The death of the cupcake

Every once in a while I open a cookbook envelope and find something so, so, so strange I just have to drop everything and tell you about it.  That happened this week, when out popped: Zombie Cupcakes!

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the last 5 years, you know that cupcakes–specifically, cupcakes that look like something other than cupcakes–are all the rage.  It started with roses and sunflowers, but those tame frosting flowers soon gave way to puppies and kittens, carrots and peas, spaghetti and meatloaf.  Now we’ve moved on to eyeballs, vampire brides, and crows peeling back corpse parts to reveal maggots.   It had to happen sometime, I suppose.

The flap copy boasts, “16 spookily original and unusual cupcakes”.  I disagree.  “Spookily original” is Helena Bonham Carter on a bad hair day, or maybe Morticia Addams.  Folks, I think the phrase you’re looking for is “TOTALLY GROSS.”

Now I am sure that there will be those who, when they think of late winter 2011, will think “Democratic uprisings across the Arab world,” or, “that time Colin Firth got an Oscar for stuttering”.   But it’s my belief that this very special time will be forever remembered as the moment when the millenial cupcake trend jumped the shark.

Susie