Cupcakes, Schmupcakes

The pop-cultural fetishization of the cupcake irritates me to no end. Working at the library, I see what seems like scores of lame chick-lit books mercenarily illustrated with food-porn pictures of cupcakes in order to capture that 90s-retro-Sex-and-The-City market. The cupcake has become shorthand for mini-decadence. Cutesy self-indulgence for women whose two battling, powerful desires are to be skinny and to eat chocolate. Of course, the show "Sex and the City" is somewhat to blame. I'm convinced that show was basically a live-action "Cathy" cartoon brought up to date with sex and cocktails. I still likes me a good cupcake, if only for the efficiency and portability the form brings to cake-eating. And I also desire a set of the annoyingly-named "Cup-A-Cakes", pictured above and available at Williams-Sonoma, where I can no longer afford to shop. (Analogy: the recession=the linoleum in my childhood home. Stores like Williams-Sonoma= the orange lozenge-shapes, which=HOT LAVA!)

ANYHOW, the lower picture depicts the dark chocolate cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream that I threw together for the Madison Public Library Staff Association bake sale. They are the rockingest cupcakes ever. The frosting contains real vanilla beans. However, these cupcakes seem to bring humiliation and effrontery with them whenever they are baked. During my MFA, the not-yet-Pulitzered author Junot Diaz came to visit. I made the cupcakes in honor of my visit. Bear in mind that I offer a baked good the way an arms-trading Afghanistani warlord offers you a cup of tea. You. Take. The. Cupcake. Mr. Diaz SPURNED my cupcakes. DEAD TO ME.

After receiving a personal request from a co-worker to bake something for the sale, ("Who, ME? BAKE something? Don't mind if I do!!!") I proudly brought my cuppycakes into work, only to discover that they were going to be sold for ONE DOLLAR APIECE. The deal of the century, cupcake-wise, but the Staff Association might have done better financially by just having me donate the cost of the ingredients. I felt this way about my son's school carnival Cake Walk attraction. One can only conclude, alas, that baked goods are among the least efficient ways to generate money for a charitable organization. Pennies on the dollar, if that. Which is probably why I feel the way I do about things I bake. They're like handmade sweaters, on a smaller scale. Nobody would pay their real value to have them, in materials and man-hours. So when I bake somebody a batch of cookies with real butter and King Arthur Flour, I am giving real effort. So eat my dang cupcakes, people.