I blame sodding Nigella too.

I can see that.

I see the obsession as more of a wanting-it-all thing. My mother was a SAHM, so to me the domestic-goddess type stuff represents a lot of my childhood (we used to eat homemade bread made from homebloodyground wheat with homemade jam on top) that, as a working mother I just can't do and sometimes feel guilty about.

DH was a latchkey kid of divorced parents, so for him the domestic-goddessy stuff is everything his childhood wasn't iyswim.

I think the Cath-Kidson-and-co stuff is more aspirational than anything else, sort of wanting the extreme of BOTH sides (a perfect, high flying career AND perfectly coiffed meringue pies!).

I guess the cupcake representation doesn't make sense to me because cupcakes are dead-easy, much easier than a full cake. So I always see cupcakes as the lazy route and nothing impressive/goddessy about them

I also like to make and eat cakes, but I like to feed them to other people more . I worked in a bakery through school and have had enough cake to last a lifetime!

Cupcakes don't in themselves, it's the obsession with all things cupcakey and domestic goddess-y that worries me.

I also like making cakes (and eating them).

They are buns where I come from.

have to giggle, this debate on fairy versus cup cakes is 8 pages long!!!!!!!

Oh, quite sad that cupcakes represent anti-feminism to you.

To me they represent individual cakes that my mom used to make and let us each ice our own to our own little, artistic hearts' content.

To me it is getting my very own, personal little cake that I put a smiley face and a flower on All By Myself.

It has nothing to do with retro or kitch and everything to do with childhood happiness.

<sulks and pouts that lovely child things have been made into political icons>

Bravo!

<shakes hands>

<steps down from soapbox>

Madamedubain, may I shake you warmly by the hand. you have just encapsulated exactly what it is I hate about cupcakes. Including the too much icing.

I love cake, but I'm heartily fed up with this cupcake malarkey. It's totally over-fetishising something that is basically a poxy small cake. I hate the vast pile of frosting you get - I actually can't physically eat it, it's so much sugar (and I am far from a health freak). I think a lot of "cupcake" purveyors see it as a marketing wonder and a thing of beauty and forget that it's actually food that's supposed to be nice to eat. I have seen horrendously pricey cupcakes for sale at craft fairs and in posh household shops and they are just sat around uncovered at room temperature all day. Yuk.

On a po-faced political note I think this whole cath kidston cupcake 50s housewife domestic goddess fembot craze has a deeply dodgy side. It's like women are fleeing back to something they are supposed to do well and revel in - obsessing over cakes and spriggy florals - at a time when feminism is really struggling and many, many women just want to turn away from demanding real equality. It is dressed up as ironic retro kitsch etc but a lot of it is plain old mindlessness. And we're being played for it financially on a grand scale.

(and I say that as someone who does love my cakes and my craftiness - but I hate the way it's become some kind of fetishised wondrousness)

So there.