Much like fashion, certain foods come in and out of fashion. Believe it or not, macaroons are trending right now. Frozen yogurt has also become something of a social phenomenon. I’m not here to expound about the utter deliciousness of macaroons or the life-saving properties of fro-yo. No, I’m here to talk about a food trend that I find rather unappetizing: cupcakes.
Cupcakes, to me, are one of those desserts that seem to almost always reach a taste level of absolute mediocrity. In a way, it’s rather depressing. Cupcakes are one of those desserts that have become really big now, and there are entire stores (not to mention dedicated Pinterest pages) that only sell an enormous variety of cupcakes, with flavors ranging from “pink lemonade” to “wedding cake,” and I can only look at them with complete seriousness and think, “Nope. Not feeling it.”
The thing that kills me is that I think cupcakes look so pretty. They are these teeny, little cakes that are usually decorated with lovely pastel colors or flowers and whatnot. Sometimes, like the chefs on the TV show “Cupcake Wars,” they are even super creative things that have messages or 15 elaborate layers of icing, sugar and other toppings that ultimately end up outweighing the actual cake part of the cupcake.
The idea of a cupcake is brilliant. It’s portable cake. The wrapper keeps your hand from getting all sticky and then you don’t have to worry about forks or plates, which sounds stupid, but it’s great for people like me who grab cake at a party and then wander around for the next thirty minutes trying to find a trashcan or someplace to hide my plate when I’m done.     
What makes cupcakes so disappointing lies in the icing-to-cake ratio. Unlike cake, cupcakes only have icing on the very top of it, which leads people to either overcompensate or wimp out on the appropriate icing amount. When someone hands me a cupcake (it occurs more than one would think), it is either a dessert that is so covered in icing that it is actually impossible to see the cake part, or it looks like some sad little muffin that someone half-heartedly swiped with icing. 
It’s just not rational; there is no equilibrium for cupcakes. Either a) I have an insane surplus of icing coating the top of my cupcake, icing that so outweighs my personal need for icing that I could probably eat the icing itself as a dessert, or b) I have a terrible shortage of icing, leaving me with no other choice than to head to the black market to buy up an overpriced tin of cream cheese icing, which by this point means my wimpy cupcake is cold. 
Someone has to warn you about the level of dryness or the unfortunate problem of getting icing all over one’s nose (don’t laugh, I bet it’s happened to you too), and it might as well be me. Just remember when you are at a party and you’re struggling to choose between cake and a cupcake, choose neither. Cookies are clearly the superior choice.
Claire Mosley is a freshman majoring in pre-accounting. She can be contacted at opinion@reflector.msstate.edu.