Flip-Flop France: Cupcakes in Paris: What a Fad

Fad or fade in French (same pronunciation). Actually that word means boring in French, but the word in French that typically fits into our American concept would be la mode or une tendance. So what is up with all this tendance around the word cupcake?

Recently I was watching a reportage on M6 discussing the explosion of American bakeries around Paris. I decided to do a bit of investigation and try to list out some of these cupcake houses by arrondisement, but then got carried into a whole new domain.

le cupcake

According to the French a cupcake is:

A masculine noun (meaning starts with "le" or "un")
Une tendance du moment (the current fad)
Comes from any Anglo-Saxon country, but usually America
Called "Fairy Cakes" in Britain (who knew?)
Called "cup cakes" due to the fact we use a "cup measure" to make them and they are the size of a tasse
Popular for tea parties, weddings, birthdays, baptisms and birthdays
An art in pastry-making that allows for ANY kind of cupcake and flavor (toujours sucré)

According to Americans, a cupcake is:

Traced back to 1796
Small individual cakes designed for one person
Becoming more a trend as years go on

Now, I am used to the whole cupcake frenzy, when I was working at the Children's Museum in Portland we had lots of fancy fundraising events, the start was usually Cupcake Jones, a luxury cupcakery that sells 12 of little mini fancy cakes at 16.50$ a pop.

That whole upscale pricing has caught onto the explosion of Cupcake shops in Paris. It's become such a fad that Parisiens are even dishing out piles of cash for the tools and classes.

Fait Maison, les Kits Cupcakes

For example, Made in Cupcake offers cupcake making kits at a price of 13€. Some searches can show kits selling at even higher prices, such as the Sibo Sibon kits selling at 27€ for the cupcake papers, coloring kit and some sprinkles... things I used to buy at the dollar store in the States.

Kit Cupcake, 27€ Sibo Sibon

The most shocking seems to be the ateliers created by pastry makers in Paris to teach the common house wife, girlfriend, loving boyfriend or die-hard Ameriphile how to create little masterful cupcakes. L'Atelier des Gateâux charges about 45€ for a cupcake making course, and in the end you can take home a little box of your masterful creations... about 7 cupcakes designed and made by yourself.

Thanksgiving Store: Chocolate Kit, 5€

Gone are the days when I bought a box of quick-mix, threw in some veggie oil, water and eggs and scooped the mixture into mini cake pans.. this is a whole new level of fancy that I never even knew existed.

Some of my favorite flavors I've discovered (from Scarlett's Bakery):