Showing posts with label Cupcakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cupcakes. Show all posts
Friday, 10 February 2012
Monday, 16 January 2012
Guestie: Of cupcakes and feminism
Many thanks to Rachel Rayner for this guest post, resulting from a conversation we were having on twitter about just this very topic.
"Thank you all for coming to this very important feminist debate. We have a panel of female politicians, discussing very important women's issues before the upcoming election. And we made CUPCAKES!"
When did this happen? The cupcake, a symbol of the Sex In The City brand of feminism has been fully embraced by the more sincere, unshaven, blog-reading feminist public. What was once a delight, an excuse to eat calories (calories!) guilt free because it's a cupcake and you deserve it has become a mandatory part of any feminist event.
Part of this is simply good hospitality. Breaking bread with friends is truly a wonderful thing, and a cuppa tea and something sweet makes any event flow more smoothly. The problem is that cupcakes are a faff. They're more labour-intensive than asparagus rolls, and more difficult to transport than biscuits. They're not fairy-cakes, those simple, rock hard little things, smeared with icing and splattered with sprinkles: a cupcake is an immense wodge of cake, topped with a swirl of pastel icing. The icing is sickly sweet, the cake is bland and dry. The paper casing flakes off in skin-like clumps as the still apron-clad baker watches closely. Do you like it? It’s a new recipe. I bought the edible glitter specially.
Cupcakes are representative of privilege in ways that barely need explaining. Even the simplest recipes take hours to pull together, and assumes access to ingredients and money to buy them; some level of skill; tolerance to gluten; and an environment rich with mixing bowls, muffin tins and those little paper cases. While this is arguably a pretty low hurdle (thrifty recipes which don’t call for butter or eggs! No-fail cake mixes! Just buy some damn cupcakes and call it a day!), any privilege creates cliques and excludes those outside it.
There's sometimes a fine line between sincerity and irony. We can ironically embrace cupcakes and high heels and foofy skirts and all the rest - it's when heels become mandatory and cupcakes a chore that it's a problem. Spending hours and hours in the kitchen can be a delight, it’s true, but when cupcakes are baked not out of choice, but to meet the expectations of others, we’ve circled around to a place I thought we’d left behind.
It's the pervasiveness of cupcakes that irritates me. Your discourse is still valid without sprinkles. If baking is your thing, by all means, bake. It can be relaxing, meditative, and delicious baked goods are a wonderfully concrete way to express affection. But let’s leave behind cupcakes for cupcakes sake. Put the jug on, and open a packet of biscuits.
"Thank you all for coming to this very important feminist debate. We have a panel of female politicians, discussing very important women's issues before the upcoming election. And we made CUPCAKES!"
When did this happen? The cupcake, a symbol of the Sex In The City brand of feminism has been fully embraced by the more sincere, unshaven, blog-reading feminist public. What was once a delight, an excuse to eat calories (calories!) guilt free because it's a cupcake and you deserve it has become a mandatory part of any feminist event.
Part of this is simply good hospitality. Breaking bread with friends is truly a wonderful thing, and a cuppa tea and something sweet makes any event flow more smoothly. The problem is that cupcakes are a faff. They're more labour-intensive than asparagus rolls, and more difficult to transport than biscuits. They're not fairy-cakes, those simple, rock hard little things, smeared with icing and splattered with sprinkles: a cupcake is an immense wodge of cake, topped with a swirl of pastel icing. The icing is sickly sweet, the cake is bland and dry. The paper casing flakes off in skin-like clumps as the still apron-clad baker watches closely. Do you like it? It’s a new recipe. I bought the edible glitter specially.
Cupcakes are representative of privilege in ways that barely need explaining. Even the simplest recipes take hours to pull together, and assumes access to ingredients and money to buy them; some level of skill; tolerance to gluten; and an environment rich with mixing bowls, muffin tins and those little paper cases. While this is arguably a pretty low hurdle (thrifty recipes which don’t call for butter or eggs! No-fail cake mixes! Just buy some damn cupcakes and call it a day!), any privilege creates cliques and excludes those outside it.
There's sometimes a fine line between sincerity and irony. We can ironically embrace cupcakes and high heels and foofy skirts and all the rest - it's when heels become mandatory and cupcakes a chore that it's a problem. Spending hours and hours in the kitchen can be a delight, it’s true, but when cupcakes are baked not out of choice, but to meet the expectations of others, we’ve circled around to a place I thought we’d left behind.
It's the pervasiveness of cupcakes that irritates me. Your discourse is still valid without sprinkles. If baking is your thing, by all means, bake. It can be relaxing, meditative, and delicious baked goods are a wonderfully concrete way to express affection. But let’s leave behind cupcakes for cupcakes sake. Put the jug on, and open a packet of biscuits.
