02
The cupcake war
Posted on 02-07-2011
Dubai has been invaded by cupcakes.
Everyone is making them, and everyone claims to know what they’re doing.
Not so.
I will outright confess that I’m not a professional baker – I bake because I enjoy it, and I’m trying my best to hone my craft. I started with a very simple recipe for fairy cupcakes (though of course when I bake them I just call them “cupcakes”) and through much trial and error I have graduated to fancier things.
But all this baking has had one effect on me – I now cannot eat a cupcake bought from a store. I have eaten cupcakes at most of Dubai’s ‘fabled’ cupcake stores, and none of them meet my approval. I fail to see the appeal of having a bland cupcake sponge topped with 1 inch of sickeningly sweet buttercream that is quite literally slathered on. Half the time it doesn’t even taste like buttercream, but instead some horrible concoction of vegetable shortening, food color, and sugar. I also think it’s ridiculous to pay anywhere between AED 14 to AED 18 for a cupcake – I know that these places have to factor in costs such as rent, ingredients, labor etc, but if you’re going to charge that much for a cupcake at least make it enjoyable AND edible?
Prove me wrong – know of a cupcake place that I should try? Leave a comment!
OMG, you read my mind! I started working on a cupcake post last night that touches on some of these things…I don’t have the answer to your question. My fav cupcake shop is still in NYC – Sugar Sweet Sunshine.
I know what you mean about cupcakes but that is a bit harsh – don’t you think?
Nope – I’m not looking to attack local shops or anything like that, neither am I saying that my cupcakes are superior in any way. But I now find that there is such a difference between a store-bought cupcake and a home-made one, that I now simply prefer ones that I bake or that I pick up from small fairs etc.
I am being honest in saying that I have yet to eat a ‘retail’ cupcake that I liked.
I think the better cupcakes in Dubai are made by the women who take on small-ish orders. I like the red velvet at Sugardaddy’s, because I can still smell the hint of chocolate in it; but I skim off the icing with a fork thanks to it being so overloaded with icing sugar.
Totally agree. Ever since I started baking, have found myself disappointed with most retail fairy cakes. I think it may be lack of ‘feeling’ in it as well.
If we meet someday will bake you some !
My theory is that retails cakes don’t put in the right amount of feeling into it and thus you don’t get to taste it either !
Blame it on SATC. It became fashionable post that.
Its only in the US and UK that some of them are adventurous and have great cakes underneath that hill of icing.
And you must try some of the devilish non-halal ones when you visit the US next
[…] fellow blogger Nick Regos recently ranted about the obscene prices of cupcakes in this country, and I wholeheartedly agree. […]