Should cupcakes be sweet or is savory okay too?

From the Palm Beach Post, news of new cupcake bakeries opening December 26th. And check it out - cupcakes with chicken and broccoili, and others with pancake and sausage! Now, we've already posted about meatloaf cupcakes, before, but those were homemade! What do you think? Should cupcakes be strictly sweet, or ar savory cupakes still allowed to be called cupcakes?

Speaking of which, check out these meat cupcakes (with recipe and oodles of photos!):



Meet A.J. Hurwitz: the man behind the cupcake.

The foodie co-founder of Whats4Dinnerfamily.com and wife Abby are going beyond entrees and straight to dessert. Their 50-flavor cupcake bakery - What A Cupcake LLC - will open in Wellington, Boca Raton and PGA Commons in Palm Beach Gardens, sharing space with Whats 4 Dinner, which cooks and delivers family meals.

What A Cupcake flavors will include sweets such as Boston cream pie and fudge pecan, but it's the food-cakes that surprise. Think entree cupcakes with chicken and broccoli, or morning cupcakes of pancake and sausage.

"It may sound a little gross if you are thinking of a sweet cupcake, but it is more of a breadier texture," says Hurwitz, who tried out all recipes on the couple's three sons.

Cupcake statistics are hard to come by, but the couple is clearly onto something.

Over the span of four weeks in 2001, U.S. supermarket sales of cupcakes and brownies totaled $825 million, according to Baking Trend, a national trade magazine.

Manhattan's Magnolia Bakery cupcakes were regulars on the HBO series Sex and the City. On the West Coast, talk show goddess Oprah Winfrey raved over Beverly Hills' Sprinkles cupcakes. Jessica Simpson perfume includes a whiff of cupcake. Cupcake-only bakeries are popping up in Houston, Arizona, the Midwest - and now, here.

While dieters shun cakes and pies, cupcakes tend to be seen as smaller, less weighty alternatives. "Americans, especially females, are getting used to the idea that small indulgences do not have to come with a dollop of guilt," June Jo and Melissa Heffernan write on Wellness Interactive.com, a consumer-oriented Web site.

Look for the first joint cupcakery and Whats 4 Dinner to debut the day after Christmas in Wellington Plaza at Forest Hill and Wellington Trace. Next up will be a store at Boca Greens Plaza west of Boca Raton and a third at PGA Commons.

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