I know what you are thinking.  After reading that title, you were trying to decide if there was any other string of words that you could put together that would come even as close to sounding as delectable as, “salted caramel”…”BACON!”… “cupcake”.  Feel free to post some comments below as you take on that challenge.

The only semi-bummer word in there is “cupcake”.  I don’t get the whole cupcake thing.  Like, I know what a cupcake is, I think.  But, like, I totally do not get why everyone loves cupcakes all of a sudden.  Cupcakes used to be the dessert that you made that was really just a cheap knockoff of that awesome cake you recently ate.  But, you were just too lazy to put out the effort to make the far superior whole cake.  How many great foods can you think of that come in a cup?

Sure, it looked cutesy, but ask any 4-year old what they would prefer and I think you will get the right answer.  “Hey Timmy, would you like that little piece of chocolate ganache with sprinkles, of course, served in a dinky paper cup, or would you like that towering triangle of multi-layered goodness slathered in creamy chocolate-ness?”  It used to be the case that cupcakes were the thing moms would take to kid’s parties, and cakes were what you took to adult parties.  Cupcakes were the cake form for the tiny humans that would just as likely eat a crayon as they would their own boogers.  But, we served cake for actual humans that have real taste buds and actually have drawn the line that there are some things they will not put into their mouths.

When the cupcake craze started to emerge it was really just a few moms that compulsively made cupcakes to prove that they were a better mom than Timmy’s mom.  If she just spent another 12-to-18 hours awake to hand carve miniature guitars out of Almond Joys, using the white tufts of dandelions that she sowed together as guitar strings, then maybe, just maybe she could prove that she loves Johnny more than Timmy’s mom loves Timmy.  And then, she would be the better mom.  And then, that would erase all of her mistakes and unfulfilled dreams that she let slip away.  She would feel relief from that beast of burden for an entire 12-seconds.  She really packed a lot into those little cups of sponginess.

I am sure all the 4-year olds really appreciated all the hard work that went into making those cupcakes as they violently spun themselves in circles on the lawn, like dogs chasing tails, crashing to the earth, flinging their cupcakes onto the freshly mowed turf, and not even hesitating to pick up that musical cake of unfulfilled dreams, now with a fistful of grass, before slamming it into their pie hole.

Needless to say, I thought the trend was insane.

What moms used to make with the leftover cake batter, was now becoming the “It” item to create, and to crave.  But, since I am a quest to eat the entire world a bite-at-a-time, I had to give the cupcake craze a fair shake.  So, I ate some cupcakes.  And they were boring.

They were the same malarkey of uninspired cakiness and forgotten dreams that they always were.  But then, Oprah really loved cupcakes and told us how we should really try all these great cupcakes.  And since everything that comes out of Oprah’s mouth makes billions of dollars, I ate some more cupcakes in the hopes that I would also make billions of dollars.  After another two bites, I was not any richer, in fact, I was poorer from buying the darn cake-in-a-paper-cup, and I was left just wishing I had slice of real cake.

But then, they came out with a TV show about cupcakes.  And then, another TV show.  And another.  And another.  And since I cannot count past four, I lost track of how many TV shows whose entire 60-minutes were dedicated to the perfection of making cupcakes, while simultaneously being dedicated to the humiliation of those making the actual cupcakes.  So, I ate more cupcakes, but I was left with the same despairing commentary as always, “You know what would make this cupcake amazing?”

“No, what?”

“If you made it exactly the same way.”

“Yea…”

“But this time,”

“Yea!”

“This time you made it into a cake.”

“But then it wouldn’t be a cupcake anymore.”

“Exactly.”

This is the point in the blog post where I recognize that I had no idea I had so much latent anger and disappointment directed at cupcakes.  Thank you for being my therapist.

Regardless of my unresolved animosity towards cupcakes, I still eat them.  Why do I still eat them?  I guess because when faced with the tumultuous decision of eating nothing, or eating cake’s retarded cousin, I choose not to eat nothing and eat the cupcake.  I still feel a bit of despair after eating my one bite wonder, but it’s better than no bites at all.  And so, that brings me to Sunday afternoon where I am cruising around Charlotte, North Carolina with absolutely nothing better to do.  Enter FuManChu Cupcakes.

I had heard about their Salted Caramel Bacon Cupcake and decided it needed just one addition to the recipe.  Me.  The name itself invoked in me a mostly favorable response.

“Salted Caramel?”

“Yea…”

“Bacon”

“Oh yea, give it to me!”

“Cupcake.”

“Sh!7!”

And the Salted Caramel Bacon Cupcake is the only thing I ordered.  I swear.  Besides, the $3 Chocolate Chip Cookie.

By the name, FuManChu Cupcakes, I thought it was going to be one of those Asian places that sold Chinese food, hamburgers, donuts, and now cupcakes, all in the same place.  I was both relieved and disappointed that it was not one of those freak shows.  Nor, was there a small Chinaman doubling as Kung Fu and cupcake master.  It was just a couple of Alex Clare-look-alike hipsters behind the counter chatting about their favorite local, underground band, that they knew about when they were really an underground band, not some mainstream underground band like they are now.

I guess the name came from some white guy that owns the place, that happens to have a really kicking fu manchu.  Or maybe he does not exist at all, and it is one of those hipster things that I do not understand.

When I strolled up to the counter, I saw a lot of miniature cupcakes in the display case sitting next to a rather large price tag.  The handwritten descriptions (handwritten because that is so totally hipster) were almost too small for my old eyes to read, but they did a good job of really contrasting the size of the description with the size of the price tag, “$5.”

