When the D.C. Milk Bar flagship store threw itself a first birthday party, I hit the books before the sweets.
I was struck by the different characterizations of cupcakes in two 2018 cookbooks, All About Cake by Milk Bar chef/founder Christina Tosi and Rose’s Baking Basics by Rose Levy Beranbaum.
Milk Bar doesn’t serve cupcakes. The book chapter is entitled “Cupcakes (If You Must)” and the ambivalent tone continues in the chapter introduction. “I mean no harm by my feelings on cupcakes,” the author writes.
“Cupcakes at bakeries are too often a dull cakey muffin with a lifeless goo on top, a fetishized fad, a cliche of the craft I hold so near and dear.” Prodded to bake cupcakes by her nieces, Tosi writes, “I pretend it’s a chore, but I also secretly love it.”
Tosi is best known for Milk Bar pie, layer cakes with unfrosted sides, and cake truffles. The latter are balls of cake scraps repurposed into an explosive best-seller. The public was invited to make them at the store’s June 30 birthday party.
Forty years older than Tosi, Beranbaum displays no animosity towards cupcakes. They are the background image on the table of contents page. On the individual recipe pages, Beranbaum gives straightforward instruction.
It proves the point that one’s perspective comes from mindset and social construction. The authors see cupcakes differently because of the distinct viewpoints they bring to the table, derived from the time, place, and circumstances that inform their experience.
Sprinkles and Georgetown Cupcake are two cupcakeries that defy Tosi’s critical appraisal. Both introduced layer cakes in 2018, bearing a striking resemblance to the style popularized by Milk Bar.
For its 10th anniversary in 2015, Sprinkles introduced a Sprinkle layer cake with frosted sides. The cake appears on the cover (and inside) of The Sprinkles Baking Book, released in 2016.
Two years later, the company heeds the dominant style and bares its cakes’ sides.
In a writing seminar I attended, the instructor said something to the effect of “immature writers borrow, mature writers steal other ideas.” So I guess I should reconsider my initial disapproval that the cupcakeries would copy Milk Bar to latch onto a runaway bandwagon.
Andrea Adleman | Cupcakologist 