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Strange adventures in Christmas icing
I'm not sure about mixing pretzels with the sweet sweet goodness of cupcakes... Has anyone tried it, or a similar arrangement?
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Adventures in icing yet again
 |
| Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night recreated in icing across a rectangle of 24 cupcakes. |
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Friday, 4 November 2011
Things that probably should not be made out of cupcakes #5
 |
| Cupcakes featuring green wrappers, grey icing and creepy white fingers, with red nails, emerging from within. |
Many thanks to Kira and Sylvia for sending this in for Halloween :-)
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Things that probably should not be made out of cupcakes #4
 |
| A red & brown tennis racket made out of individual cupcakes iced together, surrounded by cupcake tennis balls. |
Friday, 21 October 2011
Adventures in icing #4958
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Things that probably should not be made out of cupcake #3
 |
| Cupcake with yellow buttercream icing, topped with a packet of Marlboro cigarettes made out of fondant. |
Monday, 10 October 2011
Things that probably should not be made of cupcake #2
 | ||
| Waxed cupcake dental floss. With pink icing and a delightful blue wrapper on the cupcake, and of course a pink box for the floss. |
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Monday, 3 October 2011
Things that probably should not be made of cupcake #1
 |
| Cupcake flavoured toothpaste, in pink tube & box of course. Tagline: Making Your Breath Frosting Fresh! |
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Sunday, 28 August 2011
An afternoon discussion with Dame Fiona Kidman - WGN
What: Afternoon tea organised by ALRANZ, with Dame Fiona Kidman talking about her latest book of short stories The Trouble With Fire Where: Mezzanine Community Room, Wellington Central Library, Victoria St
When: Saturday 3rd September, 1pm to 3pm
Message from the organisers:
ALRANZ is delighted to invite you to hear Dame Fiona Kidman speaking to us about her latest book of short stories 'The Trouble with Fire'. In her writing Dame Fiona explores the many facets of relationships. One of the stories called “Extremes” (set in the 70s when trips to Australia were common) poignantly considers two women's choices one to have an abortion and another to continue with the pregnancy – and the consequences for the next generation.
There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion afterwards. Unity Books will be there selling copies of both Dame Fiona's book and also Margaret Sparrow’s recently published book “Abortion then & Now: New Zealand abortion stories from 1940-1980”.
Afternoon tea will be provided. There is no charge to attend this special event but donations are always appreciated.
There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion afterwards. Unity Books will be there selling copies of both Dame Fiona's book and also Margaret Sparrow’s recently published book “Abortion then & Now: New Zealand abortion stories from 1940-1980”.
Afternoon tea will be provided. There is no charge to attend this special event but donations are always appreciated.
Facebook event listing.
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Monday, 4 July 2011
Adventures in gingerbread
Really enjoying this season of Doctor Who (watching it as it shows up on Prime so please no spoilers from beyond A Good Man Goes To War aka the episode when we find out who Riversong is)
Here, in honour of Amy and Rory and Riversong and oh yeah, that doctor guy, is a gingerbread tardis. You can read the story of it's manufacture, along with pics of the process, here.
There may be SPOILERS in comments, depending on where you are up to yourself, so please indulge with suitable caution. I certainly intend to discuss in a bit more detail the Riversong identity revelation.
Here, in honour of Amy and Rory and Riversong and oh yeah, that doctor guy, is a gingerbread tardis. You can read the story of it's manufacture, along with pics of the process, here.
There may be SPOILERS in comments, depending on where you are up to yourself, so please indulge with suitable caution. I certainly intend to discuss in a bit more detail the Riversong identity revelation.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Adventures in icing - feminine baby cupcakes edition
This one is for Rageaholic ;-)
Personally I don't like cupcake toppers, they feel a bit like cheating in regard to icing. Which makes me a total hypocrit, given that the difference between cupcakes I iced and cupcakes Wriggly iced is barely discernable.
Personally I don't like cupcake toppers, they feel a bit like cheating in regard to icing. Which makes me a total hypocrit, given that the difference between cupcakes I iced and cupcakes Wriggly iced is barely discernable.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Adventures in icing
Thought this was very clever.
What's that you say, time wasted surfing the interwebs for interesting cupcake icing could be time spent writing intelligent articulate blog posts on NZ politics from a feminist perspective?
But they so pretty!!11!
What's that you say, time wasted surfing the interwebs for interesting cupcake icing could be time spent writing intelligent articulate blog posts on NZ politics from a feminist perspective?
But they so pretty!!11!
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
The cupcakes that Wriggly iced
Yeah, so green is his favourite colour. And his icing is nearly up there with mine!
Thanks to Scube for assisting by restraining Snuffly from the Inappropriate Food For A Baby With Only Two Teeth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)