Sandwiched between "The Facebook Book" and "What's Your Poo Telling You?" at Urban Outfitters in Georgetown, you'll find two books on cupcakes. The store is located just around the corner from Georgetown Cupcake and Baked and Wired, which also sells the small treats. Cupcake culture has hit the mainstream.
"Up in New York, they're already over," said Justin Stegall, owner and baker of BakeshopDC, a small bakery that currently fills orders out of a borrowed kitchen. "The interesting thing about cupcakes is, even in New York, it's a fad that never ended. It's not really a fad, it's a food trend ... The people up there kind of hate on it, like it's yesterday's news. But the deal is they still love it, they still keep going back and getting them. It really is the ultimate little 'form meets function' snack."
You could call New Yorkers' cupcake disdain a "Sex and the City" backlash, but Magnolia Cupcake, the bakery Carrie and her compatriots made famous, has stuck around longer than the series. Stegall pointed to the media as a source of their success.
" 'Sex and the City' supposedly created Magnolia, right?," he said. "And Magnolia created the boom, as they say ... or you know the guy from [D.C. bakery] CakeLove was on 'Oprah' and that was his springboard to success. [The media] can make or break you, totally regardless of whether your product is good or not. I mean Magnolia's an alright bakeshop, I'd give it like a 'C,' but they've got lines going out the door every day."
Stegall went to New York around the height of the boom a few years ago to perfect his cake decorating skills. His goal is to eventually open his own storefront, which would sell all sorts of baked goods, but he notes that cupcakes are still the majority of his current business.
BakeshopDC is just one of the many bakeries offering up cupcakes in D.C. now. Along with Stegall, cupcake-seekers can head to Baked and Wired in Georgetown, Sticky Fingers in Columbia Heights or one of CakeLove's seven locations in the D.C. metro area. Cupcake specialty stores, such as Georgetown Cupcake and Hello Cupcake in Dupont Circle, have also sprung up in the area.
Danielle Sleeper, a sophomore in the School of International Service who works at Hello Cupcake, said that while the trend is just beginning to hit D.C., she's sure it will stick around. She said she saw Magnolia-esque crowds at Hello her first few weeks.
"For the first couple weeks I never saw the end of the line," Sleeper said. "Now it's definitely calmer, but it's a pretty steady flow. I work five or six hours without a real break."
Stegall also said he believes cupcakes are going to stick around, though he is skeptical about the quality of the ones local bakeries bring to the market.
"There are bakeries here," he said, "but I'm not sure if there are any bakers." Stegall, who considers himself a first-rate baker, has been holding out for the perfect place before opening up his own bakeshop.
"I wanted my dream little shop, I was looking all around the area," he said. "Believe it or not, I looked at Georgetown Cupcake's space ... I was actually in the works to get that space, but they got it instead."
Stegall said that while he considers losing the space a blessing in disguise - he'd rather set up shop elsewhere - he is disappointed with what Georgetown Cupcake has to offer.
"I just don't get a good feel from them," he said. "I don't feel like it's artisanal. I feel like it's just a business plan, and cupcakes are the by-product of it."
Sleeper said she found Georgetown's product unmemorable, but stressed that Hello, unlike it's specialty cupcake-compatriot, offers up all-natural products worth the long lines.
"We offer a wide variety of cupcakes made from all-natural ingredients," she said. "There are real carrots in the carrot cake, there are bananas in the banana cake ... everything really tastes like the flavor it's supposed to."
The all-natural ingredients in Hello's cakes and Stegall's artisanal quality creations don't come cheap. The former is $33 per dozen, while the latter costs $24 per dozen. It's no surprise, then, that Sleeper said most of Hello's customers are young professionals, and Stegall noted that a lot of his deliveries are to Northwest, the wealthiest part of the city. One has to wonder, in true Carrie Bradshaw fashion, does this economy leave room for so much cake?
"Is it a luxury item?" Stegall said. "That's the question that I ask myself. Especially in this day and age when they say that the economy's going to turn for the worse and people are like, 'You're in a bad industry.' But I think that sweets are recession-proof."
You can reach this staff writer at kpowell@theeagleonline.com.
