Few details of Paris Hilton's jailhouse drama enraptured the media as much as the imprisoned celebutante's oft-described craving for Mrs. Beasley's gourmet cupcakes.
It was another high-profile shout-out for the Los Angeles purveyor of high-end baked goods, which has been collecting celebrity endorsements since Barbra Streisand walked into the original Mrs. Beasley's in Tarzana almost 20 years ago.
Cupcakegate also illustrated how a once-humble bakery product has gone upscale, morphing from a homemade staple at children's birthday parties into a pricey custom-made comestible boasting its own bakeries, mail-order sites and, inevitably, blogs. Consider: Gourmet cupcakes from Williams-Sonoma made Oprah's 2007 "favorite things" list.
"In the last three years it has really exploded; at least every two weeks I'm hearing about a new cupcake bakery opening somewhere," said New Yorker Rachel Kramer Bussel, who helps run a blog called Cupcakes Take the Cake.
"New York was the first place that started with all these bakeries, but L.A. is becoming the second-biggest cupcake city in the country."
That kind of growth got the attention of the folks who run Mrs. Beasley's, best known for its cookies, brownies and muffins and a strong connection with Hollywood. Lavish baskets of Mrs. Beasley's goodies have been a staple of the industry's obsessive gift-swapping routine, winning fans among actors, studio executives and agents -- even earning mention on the HBO series "Entourage."
Mrs. Beasley's added a line of gourmet cupcakes a year ago, reconfiguring its stores to give them more prominent display. Crowned with 3 inches of frosting, varieties such as Lavish Lemon, Decadent Chocolate Ganache and Magnificent Mocha go for $3 apiece and now account for more than 20% of sales at the company's nine retail locations in L.A. and Orange counties (soon to be eight; it lost its lease in Manhattan Beach).
"Our main thrust right now is cupcakes," Chief Executive Ken Harris said. "That's what we're most excited about in terms of taking our business to the next level."
Harris' cupcake strategy includes a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers that will add Mrs. Beasley's cupcakes to the concession lineup at Dodger Stadium and a plan to license the rights to sell baked goods at airports across the country. The company also introduced a line of mini-cupcakes called "poppers" (100 calories versus 400 to 550 for a full-sized cupcake) that has become a bestseller, and plans to offer a home cupcake-baking kit.
