We were interviewed by Laura Johnston, a Columbia J-school student about our favorite topic: CUPCAKES! We're posting the whole story with Laura's permission:
The creation of the cupcake craze has the aura of a fairy tale.
Once upon a time at Magnolia Bakery, then an unknown corner bake shop in Greenwich Village, Jennifer Appel and her childhood friend business partner, Allysa Torey, were making a layer cake. They had extra batter, Appel said, so Torey told her to run out and buy some cupcake papers from a nearby store. The resulting accidental cupcakes were immediately snapped up.
“It was a coincidence,” said Appel, recounting the story in her office, a simple, concrete-floored space in the basement of her new venture, Buttercup Bake Shop. “It spread like wildfire.”
Magnolia wasn’t the first cupcake bakery in New York. That honor goes to the Cupcake Café, which opened in Hell’s Kitchen in 1988. But it wasn’t until Magnolia specialized in the kid-sized treats in 1996 that they became cool.
Since then, the cupcake obsession has spread to about a dozen cupcake specialty bake shops in New York and countless others sprouting up across the country. Most have cutesy names, such as sugar Sweet sunshine, Happy Happy Happy, Crumbs and, in Beverly Hills, Sprinkles Cupcakes. Just-plain restaurants, such as Kitchenette in Morningside Heights and Downtown Atlantic in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, also sell the goodies. Couples order cupcakes for their weddings, and there’s even a cupcake-themed t-shirt company, Johnny Cupcakes Clothing, and an all-cupcakes-all-the-time blog, Cupcakes Take the Cake.
“Cupcakes were always the rage. Everybody’s mom made them for school parties,” said Appel, who can’t remember her mother ever baking them. “But they didn’t catch on until the whole Magnolia/Buttercup phenomenon.”
(That phenomenon being owed to both bakeries, since Appel split from her partner and founded Buttercup – now a franchise operation – in 1999.)
Although lines snaked out the door at Magnolia even before the Miranda and Carrie pigged out on Magnolia cupcakes in “Sex and the City” in 2000, the HBO show made Magnolia a must-see tourist stop. More recently, the “Saturday Night Live” music video satire, “Lazy Sunday,” in which Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg rap about Magnolia cupcakes and The Chronicles of Narnia, cemented its celebrity.
But why do so many people like cupcakes? Why not cookies or brownies or Rice Krispie treats?
Aficionados cite all sorts of reasons. They’re portable. They don’t require a knife and fork. It’s fun to peel the paper away. They provide nostalgia. They’re guilt-reduced because of the size. They come in at least a dozen flavors They’re fairly cheap, priced from $1.50 to $4, depending on the size and bakery.
Peggy Williams, co-owner of sugar Sweet sunshine on the Lower East Side, can give plenty of reasons for the trend. “We’ve said this countless times, but I think they’re just cute and small, and people don’t feel that guilty about eating something like that,” she said. “They remind people of their days growing up, of bake sales. People walk in, and they’re smiling because of the cupcakes. They get kind of gaga over them.”
Williams, 43, started the bakery in December 2003 with her friend, Debbie Weiner, 39. Both worked behind the counter in Magnolia’s early years, then at Buttercup. When they decided to open their own cupcake bar, they spent a year of Sundays baking and experimenting in Weiner’s kitchen.
“We both feel in love with the atmosphere of a bakery – homey and cute, where people would come in [and be] happy,” Williams said. “We kind of wanted to take that concept and put our own spin on it, make it a fun place, but also a neighborhood place, where people could hang out, veg and eat their cupcake, and not worry about running out the door.”
Cupcakes are all about “having your cake and eating it too,” said Appel, whose bakery adopted the slogan, “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.”
At Buttercup, girls in white t-shirts and bright blue aprons bustle behind the colorful cupcake case. One swirls thick gobs of brown frosting atop a small chocolate cupcake with a spatula. Another chirps, “How can I help you?” as the door chimes charmingly and customers stream in.
