I've always wondered: Why do people put so much frosting on cupcakes and cakes?

<———Some people love frosting. With bakery cupcakes, I break off the bottom of the cake and wipe off about ½ the frosting onto it. Then, I get two halves with the right amount of frosting.

Blech. Maybe they suck as bakers and try to hide it with the frosting. I hate that. A good cupcake or cake should be able to stand on it’s own.

May as well call them cumcakes.
Traditional decoration & habit I s’pose.

It’s a trend to have such a fancy, full-of-frosting cupcake. They look pretty and some people may like them. I don’t. I like more cake, less frosting.

I’d just take the frosting if I could. Mmmmm…

Cake sucks.

Yup, @jca is right. Google cupcake shops and all the proof is there. 10 Best Cupcake Shops in L.A. is a perfect example.

It goes beyond that. Stores are filled with cupcake supplies now. Maybe this has replaced scrap-booking?

I think it’s probably evolved from pandering to kids. There’s never too much sugar for the little junkies who will dependably hound parents til they get their fix.

If you make a cupcake that looks like a “church lady cupcake” with just a shmear of frosting, it doesn’t look elegant and fancy. I’m telling you it’s all about aesthetics.

But the creeping arms race to pile on the frosting has reached the suburbs of disgusting as you dig through and pile up icing like snow from a blizzard. You have to work pretty hard to get a balanced mouthful.

A “church lady cupcake” hmmm, reminds me of a SNL skit.

I can’t stand butter cream frosting, so when I was little, my mom would make my birthday cakes and leave the frosting off of them.

I actually, I prefer birthday pies.

Here’s the math on that:

Muffin > cupcake^2

When I was a kid cupcakes had a normal amount of frosting like a typical cake frosting. In fact, when we made them at home they barely had any icing, just a thin coat on top. This new trend of super high frosting is ridiculous to me. I can’t eat those cupcakes with my hands, I need a fork and knife. I think the high frosting is mostly about being eye catching.

Don’t get me wrong, I can eat a spoon of frosting all in its own, but I don’t want it piled high on my cupcakes or cakes.

Good point @JLeslie. There’s no way to neatly eat a cupcake that has three inches of frosting on it, unless you have a fork. It kind of defeats the purpose of the cupcake, when you think about it.

@jca Exactly. They especially don’t work for kids anymore, having even smaller mouths compared to adults. You should be able to have a cupcake in your hand and eat it without too much trouble. I don’t know if the size of cupcakes, the actual cake part, are bigger now? Have they grown like bagels and muffins?

I have the same problem with sandwiches made too tall. You can’t bite into them. I wind up using a fork and knife, or removing the top bread. I don’t take very big bites of food to begin with. I don’t mean my bite is noticeably smaller, but I see my bite compared to my husband’s for instance, and it is fairly significant.

For those who have problems with the piled high frosting, just do what @marinelife described above.

This is exactly what I always do and it works perfectly (Great Minds…)

Once you separate the two halves and ½ the frosting on each, you can then eat each half separately or put them together like a frosting sandwich. It works great and all you need is a knife. No fork necessary.

@jca Yeah, it’s to make it look more appealing. I fuckin hate frosting though. And cake.