How Magnolia Bakery started selling cupcakes

photo by Flickr user Le is neato.

from the Wikipedia entry on Magnolia Bakery:

Magnolia bakery opened in July of 1996 with Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel as co-owners. They had three employees: Kathryn McCann (who was originally hired to be the bread baker), William (who washed dishes) and Avi ( barista/counter guy). They offered four kinds of bread along with both cinnamon rolls and whole wheat maple walnut rolls during the first week of operation. Making bread proved to be impractical due to time and space constraints. Southern-raised Kathryn stayed on, however, to bake cakes and pastries, helping Allysa with icing cakes and testing recipes with her late at night. The cupcakes were Allysa's brainchild that resulted because when they would make 6" coconut cakes (instead of the usual 9"), there was extra batter going to waste. Thus, the cupcakes were born in early fall of 1996. They were originally only vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream icing tinted pink...the same as the icing that was on the nicknamed "Barbie Cake" of the time. They were baked in the afternoons and iced at night when the bakery was officially closed. There would be many people (mostly guys heading to Christopher Street) walking by late at night and when Allysa would tell them the bakery was closed, they would beg for just a cupcake. She obliged. Thus the craze began.

Magnolia Bakery was originally envisioned as just a nice little neighborhood bakery that would be open from about 8am-6pm. That plan changed quickly due to demand. The first summer the bakery was open, its air conditioner wasn't working and the 100 degree kitchen was too hot for many first-time visitors.