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Why Do We love Cupcakes So Much?

Published 21 March 2012 by Tamara Sass

Everyone's obsessed with cupcakes! The tiny treat has come to represent parties, sharing and do-it-yourself fun. The cupcake takes its name from the cups used to measure the ingredients, rather than the weights used to measure the ingredients in regular cakes. This was a revolutionary time-saver when the first recipes appeared! The 'cup' in cupcake also referred to the small containers used to bake these cakes.  These tiny cakes were far easier to bake and less easy to burn in the large ovens commonly used around the early 20th century.

Hostess created the first ever commercial cupcake in the early 1900's and eventually it became the recognisable Hostess cupcake that we know around the 1950's. You might think that the cupcake was at height of its popularity in the 1950's when homemaking was popular. In fact, cupcakes have never been more popular than they are today.

Cupcakes made $31 million dollars worth of profit for America's largest cupcake chain, Crumbs, in 2010. With packed-out bakeries across the world, best-selling books and even TV game shows devoted exclusively to cupcake baking, cupcakes have been one of the biggest cookery stories of the last five years. The most popular online cupcake blogs can receive up to 9,000 individual visits in a day. More and more people are quitting their jobs to start full time cake baking and decoration businesses.

Starting your own cup cake business is a dream that many people have. Things to think about are the machines and the kitchen facilities you're going to need, whether you're going to be online-only or rent a shop space. Next, what cupcake specialties can you offer? Are you going to offer any cupcakes for special diets? Making your living on cupcakes is certainly hard work, but a successful plan can eventually pay off.

Keen to make their cupcakes stand out from the crowd, people have experimented with weird and wonderful fillings and flavours. Some of our favourites are green tea (yes, they're made from green tea and such a beautiful pea-green colour!), carrot cupcakes with cream cheese (that frosting is unbelievably tasty), and dark chocolate with peanut butter frosting (just gorgeous and indulgent).

There's even a clever theory that cup cakes have taken the place of ice cream. You can eat them all year round, unlike ice cream (the whippy-cone-in-the-sunshine variety at least!) Cupcakes also give people the chance to put their own spin on the desert, creating flavours and cake decorating at home.

We'd love to hear in your own words - why do you love cupcakes so much? And which cupcakes are your favourite? Have you seen any cupcake decorations that you want to share with us? Leave a comment below.