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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be fed up to the back teeth with CUPCAKES

216 replies

HengshanRoad · 06/05/2011 06:45

Stupid, pathetic, too-sweet, overrated, overpriced fucking CUPCAKES.

They're everywhere. Apparently "whoopee pies" were supposed to overtake them, but that hasn't happened.

Why is a "cupcake business" the activity of choice for women these days? And why do said businesses always have such twee names?

Jenny Colgan's new book is even devoted to the blighters.

Probably been done to death already, but I needed to vent.

OP posts:
bupcakesandcunting · 06/05/2011 08:45

You know that a trend has had it's day when Wilkinsons start featuring said trend on teatowels. You can't move in Wilkos these days for cupcake teatowels/ornaments/curtains/duvet covers Angry

However, I'm a twee little divvy, me. I do think they look really pretty and my SIL did some really lovely ones for a charity tea party recently. They just usually taste to cloying. I prefer a luridly-coloured macaroon. Is there anyone near a Paul bakehouse that could send me up a pistachio one please?

marriednotdead · 06/05/2011 08:56

I love the way they look but then I remember the 'joke' I heard when they first took off-

What's the difference between a fairy cake and a cupcake? £2.50.

BanalChelping · 06/05/2011 08:56

YANBU, fur coat and no knickers IMO.

Bogeyface · 06/05/2011 09:03

YABU!

I make our favourite "big cake" flavours but cook them in muffin cases and then ice them. It really helps with portion control! I do coffee, coffee and walnut, carrot, lemon, chocolate, vanilla....all sorts. DD always wants them for her birthday and they are so easy to make yet can look quite impressive for a celebration.

That said, they are monstrously over priced in shops and rarely taste anywhere near as nice as homemade.

katz · 06/05/2011 09:04

i had the most delicious mojita cupcake the other day, so want that recipe, pimms ones sound yummy too

southeastastra · 06/05/2011 09:08

i had a cupcake the other day with a picture of william and kate on it Grin

PrettyCandles · 06/05/2011 09:16

Bring back the good British fairy cake!

I'm quite happy to have glitter and lollipops and all sorts of nonsense decorations, but fairy cakes had the right icing-to-cake ratio. Cupcakes always have excessive icing - or perhaps I should say 'frosting' [lip-twitching sneer emoticon].

And there is something wrong wrong wrong about having 'formal' cupcakes. Fairycakes are like jelly 'n' ice-cream: a childish concoction that you enjoy all the more as an adult precisely because they are childish. Making them all grown-up takes the fun out of them!

YADNBU!

working9while5 · 06/05/2011 09:18

You just aren't eating the good ones.

In Harrogate, there is a little cupcake shop which has the nicest buttercream I've ever tasted in my life. I had them weekly during my maternity. Literally, weekly.

There's also a cupcake shop in Leeds that won a national award for a mango and banana cupcake which has an amazing flavoured fresh cream icing.

I think people read too much into it re: the "fashion" side of things, shivering dogs, tea towels etc. I just like to eat them. Isn't that what they're really there for?

I'm not a fashionista. I also like Krispy Kreme lemon meringue donuts from service stations despite my dh's protestations that Krispy Kreme looks like, well, sperm and probably has traces of the real stuff from being handled by grubby teens [boak].

TheSkiingGardener · 06/05/2011 09:18

Alcoholic cakes! Tell me how pleeeeeeeaaaase!

Northeastgirl · 06/05/2011 09:19

Fairy cakes / cupcakes / buns - does it matter? I wouldn't buy them as I think they're nicer home made and I agree with comments about recipe books eg Hummingbird over-estimating the icing you need, but I make them quite often.

SexyDomesticatedDab · 06/05/2011 09:20

The new Hummingbird book has various alkiholic (hic) cupcakes, mojito, daquari etc etc

There's a lemonda cupcake too and thought about adding Pimms to that - decorate with lemon /orange icing and strawberries and a slice of cucumber - Pimms away Wink

bupcakesandcunting · 06/05/2011 09:25

Ahhh I forgot about the Hummingbird bakery. I took my brother there on his birthday last year, cupcake fiend that he is. He cried, actually cried when they realised they had sold out of his favourite Red Velvet cupcakes. The big blouse.

TheSkiingGardener · 06/05/2011 09:25

So how much liquid can you replace with alcohol? I'm assuming a shot a cupcake is too much?

TheSkiingGardener · 06/05/2011 09:27

Bupcakes, please tell me your brother is either 10 years old or works in fashion? Nothing else can excuse crying at a cupcake emergency!

bupcakesandcunting · 06/05/2011 09:30

He is 22 and doesn't work in fashion but he is, ahem, artistic. Grin

BendyBob · 06/05/2011 09:32

I like a nice cupcakeSmile.

I am deeply suspicious of Whoopie Pies though. I bought some and even dc couldn't eat them they were so horrendously sickly. They have that odd Jaffa Cake texture - like a cross between a stale cake and a soggy biscuit and cemented together with enough sugary cream to make every tooth in your head fall out.

katz · 06/05/2011 09:35

i've just has a google and found recipes for baileys, pimms and limocello cupcakes - guess what i'm making this weekend!!!!

MissyBrookes · 06/05/2011 09:37

It all started with that fucking bakery in Sex and the City. And now every other person i know is making cupcakes or is starting a business selling "shabby chic" decor for the home. If they aren't doing one of those ther are crocheting or decorating wooden bloody letters. Its starting to get right on my tits.

GetOrfMoiCase · 06/05/2011 09:41

OP ? I totally agree.

I have started many a thread on this subject, including a thousand word rant on cuntcakes when i ventured into a poncey and embarrassing cupcake emporium in Cheltenham.

Women with taste and women who rave on cupcakes and buy cupcake books will never overlap on my venn diagram.

Bastarding things. Sum up everything that is wrong with the modern world

ENormaSnob · 06/05/2011 09:43

Cupcake = souped up bun.

GetOrfMoiCase · 06/05/2011 09:44

I love cakes. But I loathe baking and refuse to do it, so have to buy cakes. And I resent paying fucking four quid for a cupcake.

Plus the staff ion those cupcake shops are complete twats. I had an expensively educated poncey little git curl her lip at my primark fashions whilst serving me cupcakes. I felt like shouting at her 'don't give yourself airs, you work in a cake shop, so did Barbara Royle'

Original poster
HengshanRoad · 06/05/2011 09:46

"And now every other person i know is making cupcakes or is starting a business selling "shabby chic" decor for the home. If they aren't doing one of those ther are crocheting or decorating wooden bloody letters. Its starting to get right on my tits."

Agreed.

OP posts:
Bucharest · 06/05/2011 09:51

"nice buttercream" is an oxymoron.

Best cake topping is this: tub cream cheese of philly variety, tub whipping cream swazzled together with real melted dark chocolate and generous slug of whisky.

Friday afternoon in the office in Liverpool specials they were......

Quenelle · 06/05/2011 10:06

YANBU

I can take or leave them but I'm sure a good homemade one is delicious.

I just can't understand how a business is sustained by just making cupcakes. Oh wait, yes I can, you charge four quid each for them.

My otherwise extremely sensible friend wants to give up a successful career to set up a cupcake business. But she has just moved to St Albans so that probably explains it.

JanMorrow · 06/05/2011 10:13

Well it depends on the cupcake doesn't it? There are some which look lovely and taste like shit though, that's very upsetting.