(Deb Lindsey/ FOR THE WASHINGTON POST ) - It took 355 cupcakes to make this American flag. None went to waste.
The city’s second annual event took place in September at Local 16 along the U Street corridor. Between bites of peanut butter, salted caramel, chocolate raspberry and red velvet cupcakes, participant Helena Rusak of Washington reflected on her visit to the juggernaut that is Georgetown Cupcake.
Lured to the tourist attraction, Rusak said her motives were vaguely voyeuristic.
“I went in and I really don’t know why,” she says. “I took pictures of people getting their cupcakes. I saw pink boxes. It’s really not my style. I guess I just wanted to be part of it and see what other people’s fascination was.”
“Cupcakes have become totally mainstream,” says trendologist Nielsen. “The novelty has worn off and they’ve become part of the landscape.”
But their appeal goes much, much deeper. Cupcakes R us.
Frosted hug or self-soother?
It’s the day before Thanksgiving 2011, and the faithful are congregating at the original Sprinkles in Beverly Hills, Calif., the cupcake boutique that has grown from this one shop in 2005 to nine stores nationwide.
Three teenage boys saunter by with cupcakes in hand, one of them bouncing a basketball at the same time.
Tourists take pictures to pass the time while standing in a line that’s 20 deep. Two women who aren’t in line peer in the window just to see what it looks like inside.
The younger of the two implores the other to try the cupcakes: They’re so good and the line moves fast, she says.
What’s going on here?
“Everyone has come here for a hug,” says Los Angeles psychiatrist Carole Lieberman. “People are lining up not just because the cupcakes taste good. A lot of things taste good. They’re looking for that same feeling inside. They’re all hungry for hugs.”
Customer Dina Berg Blazek gleefully bought a dozen on Thanksgiving eve. The event planner visiting from North Carolina became a Sprinkles devotee when an acquaintance brought them back East.
“I just love Sprinkles,” Blazek says. “I love how they’re presented. They’re adorable and wonderful, just the best ever.”
Cupcake bashers are just as passionate. Baltimore celebrity baker Duff Goldman shot at cupcakes with a rifle on his Food Network show, “Ace of Cakes.” In 2009, the Guardian newspaper cast them as the “favourite greedy treat of the me-generation.”
“Cupcakes are indicative of where this country is with our desire to self-soothe through food,” says Brad Lamm, a New York author and registered interventionist who appears on “The Dr. Oz Show.”
“People tell themselves, ‘One won’t hurt me’ because [cupcakes] are so small, dainty and delicious,” Lamm says. “Our desire for more and for self-soothing is out of control.”
Yet that professional theory has not affected his cupcake ardor or intake.
“I’m not against cupcakes. I’m against the way we’re feeding ourselves now,” says Lamm, who adds that “if you’re not overweight, having one every day or three a week is no big deal.”
Chicago psychoanalyst Mark Smaller cannot resist the magnetic pull of a cupcake food truck.
“I was so intrigued by it that during the summer I’d hang around and wait for the truck to arrive,” he says, likening it to memories stirred by ice cream-truck bells.
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