To be fed up to the back teeth with CUPCAKES

[HengshanRoad]

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.

Cake pops are the new cupcakes apparently and I had one in Starbucks - it was rank - like chewy cake, really not a winning combo however much pink glitter it was covered in. I do like cupcakes, but agree with an earlier poster that a coffee and walnut slice of cake would be more my cup of tea.

Ooh. The grumblings grow louder.

The allure of buttercream frosting, ditzy print floral irony is wobbling.

Fairy cakes are small cakes (you can eat them in two bites) with a blob of icing & hundreds & thousands. They always look a bit crap. They're for children's parties. A whole batch costs half nothing.

Cup cakes are big, they have LOADS of icing, glitter, hearts, your name,etc on. They cost £2.

IMO YABU I love a good cupcake!

I agree about them being massively overpriced though I don't think i've bought one before. I really enjoy baking though so I prefer making them or big cakes...or pies...or anything else really. I'm going to give the pimms cupcakes a go in the summer.

People don't realise that the purpose of cupcakes is not 'perfection' - it's so that you can compartmentalise the decorating between hygienic you, bloody perfectionist Ds, eccentric creative Dd, and unbiddable enthusiastic Ds2. And then easy portioning at the serving end.

I always get the urge to smash them individually with my fist as I walk past.

More of a bacon butty girl myself.

Cupcakes! Pah!

I think the problem is that there are too many people selling rubbish cupcakes topped with too much, but pretty icing. So you only realise it's disgusting after you've spent one month's salary on one!

However, I hate macaroons. I've tried cheapish ones, I've tried really expensive ones - makes no difference, I don't like the texture. Please tell me there will be something really nice to buy with coffee.

We need a link to that story in the DM (I think) about the woman who started up a cupcake "business"

Someone posted it on here ages age.

She was the archetype.

Maybe people are catching on to the fact that cupcakes are an irony that makes you fat - all that buttercream (yeurch).

IThe incredibly inflated price is a hangover from when they were a niche - again, the irony signalled by the price - now they are everywhere, they are just expensive carbohydrates.

Lucky you.

It is my DREAM to be surrounded by cupcakes.

The fad has not yet hit Norway. I bet my return to London will be so untimely the fad has passed by then, and I will have spent 5 years of my life in CUPCAKE OBSOLETENESS!!

I remember that DM article thingy. Didn't she bake some for her DC's party and "everyone loved them and now I supply 30 million a week to Harrods" sort of thing with the Aga in the background and a kitchen the size of a basketball court

How people like that remain unpunched is beyond me.

Shudders

nuff said

I love that I'm not the only one who thinks ready cut card making is shit! Cut stuff and draw yourself - creative. Stick stickers on paper - preschool

I admit to crocheting. In my defence I have been doing it since I was 7 and now make prem baby clothes as part of my sideline business. And those are to my own designs...

Cupcake businesses go alongside yummy mummies imo. They look great because someone else did the grunt work

Suncottage Fri 06-May-11 12:24:18
I always get the urge to smash them individually with my fist as I walk past.

suncottage - are you me?

shops specialising in cupcakes make crap tasting cakes.

However, homemade cupcakes/fairycakes/buns are brilliant, as I really think that cake is just a vehicle for icing and butter icing at that.

Is THIS the DM article you mean?

Kudos to the top pic. Of course she bakes in a clinging red dress, with full makeup and heels. OF COURSE!

I make buns. Proper honest buns, like in the 70's. And if you're really lucky I might turn it into a fairy cake. But no cupcakes. And no bloody muffins either. A muffin is a bread thing which you slice in half and put in the toaster, and serve with a coddled egg.

Crumpet anyone?

Nothing wrong with fairy/cupcakes per se (I like lemon drizzle ones myself). Nor indeed with bunting, I suppose, or clashing floral prints and spots, or full skirted dresses. But the idea that they invoke, albeit - supposedly - ironically (and really the irony has been forgotten of late, hasn't it, what with Royal Fucking Wedding street parties and the like) a better time - some fictional post-war world where the Blitz spirit still reigned - really makes me want to shove your Keep Calm and Carry On umbrella and your Union Jack cake stand somewhere eye-watering.

I remember that article - yeah, her husband lost his well -paid high flying job and to preserve her lovely flashy existence she started making cupcakes, and saved the world.

I love cupcakes, always have always will. Particularly with buttercream icing. And now I am craving one, THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Now you've put me in the mood and there isnt much in my cupboard just now, anyone got a 'good' easy ISH recipe? Katz? Picak?

yy Hazel thank you

Bessie - excellent!

This is completely off topic, but I'm always amazed by self employed who 'suddenly' get a big tax bill.

It's not like electricity or the phone. You know how much you've earned. You know you have to pay tax. Where's the surprise. They are not your savings, it's your tax.

£36k a year on school fees and no proper savings.

Idiots. Thank goodness age could frost!

I do hate the "ironic" 1950s housewifey stuff; really creeps me out.

there used to be something called viva cake which was an afternoon tea dance (lindy hop and lots and lots of cake) which I went to for the combo of booze and cake and weird dancing. But, they had all these 1950s-esque baking competitions and stuff which really creeped me out and reminded me waaaaaaaay too much of home economics at school in South Africa in the 1980s which was designed to turn you into the perfect housewife. Very creepy. It's like feminism never happened.

I actually think that that woman in the link above is to be admired. When all went wrong for her family, she did the one thing she did best, and it saved the day. For now at least. That is good in my books. If it would save my family, I'd do everything in my power to save our house etc. The fact that she sells silly things is irrelevant imo. She fought, and it worked. Her dress in the photo works for the image of her business.