the.com/cupcake
a whole cake's ambition shrunk down so guilt can't find it
means a small individual cake baked in a cup-shaped mold or paper liner, usually topped with frosting and meant for one person.
from An American coinage, first recorded in the early 19th century. There are two stories, and both may be true at once: the cake was measured by the cupful (an old shorthand recipe, as opposed to the elaborate 'pound cake' weighed by the pound), and it was baked in small cups. So the name carries its own recipe and its own pan in two syllables.
- origin
- Named for being baked in cups, 1796
- physics
- Frosting-to-cake ratio is the entire argument
- trend peak
- Specialty shops boomed then mass-collapsed by 2013
- slang
- Once military code for an easy target
sprinkles cupcake — nyc bakery that popularized gourmet cupcakes in the 2000s, launched the cupcake craze
magnolia bakery — greenwich village shop featured in sex and the city (1999), sparked cupcake obsession in manhattan
georgetown cupcake — washington dc bakery that started 2008, spawned reality tv show in 2010