I've Always Loved Cupcakes...So What?

I love cupcakes.  I always have, always will.  I was so happy when cupcakes became the "in" thing because it became easier to get my hands on the little cakes that I love.  But lately I've noticed a lot of hate on cupcakes.  Some say there's a cupcake bubble and it's about to pop.  That the hype is over and that cupcake love has reached its maximum capacity. That it's time to move on to the next big thing.  I say, go ahead and move on.  Cupcakes hold a special place in my heart.  If you move on to the next big thing, there will be more cupcakes for me.  Hooray!   

What makes me love cupcakes so?  Well, when I was growing up, my mom didn't bake me cupcakes.  That's not a slam on her at all.  I ate lots of other great food -- sweets and otherwise -- that were a part of my Filipino culture.  We had leche flan at almost every party, along with bibingka, puto and other Filipino treats.  Cupcakes?  Not so much.  But whenever there was a bake sale at school (remember those? bake sales?) I saw cupcakes and gravitated toward them.  Little cakes with frosting, sprinkles and a rainbow of pretty colors.  They looked so fancy and special.  And since there weren't any cupcake shops back then, cupcakes really were fancy and special to me.  Today, when I see a cupcake, I remember the bake sales from my childhood.  Eating a cupcake brings me back.

When Sprinkles and other cupcake shops started to open and grow in popularity, I realized that maybe others had this special attachment to cupcakes.  I felt like a community of cupcake lovers were coming together at these establishments.  I'm probably making a bigger deal out of the cupcake craze than most (and maybe people will think I'm a little crazy for writing this post).  But I think that everyone has a food item (or two) that brings them back to some place in their past.  Admit it.

So if the cupcake craze is truly over, so be it.  You go ahead and move on to the next thing.  Just don't hate on me and my love for cupcakes.  I will take it personally.