There has been, as of late, a cultural obsession with cupcakes.  I sort of get it–cupcakes can be cute and interesting and charming because they are tiny little cakes covered in frosting and frosting is delicious. There are all kinds of cupcake variations out there–different flavors, frosting, decorations, and so on. I’ve seen stuffed cupcakes and designer cupcakes and deconstructed cupcakes. I am charmed by monster cupcakes and Obama cupcakes and princess cupcakes and the like. I am intrigued by but skeptical about fancy cupcakes with nontraditional flavors like Almond Basil. I admire the creativity pastry chefs and bakers put into creating beautiful treats. There are entire blogs devoted cupcakes, one that’s moderated by someone I know and quite like and admire and get on well with. Yes, cupcakes are adorable and delicious and interesting. That said, it’s safe to say that we’ve reached an appropriate level of cultural saturation with cupcakes and I hope you’ll feel me when I say, “Enough with the cupcakes already.” What has gone wrong at the societal level that a baked good, a small baked good, is the source of so much fascination? I had this realization while flipping from one channel to the next. I happened upon a Food Network program called Cupcake Wars which was, as Food Network is wont to do, a contrived farce of a baking competition with lots of after the fact narration by “contestants” creating cupcake creations as they bicker with teammates and other contestants for a panel of obscure judges and an annoying host with a nasally voice and terrible sense of humor. I was entranced by the absolute nothingness of the show and the host’s terrible quips like, “Two minutes until judgment day, not the movie.” While there are some wonderful, creative and/or delicious cupcakes out there, I am generally disappointed by cupcakes. All too often, cupcakes are like a one night stand—you go home with a really attractive person and think you’re going to have great sex and then they are terrible in bed, or even worse, they’re just average, or they pass out on top of you (the hypothetical you) and you have to listen to their drunk snoring until you can muster the energy to push them onto the floor. Many of the cupcakes I’ve eaten have followed a similar trajectory. The dessert looks delicious but the cupcake itself is dry or tasteless or too sweet or underbaked or the decoration is simply decorative rather than delicious, or it’s hard to handle the logistics of holding the cupcake while you eat it and frosting and sprinkles fall on your clothes or the floor. The cupcake experience ends up, much like unsatisfying sex with some random attractive person, making you feel like you got yourself all worked up for no reason at all. The current cupcake craze is all about aesthetics–creating the prettiest cupcake rather than creating the cupcake that someone can sit down and simply eat. That’s fine, I suppose, but must we prolong our cultural fascination with a baked good that is generally sold for a couple bucks, wrapped in Saran Wrap, at bake sales so your kid’s T-ball team can go to the T-ball World Series in Peoria? Are cookies going to be the next object of confectionary zeitgeist? Why not dessert toppings? If we’re going obsess over extraordinarily specific things, let’s get specific. Let’s really find some culinary minutiae. I choose sprinkles