Cupcakes, Anyone?

So, Oliver blogged about his road trip this weekend, including a rather disappointing visit to a trendy cupcake place in Philly. He commented on how cupcakes were the "in" food of late.

Imagine my surprise when I'd no sooner finished reading his blog, than I stumbled across this article in today's Salt Lake Tribune, "Little Cakes Grow Up", about the growth of the gourmet cupcake industry in the Salt Lake Valley.

"Once largely a treat for children's birthday parties and bake sales, cupcakes are increasingly a grown-up sensation. Today, specialty bakeries make them by the dozens, giving them decidedly adult flavors, such as green tea, margarita, passion fruit and mocha latte."

And somehow, the migration to "gourmet" has made cupcakes palatable to me, the avowed non-cake eater (okay, I eat cake once in awhile, but it's not my favorite thing - I'm extraordinarily picky about it and I dislike frosting in general). So the move to gourmet cupcakes is definitely a trend I like.

Of course, we owe the recent cupcake insanity to Magnolia Bakery, the trendy NYC cupcake bakery made famous by HBO's Sex & The City (side note: I've never seen Sex & The City but I have a fascination with off-the-wall-trendy-food locations - so I am still kicking myself that I let myself be talked out of a visit to Magnolia Bakery on my last trip to NYC. Lines notwithstanding, I am still mad I didn't go - we were only blocks away).

Being a food nut, I'm always enamored by food trends - and by the way that American staples (like cupcakes) have become increasingly sophisticated. I generally even try to at least sample the latest "trendy food" to allow myself to weigh in on whether or not it is worthy of all the hype (gourmet cupcakes definitely get my two thumbs up - much better than the boring ones piled high with that awful sugary concocation you pick up at the local grocery store bakery!).

Somewhere about the time the cupcake craze took off, I began a hunt for ones actually worthy of the buzz. I eventually found them. My favorite cupcakes come from DC's beloved Cake Love (creator of the cupcakes in the photo above), a place I had the good fortune to have a not only a food relationship but a business relationship with (a plug for Warren Brown, the proprietor - he is an excellent person to have help with event catering - Cake Love repeatedly made an excellent showing at our events). While one cupcake has enough sugar to launch one into orbit, the vanilla one with strawberry buttercream is absolutely a pleasure one simply cannot feel guilty for indulging in. It's not something I ate often (cake still isn't my favorite thing, and at $3 a pop, a habit could easily grow expensive), but another thing I was sad to leave behind.

The featured bakery in the article, Mini's sounds like it could be a potential winner, when I'm looking for something slightly indulgent (okay, very indulgent) and sweet. It is a definite item to add to my list of places/eateries I want to explore as a new resident of SLC. In the meantime, I guess I could stick to perfecting my Raspberry Sour Cream cupcakes.

Decisions, decisions.