Wow, $5 for a cupcake?  They must be massive!  Maybe these tiny cupcakes are just the display models, or maybe these are their samples that they give out.  They must keep their massive $5 cupcakes somewhere locked away in the back vault guarded by dogs with bees, and if you try to steal them they release the dogs.  Or maybe they release the bees?  Or  maybe its the dogs with bees in their mouth, and when they bark they shoot bees at you?

I immediately had reservations about buying a $5 cupcake.  I felt an initial shock-and-awe, and a refusal to believe any cupcake could warrant the $5.  No way, I am outta here.  End of blog post.

Of course, I would not taken you all the way down this rabbit hole, if I didn’t actually eat the darn thing, would I?  I would.  You have been forewarned.

I was on my way out of hipsterville when I felt a sudden twinge of peer shame at maybe actually not ordering something, which quickly disappeared and morphed into resolution of, “I did just come all this way out here,” and as I stared at those words, bacon, salt, caramel, they made me an offer I could not refuse.  Here, just take my money already.

I was thinking $5 seems so not-so-hipster.  But then, I realized that the most hipster thing you can do is buy an Apple device.  It is the trendy, not-at-all-a-trend thing to do, because as soon as it becomes a trend, it is no longer hipster, AKA cool.  iPhone, iPod, iPad, iPad Mini, Apple TV, and the list goes on.  It is the one signifying feature that simultaneously makes you both more and less hipster with each device you purchase.  We all know that all Apple devices are ridiculously overpriced, so maybe a $5 cupcake is exactly the hipster thing to do.

This is point in the blog where I realize I have some latent and unresolved feelings about hipsters.  Send me a bill.

So, I bought the cupcake.  And, since my food spending habits are loosely based upon the Lay’s Potato Chip model, I cannot buy just one thing.  So, I bought a $3 cookie on top of that.  I had to coerce myself though by asking Alex, “Is the $3 cookie really worth?”  Alex responded with a “Yea!” with a slightly derogatory and condescending tone that is native to how all hipsters speak.  “Dude, like, you didn’t already know that?  It must just be my hipster super powers.”

So, out comes the cupcake.  Just look at it.  No, look at it some more.  It looks amazing, does it not?  Purple paper cup, spirals of white ruffles, topped with crispy bacon squares.  Oh my!  My insides did a little dance in anticipation for what was on the outside, about to come inside.

But, let us have a real moment of frankness between ourselves.  Spending $5 on what is a single bite of food, maybe two bites if you are not a black hole sucking in and consuming all the food within your immediate gravitational pull (like myself), and four bites maximum if you were raised in Wales and were forced into royal etiquette classes as a child.  The point being, spending $5 on what amounts to almost nothing in the way of quantity of food, seems to be a delicacy reserved for kings, queens, or people with Oprah-ish amounts of cash.

But, maybe this is Nature’s way of correcting the Taco Bell trend where  you can get a soft taco, bean burrito, cinnamon twists, a 20-ounce soft drink, and an entire case of diarrhea, all for just that same $5.  Maybe what they are trying to create here is not superb quantity, but superb quality.  Okay, I am starting to get it.  But, how does it taste?

And, by the way, “diarrhea” must be the most ridiculous word to spell in the English language.

Have you ever had soft, creamy, homemade caramel?  And then, sprinkled in some flaky sea salt?  And then covered that with buttercream sponge cake?  Then topped that with a delicate and not-too-sweet buttercream frosting?  And then topped it off with God’s favorite food item (bacon)?  If you have not, then you should.  Or better yet, just come eat this one instead.  It is delicious.

My first complaint about cupcakes are that they are not cakes.  After that, it is that all the frosting, and deliciousness is stuck up at the top of the cupcake, while all the less deliciousness is stuck in the bottom in the form of a sponge cake.  There is exactly no way to resolve the fact that each bite of cupcake results in a bite of either frosting, or either cake, or some disharmonious amalgamation of the two.  The balance is never correct.  Never!  There is no way you can fit the bottom of the cupcake cylinder into your trapezoidal mouth, while trying to get over the mushroom ridge, and then try to grip some mushy frosting with your moist lips.  Impossible.

FuManChu found a solution.  Well, a workaround really.  Instead of having the sponge cake just being, well, sponge cake, he found a way to turn that into luscious caramel.  Others have tried to inject filling inside, but the filling is usually not very good, or it just clumps together in one spot, which further complicates the lopsided nature of the flavor journey.  I do not know what Mr. Chu did to resolve this, but fix it he did.  There is a balance between all the flavors throughout the entire consumption of said cupcake.  I am impressed.

I hate to say it.  And man, am I ever eating crow here, but having a smaller cupcake size helped getting an even amount of cake, filling, frosting, and topping with each bite.  Creating a smaller cupcake was the right move FuMan.

The picture below is not a picture I took, but instead it is one that I stole from their Instagram.  If you don’t know what Instagram is, its like a kid’s picture book.  Except, for adults that still do not know how to read.

So, the cupcake was delicious.  The cookie was very good, but I would not spend $3 on it again.  I would definitely eat the cupcake.  I would probably even pay the $5 for it.  I would definitely pay $3 for it, because even $4 for a tiny cupcake, albeit a delicious one, causes me trepidation.  I doubt there are a lot of people making these discretionary purchases often, unless they are part of the 1 percent.  It seems hard to imagine middle America flocking to these cupcakes, not because they are not amazingly delicious, but because of the price point.  Is it worth the $5?  You will have to try one and tell me what you think.

And besides, we know from mainstream media that 1 percenters are evil white folks.  And we know that all white folks are racist.  And, by extension that makes cupcakes racist, and by extension every time you purchase a cupcake you are supporting the worst kind of tyranny.  Or, maybe you just like to blow your money senselessly.  Or, maybe you are a little like me, you just cannot put a price of an unforgettable food experience.  Both seem equally likely.