Good Luck Cupcakes in More Ways Than One

March always seems to be one of those dull months of the year. The cold and snow have lost their appeal and become tiresome and yet spring seems as if it will never come. I am trying to appreciate the fact that the frozen tundra in front of my house provide me with a wide open space to snow shoe until my heart is content. But don't despair, while we are anxiously awaiting spring, March actually has some great excuses to celebrate with cupcakes!

Tuesday, March 8th is Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras! Megan's Cupcakes brings the New Orleans tradition of their King Cake to Cadillac with our King Cupcakes. Our King Cupcake is a Cinnamon Swirl Cream Cupcake topped with Butter Cream Frosting and garnished with purple, gold, and green sugar, and a surprise for good fortune. The start of the Mardi Gras season is actually January 6th, the twelfth day after Christmas, the day the 3 Kings visited the baby Jesus. The season continues until the day before Ash Wednesday. Since Ash Wednesday commences the Lenten season, or the 40 days prior to Easter, when fasting and restricting sweet and fatty foods usually occurs, then of course the last day of the Mardi Gras season has also been known as "fat Tuesday." Many families honor "fat Tuesday" with pancakes for dinner. Folks from Detroit eat Paczki (custard or jelly filled donuts), and our friends from New Orleans celebrate with a King Cake. The King Cake is more like a coffee cake drizzled with frosting and colored sugar. The sugar colors are purple representing justice, green representing faith, and gold representing power. A small plastic baby is placed in each King Cake to symbolize the baby Jesus. Custom holds that the person who is served the piece of cake with the baby will be rewarded with good luck that year, and also has to bring the King Cake to the next celebration. So just like the King Cake, in each dozen cupcakes we serve, one will have a "baby Jesus" tucked underneath the butter cream waiting to be discovered and grant you with good luck.

Thursday, March 17th is St. Patrick's Day!! Speaking of good luck, may the luck of the Irish be blessed upon you this St. Patrick's Day. Celebrate the day with our famous Chocolate Guinness Beer Cupcakes topped with Bailey's Irish Butter Cream, or our Chocolate Cupcake with Mint Butter Cream. Each will be garnished with a green fondant clover signifying more good luck!

If this note finds you craving a cupcake right now, then please by all means stop reading and drive to PBS Marathon on S. Mitchell and Granite or Thirsty's Elmrest of M-55 and S. Lake Mitchell Dr. where cupcakes are sold individually. Otherwise, I would love to deliver cupcakes to your home, school, or office.

Where did my summer go?

Hello Sunshine! You have me thinking about summer. Way back in June my kids and I picked Michigan strawberries in a patch just south of Traverse City. I cleaned and froze the berries especially for days like today. The pureed strawberries are added to the cupcake batter and the butter cream and yield a flavor and smell that is reminiscent of summer. I have not baked these all winter long, so today felt like a real treat. I hope you get a chance to enjoy one. Have a great weekend!

Summertime is wedding time. One of the things I enjoy most about this business is talking to brides. Each has their own vision of there own perfect day. Some want a simple arrangement while others get really creative in matching all aspects of the wedding reception to the theme of their wedding. Megan's Cupcakes wedding calendar for summer 2011 is filling up quickly. So much to do between now and summertime.

Cupcake Craze. Is the fad about of fizzel?

Cupcake Craze. Is the fad about to fizzle?

By, Bridget Coffey

Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of partaking in the 3rd Annual Elite Bridal Expo at the Grand Traverse Resort just outside of Traverse City, Michigan. Not only did I have a booth with my wedding cupcakes on display, but I also was able to be a guest speaker in my area of expertise, cupcakes!

My name is Bridget Coffey and I am the Chief Cupcake of Megan’s Cupcakes, a cupcake only catering company based in Cadillac, MI. People always ask if I am Megan. My response is, “no I am Megan’s Mom.” Megan is my six-year old daughter and I named the business after her.

My talk starts out with the history of the cupcake, how the craze got started, and then leads us to our topic of whether the fad is going to fizzle and how Megan’s Cupcakes fits into the picture.

Cupcakes were first documented in the 19th century when two revolutionary advancements in baking were made. The first was the switch from weighing ingredients to measuring ingredients. Since cake baking in a hearth oven was difficult, women went to their cupboards and used their pottery teacups to bake individual size cakes. Hence, the term “cupcake” was formed.

Over 90 years ago, a man by the name of Mr. Rice brought the Hostess Cupcake to our grocers shelf. When sales were down he re-designed the cupcake in the 1940’s with the cream filling and the squiggle design on top, the way we know and love it today. Mr. Rice also gave us the Twinky, the Ho Ho, the Ding Dong, and the Snowball.

Americans have been baking with Betty Crocker cake mixes since 1949 and girls have been baking miniature cakes with the heat of a light bulb in their Easy Bake Ovens since 1963. My daughter has the new, Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker that bakes a cupcake in 30 seconds in the microwave!

Cupcakes became a pop culture obsession right around the time when characters Carrie and Miranda from HBO’s series Sex and the City were featured in front of Magnolia Bakery in New York City eating a cupcake. Soon after Magnolia’s became a tourist attraction. I recently visited their Rockefeller Center location and I must say I too waited in line to pay over $3 for one of their Red Velvet cupcakes!

Next came the first cupcake only bakery in California, Sprinkles, opened by pastry Chef Candice Nelson. She now has a chain of bakeries and sells her mixes out of William Sonoma. You may know her as she is one of the celebrity judges on Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. If you are a fan of the show and think I should be on it, well, I already missed out on my 15 minutes of fame. Last summer I received a call from the producers asking me to audition for season 2. I did not make the final cut. It was flattering to at least get the call and I had fun filming my audition video that can be viewed on Youtube.

This takes us to the question of the day. Is the fad ready to fizzle out? No chance, according to a February 3, 2011 article in The Wall Street Journal. Cupcakes are now just moving from sweet to savory. Trader Joe’s in New York sells a frozen turkey meat loaf cupcake topped with spinach and mashed potatoes. Heirloom, an LA catering company sold 10,000 lasagna cupcakes in the month of December! One celebrity bride in LA even served them at her wedding!

So why do people love to eat cupcakes? Here are 5 reasons why. Cupcakes are portable. Cupcakes don’t require a knife and a fork. It is fun to peel the paper off of a cupcake. Cupcakes provide us with nostalgia. And cupcakes are guilt reduced because of their size.

While the cupcake craze is mainstream on the east and west coast, Megan’s Cupcakes is the only cupcake only catering company in Northern Michigan. People love to have Megan’s Cupcakes at their special events and weddings. Megan’s Cupcakes has cupcake trees that have from 2 to 7 tiers and can hold from 24 to 300 plus cupcakes. We collaborate with our brides and their florist to customize a dramatic display for their “cake” table, but it’s cupcakes.

Megan’s Cupcakes are baked from scratch in small batches the morning of the event. You only order the number of cupcakes needed so there is no waste and you can customize the flavor selections so each of your guests will have the flavor they love. Better yet, no one has to cut the cake. After the ceremonial cupcake exchange between the bride and groom, guests are free to gather around the cupcake tree, peruse their flavor selections (we type them up in a pretty frame), and then indulge in a cupcake.

As long as there are kids who are born with a sweet tooth and Moms who bake cupcakes for school snacks there will be new generations of cupcake lovers. Cupcakes may not be as traditional as cake, but they are nostalgic. Cupcakes make people of all ages smile. Cupcakes are here to stay!