dress it just how they like!

[moireach.livejournal.com]

YES. If being a cupcake snob is wrong, I don't want to be right. And it's not even like I want gourmet cupcakes! Just edible ones!

I actually find this true of nearly all mass-produced baked goods. Starbucks & grocery store examples are particularly gross. I really don't understand why. They're so easy to make well!

[moireach.livejournal.com]

(And don't even get me started on frosting.)

[resonant]

Yes to all of that. Except I can't make a decent frosting, either. (Though mine is a lot better than what you get on store-bought cupcakes; it's just not good.)

[moireach.livejournal.com]

I'm a huge fan of cream cheese frosting. It helps that I don't like buttercream, but it's so easy to mix cream cheese + sugar or powdered sugar, and so eye-rollingly good.

[carolyn_claire]

And you can add cocoa powder to it to make chocolate cream cheese frosting, which is almost too good.

[resonant]

Ooh, yes, cream cheese frosting is the exception. I could (and sometimes do) eat it with a spoon!

[likeaduck]

I am in complete agreement on the annoyance of poor quality cupcakes. A new cupcake shop has opened up near me. I'm a little bit afraid to try the cupcakes there and be disappointed.

I really want the cupcake in your icon now, though.

[resonant]

Me too! If I could eat art ... huh, when I look around me, all my art is actually nature stuff, nothing edible hung on the walls at all. That seems like an oversight.

[monanotlisa]

has anyone noticed how everywhere you go, the world is now full of really, really horrible cupcakes? And I buy them, because when I see something that looks like a cupcake, I crave something that tastes like a cupcake -- but they don't.

YES! Or, I mean, in my case, it's muffins - they used to be practically unknown in Germany, and when you saw them, they were generally wonderful: made from scratch, by private bakers with decent ingredients and LOVE (which clearly is the most decent ingredient of them all).

Now? I ate a blueberry one at Starbucks at the airport at 6am, and it was so nasty I left it half-uneaten. This has happened in other places too, even private ones - they use pre-packaged cake mix, and blrgh...

[resonant]

No, it's true; there are more awful muffins than you can possibly imagine. Plus they're getting huger, too.

I'd add muffins to really good tomatoes and chocolate cake in the category of things that you can only get in two ways: you do the work yourself, or somebody loves you.

[hellpenguin]

the cupcakes in the display case at Barnes & Noble come out of the freezer where they are kept at 1 degree F or cooler, and are transferred to the display case where they stay for NO LATER THAN three days (sometimes they sell out within a few hours from being placed on the plate), spending nights in a refrigerated case at 30 degrees F, or in the walk-in fridge at the same temp)
(The cheesecakes follow much of the same schedule, only it's four days, and some stores haven't had their refrigerated display cases checked so they're hanging out in there at roughly 40 degrees.)
chances are, what happened is this: they just pulled the cupcakes/cheesecakes from the freezer and you got yourself a frozen one.
in any case, ask for a cupcake from the FRONT of the plate, they are guaranteed fresher. we usually like to heat them up in the microwave because it makes it WARM and soft (technically we do this to every pastry item: scone, cookie, coffee cake, etc).


can you guess where I work?

[resonant]

Huh. Well, the cake part actually didn't taste stale (nor was it cold), but it's 100% true that the frosting was too hard to bite through. I wonder if maybe they're using royal icing or something like that instead of buttercream??

[hellpenguin]

I'll check tomorrow when i work, but you are talking about the vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, right? The red velvet is made with a cream cheese frosting. I know the vanilla is called a Vanilla Buttercream, so it must be buttercream frosting. the chocolate (the Double Fudge Cupcake) lists chocolate pudding as one of the ingredients, but I'll check on the frosting ingredients.

i can tell you this: all the cupcakes are made by the Sweet Street division of the Cheesecake Factory, and they're sent to us in huge boxes frozen.

[resonant]

It was a yellow cupcake with white frosting. And it's possible that the people at my B&N are just laxer than at yours? I've ordered cheesecake twice, and both times there was a veritable skin of dried-up stuff all around the edges that had to be cut off and thrown away before you got to actual edible cheesecake.

[hellpenguin]

the yellow cupcake is the Vanilla Buttercream.
when you say you ordered the cheesecake, do you mean the whole cheesecake or just a slice? if it's a slice, it's your store's weirdness (aka no freakin clue, glad i don't work there) if it's the whole cheesecake it's the Cheesecake Factory that's to blame, or the delivery company.

[gwyn]

This is so totally true! The thing that almost bothers me more than the tasteless blandness of all these yupscale trendy cupcakes is that the frosting is just... waaaay too much. I know most people think there can't be too much frosting, but it overwhelms these pathetic cupcakes, and isn't often very good itself. I thought a cupcake shop trend would be the best trend ever. Why so difficult?!

[resonant]

I totally agree with you about frosting! You want balance.

Big Top Cupcake!

[fabularasa]

Have you seen the ads for the Cupcake of Doom? Apparently the only problem with the cupcake, from the marketing point of view, is that it is just too damn SMALL for the the hearty appetites of American children. So some enterprising soul has invented this.

See, what I don't get is, this upsets the whole frosting-to-cake ratio that is the chief charm of the cupcake. No doubt America's scientists are on the case.