I’ve heard of some strange collections on my journeys, such as Graham Barker’s Navel Fluff Collection, or the Air Sickness Bag collection, both of which I would rather not have in my own home!  But what about cupcake pans?

Naturally I say I have a collection, from your standard cupcake pan to your mini, your loaf style and the mini Bundt style which is my latest addition, but they hardly feature on my walls.  The only time these are visible is stacked beside the sink covered in baked batter.  So I was surprised when I stumbled upon a question in the Sun News which asked, “when were the earliest muffin or cupcake pans made in the United States?”

The answer is that the origin of most pans date back to the 19th century and if you have a rare one it could be worth up to $500.

So it got me thinking and I wondered exactly how old the first cupcake is?  The answer, according to Crazy About Cupcakes, is that they were first mentioned in 1828 in E. Leslie’s ‘Receipts’.  Apparently according ‘The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America’ the ‘cup’ part of the “name had a double meaning because of the practice of baking in small containers – including tea cups”.

I’m now feeling educated, but I don’t think cupcake pan collecting is for me.  The image above comes from Go Antiques where you can pick up this cupcake pan for $85USD.

For more  strange collections check out Neatorama.

Seems to be the question that Jeff Houck from The Tampa Tribune is asking after TLC’s airing of DC Cupcakes on Friday night.  DC Cupcakes is an inside look at the world of Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis of Georgetown Cupcake in Washington, D.C. Both ladies gave away their corporate jobs in venture capital and fashion respectively to open the store, which now attracts hour-long queues for their cupcakes.

Houck takes a light poke at both the show and TLC, who he states “used to be called The Learning Channel until it realized viewers were averse to mixing education and television”.  With other shows such as ‘Ace of Cakes‘, ‘Cake Boss‘, ‘Ultimate Cake Off‘ and ‘Cupcake Wars‘ he thinks we have gone too far and longs for the days where there were more episodes of Law & Order than cake shows.

What do you think?  Have we reached cake saturation with our shows?  In Australia we have no dedicated cake shows, and our educational stations are still giving on the whole educational content.  So I am in favor of MORE cupcake shows. What about for you? And with five more episodes to go of DC Cupcakes, will you be tuning in or out?

Having sold more than 98,000 cupcakes in 14 months since opening, Daisy Cafe & Cupcakery in Madison, Wisconsin  is poised to sell its 100,000th cupcake.

Seriously, that’s a lot of cupcakes.

The person who purchases the lucky cupcake will be presented with a prize package that includes: dinner at the Daisy Café & Cupcakery, a night’s stay at any one of seven North Central hotels in the Madison area, a bottle of Champagne, and two Strawberry-Champagne cupcakes. In addition, the Daisy Café & Cupcakery will donate $1,000.00 in the name of the winner to Porchlight Inc, the Madison non-profit organization committed to reducing homelessness in the city.

Would it be silly of me to fly to Madison just to buy a cupcake?  I’m thinking about it.  I really love Wisconsin this time of year.  

Further, the Daisy Café & Cupcakery will donate $100.00 to Porchlight Inc in the name of each of the next five customers who buy cupcakes. So, I should probably bring five friends.

Daisy’s co-owner, Daryl Sisson, says, “We were the first to bring premium cupcakes to Wisconsin and, although we hadn’t thought 100,000 cupcakes would come so soon, we’re thrilled to be here. And we are not standing still--we’re rolling out new cupcake flavors every month.” Co-owner Kathy Brooks adds, “We are especially happy to continue our support of Porchlight with donations in the names of our loyal customers.”

Here is a video about the 4 C’s of Daisy Cafe & Cupcakery!  Gosh, I don’t know when I’ve been so impressed!  Gotta go now, I’ve got plane tickets to buy.

That is what springs to mind when reading and watching the news clip on NewsNet5 about Ohio based American Greeting Cards‘ new range of cards called Tasties.

So ‘yesterday’, are cards which stimulate the other four major senses, visual cards, textured cards, cards which play music or that smell.  We now have cards that we can lick and apparently ‘eat’.

Each ‘Tasty’ will be themed and come with a deliciously dissolvable flavor-strip, safely sealed inside the card which matches the theme.  One such card will feature a mouth-watering image of a cupcake and reads “If nothing else, birthdays are a great excuse to eat cake”.  Of course you want to know the flavor, this one is vanilla cupcake!

Though this isn’t the limit of the new ‘Tasty’ cards, you can get everything from donuts to margaritas, though I am not sure if they meet the newsreaders requirement from the above article and have a bacon card just yet.  No doubt the bacon, burger and hot dog cards are not too far away!

Are cupcakes in danger of losing their popularity to other desserts? Back in March we shared with you an NPR article which claimed macaroons to be the new cupcake.  Now two other desserts are threatening to take the cupcake’s spot.  The August issue of Food and Wine Magazine had an article about the increasingly trendy pie which asked “Are pies the new cupcakes? They’re becoming just as ubiquitous at online stores and new restaurants with pie counters.”

And now that the hot summer here, the popsicle is another proposed successor to cupcakes.  On July 7, 2010, a blog post from Allegations of Deliciousness titled “Popsicles are the New Cupcakes” claimed unique popsicles are all the rage. Last summer, Hooks for Cooks might have prediected the future with their post titled “Popsicles will rival cupcakes”  She even quoted a friend saying ” I predict they will take over from cup cakes as the hottest new craze this Summer.” I know here in North Carolina, we have Locopops, a hand-crafted, gourmet popsicle company that began in Durham, NC and has expanded to have four locations and various venders in the Research Triangle Park region.  So cupcake fans, what do you think, will cupcakes lose their top spot?