Dainty delights back in fashion

Photo / NZ Herald

Cashing in on a rash of nana-worshipping and renewed interest in high teas, the humble cupcake has never had it so good.

Would-be bakers are clamouring to learn the fine art of icing the perfect cupcake, cafes are shoving aside Afghans in favour of the dainty icons, and marketers are using the cakes for everything from notepaper to soap.

Newlywed Rebecca Savage, 25, is booked to do a cupcake-decorating class with a friend after receiving a gift voucher as a wedding present.

She and her younger sister, Samantha, already know the best places around Auckland to have high tea, own several multi-tiered afternoon tea plates and have perfected the art of baking tiny cupcakes.

Savage thinks nothing of whipping up 50 for a friend's dinner party, or a dozen as a birthday gift, and staying up late to ice cupcakes as Christmas presents for office colleagues.

Her sister put on a high tea - complete with cupcakes - for her hen party and the bridesmaids lavished her with cupcake-themed gifts. She enthuses about the "cupcake bible", a book of 500 different designs and flavours.

Whitcoulls and Paper Plus are doing well on the phenomenon, offering kits containing silicone moulds, icing nozzles and recipe books, and items such as cupcake notepaper and gift cards.

Last month, alcohol-laced cupcakes arrived as a rescue package for an Auckland couple whose plans for their wedding cake had fallen through.

Christine Lee, the mother of one of the bridesmaids, baked 50 cupcakes - gin and lemon, and orange and cointreau - in gold foil containers topped with white chocolate ganache and gold hearts.

On the high-tea circuit, baby cupcakes iced in pastel hues take pride of place on the cake stands.

High-tea hostess Josephine Knowles says young women come to her parlour dressed in long gloves, hats and pretty dresses. For $24, Knowles, general manager of Smith Champagne and Cocktail Bar in downtown Auckland, serves freshly baked scones with cream and jam, dainty white-bread sandwiches, Belgian biscuits, sultana loaf and, of course, cupcakes, all washed down with coffee or tea drunk from antique china.

Smith is filled with "nana furniture" - reproduction chaise longues and armchairs upholstered in gold velvet, old rugs, gilt-edged mirrors and paintings - even a couple of stag's heads.

Knowles says there has been a swing back to things feminine and dainty, and cupcakes fit in perfectly.

Actress Sarah Jessica Parker made them fashionable by tucking in during an episode of Sex and the City. Now Hollywood's glitterati queue at Sprinkles Cupcakes in Los Angeles to buy boxfuls of the sweet treats.

Closer to home, Cheryle Thomas, owner of commercial bakers Creative Edge, says people no longer want a huge slice of cake or a scone the size of a small frisbee. Thomas has specialised in cupcakes since 2004 and supplies more than 50 Auckland cafes. She says people want a special little cake of their own, something that's sweet and pretty.