Caterer and party planner Jeffrey Best of Best Events, which does everything from Sundance events to The Weinstein Co. Oscar party, recommends grilled peaches with balsamic or bite-sized BabyCakes cupcakes (low cal if you only eat one mini cupcake; gluten-free by request). Lulu Powers, who has cooked for Madonna and Will Smith, recommends fruit with a squeeze of lime and julienned mint. And Joan's on Third again will stock those yummy Bindi sorbets (in real fruit shells; the coconut, orange and lemon are staples, but new flavors this summer include tangerine and peach). Nutritionist Carrie Latt Wiatt of Diet Designs recommends her low-calorie Mango Cobbler, made without saturated fats.
The final frosted nail may have been hammered into the cupcake trend Monday when Crumbs Bake Shop announced it was closing all its stores by the end of the business day.
Once the sweet indulgence of choice for Carrie Bradshaw and her Sex and the City gal pals, cupcakes have recently become as unfashionable as the towering designer shoes that Sarah Jessica Parker tottered over to Magnolia Bakery in.
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At its sugary peak, Crumbs had 67 stores across the U.S., including on Hollywood Boulevard and in Beverly Hills, while Sprinkles attempted to keep customers hooked by launching a vending machine service called “Cupcake ATM” in 16 of its bakeries, and recently delivered orders via Uber.
However, New York-based Crumbs on Monday shut the oven door on its operations and may file for bankruptcy after the Nasdaq suspended trading July 1, saying the company did not have the mandatory shareholder equity, nor had it met required benchmarks for market cap and net annual profit.
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“Regrettably, Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its devoted employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options,” the company announced in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.
The backlash against baked goods had been brewing for the past year, and it finally seems to have finished cooking, with analysts dubbing it the “gourmet-cupcake burnout.”
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Subsequent obsessions with cupcake replacements, such as cronuts, cake pops, macaroons and whoopie pies, came and went like a sugar high.
Taking over the sweet cravings of the nation are old-school chains such as Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts, which delighted East Coast transplants when it announced it was opening the first Dunkin’ Los Angeles location in Santa Monica this summer.
