LA Times: The cupcake abides

The day before I was leaving for vacation, amidst my packing, I received a call from Los Angeles Times food reporter, Mary MacVean, who said she was doing a story about cupcakes and how the fad won't go away. She wanted to ask me my opinion and to hear more about my LA Cupcakes MeetUp Group, which I more than gladly did. We discussed how I believe cupcakes remind people of childhood and happy birthday classroom memories. I also shared that they are popular because it allows you to indulge without eating or baking a whole cake. Now, cupcakes aren't small enough though and mini-cupcakes are becoming the standard at cupcakeries.

Anyway, I went on and on and luckily one of my quotes ended up in her final piece along with my friend Nichelle at Cupcakes Take the Cake.


Food

The cupcake abides
By Mary MacVean
June 3, 2009

Like a Hollywood ingenue, cupcakes have been exposed every which way -- high-end and low, fancy and down-home. But unlike those pretty young things, the cupcake's time in the sun goes on and on.

Cupcakes may seem so 2004, but these little paper-clad stars just keep soaking in the love.

"They're even more popular. I think it's just going to continue," says Nichelle Stephens, who with two friends runs a blog called Cupcakes Take the Cake.

In fact, their popularity may even outlast the star who helped set off this craze: Sarah Jessica Parker, whose "Sex and the City" character -- Carrie Bradshaw -- is seen wearing knee socks and devouring a pink-frosted cupcake outside Manhattan's Magnolia Bakery.

"I don't think you can be angry eating a cupcake," says Tara Settembre, who once lived near the Magnolia Bakery. Since she moved to L.A., she has organized 25 meet-ups at "cupcakeries" around Los Angeles. Her online cupcake group has nearly 500 members.

Read the full article