A young woman sporting a bulky black coat and big purse points at the trays of delectable cupcakes, covered in brown and yellow and pink and mint green frosting, some decorated with sprinkles or cherries. “Two of the red velvet,” she says, choosing carefully. “Two chocolate chocolate.”
Appel’s average customer, she says, is a 27-year-old, size-4 woman. Not a kid. And the bloggers of Cupcakes Take the Cake (http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/) fit that profile.
“It’s something about getting one for yourself, you don’t have to share it,” said Rachel Kramer Bussel, 30, a magazine editor who started the blog in the summer of 2004.
The fun is in cupcakes’ unique decorations and flavors, she said. Some look like the Hostess lunch-box staple, complete with cream filling and a white squiggle on the top. Others can be decorated for birthdays or holidays – green frosting and sprinkles for Saint Patrick’s Day, for instance.
Bussel also likes to watch how people eat cupcakes, by delicate nibbles, icing-first licks, big bites, or separating the top from the bottom. So does Nichelle Stephens, a co-blogger. (Allison Bojarski makes up the third member of the blogging trio, who post an endless array of cupcake photos and interviews with cupcake fans.) Each day, about 1,500 people around the world visit the site.
“[Cupcakes] mean more than just what you’re eating,” Stephens said as she ate chili at the counter at Kitchenette. She abstained from a cupcake because she’d already eaten about four in the past two weeks. “They always are about celebrations, from birthdays to weddings. Other baked goods, they don’t have that relation to celebration.”
So far, neither the bloggers nor the bakery owners see any end to the cupcake craze. If anything, they said, it’s spreading, with cupcake bakeries opening in Toronto, Chicago and Vancouver, according to Stephens.
Appel hopes the trend persists. She’s already sold two franchises for a Buttercup Bake Shops in New York, and is in discussions for several more in the metro area. She can picture about 100 Buttercups nationwide, eventually, although she never wants the stores to be as ubiquitous as Starbucks. She sees them as a destination spot, limited to one per neighborhood.
“I think they’re getting more and more popular,” Bussel said. “It’s kind of like they’re taking over.”
The creation of the cupcake craze has the aura of a fairy tale.
Once upon a time at Magnolia Bakery, then an unknown corner bake shop in Greenwich Village, Jennifer Appel and her childhood friend business partner, Allysa Torey, were making a layer cake. They had extra batter, Appel said, so Torey told her to run out and buy some cupcake papers from a nearby store. The resulting accidental cupcakes were immediately snapped up.
“It was a coincidence,” said Appel, recounting the story in her office, a simple, concrete-floored space in the basement of her new venture, Buttercup Bake Shop. “It spread like wildfire.”
Magnolia wasn’t the first cupcake bakery in New York. That honor goes to the Cupcake Café, which opened in Hell’s Kitchen in 1988. But it wasn’t until Magnolia specialized in the kid-sized treats in 1996 that they became cool.
Since then, the cupcake obsession has spread to about a dozen cupcake specialty bake shops in New York and countless others sprouting up across the country. Most have cutesy names, such as sugar Sweet sunshine, Happy Happy Happy, Crumbs and, in Beverly Hills, Sprinkles Cupcakes. Just-plain restaurants, such as Kitchenette in Morningside Heights and Downtown Atlantic in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, also sell the goodies. Couples order cupcakes for their weddings, and there’s even a cupcake-themed t-shirt company, Johnny Cupcakes Clothing, and an all-cupcakes-all-the-time blog, Cupcakes Take the Cake.
“Cupcakes were always the rage. Everybody’s mom made them for school parties,” said Appel, who can’t remember her mother ever baking them. “But they didn’t catch on until the whole Magnolia/Buttercup phenomenon.”
(That phenomenon being owed to both bakeries, since Appel split from her partner and founded Buttercup – now a franchise operation – in 1999.)
