sweet darlin'

So my roommate was pretty hard on the cupcake the other day, over on her blog.

She talked about how much she hated them, with eloquence and passion.

I'm not sure that I can match her in this regard, but I do feel like I need to stand up for my beloved cupcake. So here goes.

I love cupcakes. Not all cupcakes, mind you, and almost never the "gourmet" cupcakes that seem to be so popular nowadays, but a good, humble cupcake? Hard to beat.

One of Laura's biggest peeves is that they're American. Which is hard to deny, although the British have been eating fairy cakes for a while now. But certainly, if you don't like the kind of cakes and frostings we Americans generally make, you probably won't like an American cupcake either.

My argument for cupcakes is that they are, at their essence, a dessert made for sharing.

Think back to when you were a child, with cupcakes for your birthday. Remember how easy it was to sneak one out of the Tupperware to give your friend on the bus?

They're a way to say "I like you" with just a bit of dessert. How much harder would it be to hand out slices of layer cake? Crumbs everywhere!

You can eat them while you mingle at a party, no need for hovering over a table with a fork.

You can make a batch and split them up! One for the woman down the hall who helps you with your tricky paperwork, three for the maintenance people who patiently unclog your drains week after week!

I'm even not opposed to cupcakes from a mix. Shocking, I know! I agree that homemade cake almost always tastes better (my grandma's coconut cake excluded), and certainly baking from scratch feels like more of a gift, but what if you've never baked before? Is it fair that your culinary endeavors will be scoffed at, just because you were too timid to make the investment in a whole range of baking ingredients in order to give it a whirl? Maybe you start with a mix and next time you give it a little personal flair! I'm all for building a love of cooking from the ground up.

Anyway, there is my defense. Perhaps they're inelegant, perhaps they have no history, but goddammit, I love my cupcakes. And if you don't, well, maybe you're just not a good sharer. :)