Cupcake Highway Robbery

I have a deep and abiding affection for Williams Sonoma. I’ve picked up many a bargain at their outlet store in Leesburg. I’ve been lured in to buying their fancy cake pans (one Easter Bunny, one train set). They successfully converted me from a loyal Maryland girl McCormick’s Vanilla buyer to one who is convinced of the superiority of their fancy-pants vanilla. Their Emile Henry ceramic pie pan changed my pie crust life, and I’ve gotten tons of good recipes off their website. So clearly, I like their stuff.

In fact, and it’s a little embarrassing to admit this, but I treat the arrival of the Williams Sonoma catalog like an issue of a magazine. I sit down and read it cover to cover in a little consumeristic greed fest. There have been plenty of items I’ve looked at and dismissed as being too ridiculously expensive, from the $1,000+ vacuum cleaners and irons to the $400 toasters to the $69 Provence Salt Keeper . Yes, it was really pretty. It was also a little tiny ceramic box. Unless it is continually refilled with salt by magic, I can’t imagine that a little tiny box could be worth $69. However, in the latest catalog they’ve managed to completely surpass themselves in terms of ridiculously overpriced merchandise.

You can get a whopping nine cupcakes from some bakery in California for $59. $59! That’s $6.55 per cupcake. And I bet they charge you shipping and handling on top of that! Do you have any idea how many delicious and gourmet cupcakes I could provide for $59? A whole boatload more than nine, that’s for sure. At the same time, I’m almost tempted to order them, just to see what $59 cupcakes taste like. I mean, I can’t quite imagine how good they would have to be to make them worth that much money. I’m not sure that it is physically possible for a cupcake to be tasty enough to justify that kind of money. But no, I haven’t completely lost my mind, so I’m not actually going to buy them. I will wonder though...