Although lines snaked out the door at Magnolia even before the Miranda and Carrie pigged out on Magnolia cupcakes in “Sex and the City” in 2000, the HBO show made Magnolia a must-see tourist stop. More recently, the “Saturday Night Live” music video satire, “Lazy Sunday,” in which Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg rap about Magnolia cupcakes and The Chronicles of Narnia, cemented its celebrity.
But why do so many people like cupcakes? Why not cookies or brownies or Rice Krispie treats?
Aficionados cite all sorts of reasons. They’re portable. They don’t require a knife and fork. It’s fun to peel the paper away. They provide nostalgia. They’re guilt-reduced because of the size. They come in at least a dozen flavors They’re fairly cheap, priced from $1.50 to $4, depending on the size and bakery.
Peggy Williams, co-owner of sugar Sweet sunshine on the Lower East Side, can give plenty of reasons for the trend. “We’ve said this countless times, but I think they’re just cute and small, and people don’t feel that guilty about eating something like that,” she said. “They remind people of their days growing up, of bake sales. People walk in, and they’re smiling because of the cupcakes. They get kind of gaga over them.”
Williams, 43, started the bakery in December 2003 with her friend, Debbie Weiner, 39. Both worked behind the counter in Magnolia’s early years, then at Buttercup. When they decided to open their own cupcake bar, they spent a year of Sundays baking and experimenting in Weiner’s kitchen.
“We both feel in love with the atmosphere of a bakery – homey and cute, where people would come in [and be] happy,” Williams said. “We kind of wanted to take that concept and put our own spin on it, make it a fun place, but also a neighborhood place, where people could hang out, veg and eat their cupcake, and not worry about running out the door.”
Cupcakes are all about “having your cake and eating it too,” said Appel, whose bakery adopted the slogan, “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.”
At Buttercup, girls in white t-shirts and bright blue aprons bustle behind the colorful cupcake case. One swirls thick gobs of brown frosting atop a small chocolate cupcake with a spatula. Another chirps, “How can I help you?” as the door chimes charmingly and customers stream in.
A young woman sporting a bulky black coat and big purse points at the trays of delectable cupcakes, covered in brown and yellow and pink and mint green frosting, some decorated with sprinkles or cherries. “Two of the red velvet,” she says, choosing carefully. “Two chocolate chocolate.”
Appel’s average customer, she says, is a 27-year-old, size-4 woman. Not a kid. And the bloggers of Cupcakes Take the Cake (http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/) fit that profile.
“It’s something about getting one for yourself, you don’t have to share it,” said Rachel Kramer Bussel, 30, a magazine editor who started the blog in the summer of 2004.
The fun is in cupcakes’ unique decorations and flavors, she said. Some look like the Hostess lunch-box staple, complete with cream filling and a white squiggle on the top. Others can be decorated for birthdays or holidays – green frosting and sprinkles for Saint Patrick’s Day, for instance.
Bussel also likes to watch how people eat cupcakes, by delicate nibbles, icing-first licks, big bites, or separating the top from the bottom. So does Nichelle Stephens, a co-blogger. (Allison Bojarski makes up the third member of the blogging trio, who post an endless array of cupcake photos and interviews with cupcake fans.) Each day, about 1,500 people around the world visit the site.
“[Cupcakes] mean more than just what you’re eating,” Stephens said as she ate chili at the counter at Kitchenette. She abstained from a cupcake because she’d already eaten about four in the past two weeks. “They always are about celebrations, from birthdays to weddings. Other baked goods, they don’t have that relation to celebration.”
So far, neither the bloggers nor the bakery owners see any end to the cupcake craze. If anything, they said, it’s spreading, with cupcake bakeries opening in Toronto, Chicago and Vancouver, according to Stephens.
Appel hopes the trend persists. She’s already sold two franchises for a Buttercup Bake Shops in New York, and is in discussions for several more in the metro area. She can picture about 100 Buttercups nationwide, eventually, although she never wants the stores to be as ubiquitous as Starbucks. She sees them as a destination spot, limited to one per neighborhood.
“I think they’re getting more and more popular,” Bussel said. “It’s kind of like they’re taking over.”
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