Two years ago I discovered a little website called Bakerella (created by blogger-baker Angie Dudley) that specialized in sweet confections, unique and beautiful. Her most ingenious idea? Cake Balls and Cake Pops, and she'd perfected the art. The top picture is her original Cake Pop creation from January 2008--the Pop that started it all! In April of 2008, Martha Stewart featured Angie's pops on her show. Her readers have wholeheartedly embraced her creation (she shows off the best of their submissions here) and last fall she published a Cake Pops book. See my post One Weekend, Two Desserts for the pops I made for our Halloween party!
I was surprised to discover cake pops last week in our local Starbucks store. I didn't see Angie's book anywhere!--I just assumed they'd be promoting them together. But the baristas had never even heard of Bakerella, so I had to do some investigation of my own. I discovered this post on Starbucks website, posted March 17, which says this about cake pops...
"This has been an emerging trend popping up in specialty bake shops, on blogs like Bakearella and even touted by Martha Stewart." ... and then they go on about how hard they've worked to produce them on a mass scale, yadda yadda yadda.
Yep that's not a typo, they couldn't even spell her blog's name right! Well it's true that other people have been making them, and that Martha touted them, but until now, Bakerella has been given credit where credit is due. Starbucks is mass producing her creation and assuming that the public will remain ignorant of their greedy corporate misdeeds.
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| (Photo courtesy http://www.starbucks.com/) |
Starbucks Im-POP-Sters!!
I'm not about to swear off Starbucks because they stole a dessert idea (I'm not crazy--no one makes my Venti Quad Nonfat Iced Caramel Macchiato like they do!) but I thought it was only fair to Bakerella, whom I love, to make sure our readers are at least aware of the situation. And now all of you have the recipe (here it is again if you missed the first link) so you can make your own for just pennies. Shame on you and your im-POP-ster cake pops, Starbucks!
First of all - Bakerella shared her recipes with tutorials and everything. She has always been willing to share this idea. And it's true she seemed to be the first, but many other bloggers & bakers have taken to making their own cake pops ever since. Starbucks is simply the biggest entity to take them on!
ReplyDeleteBut like with any tutorial, once you share your secrets on a blog then your idea is out there for good. Bakerella had to have known this when she first posted her cake pops.
Finally, I actually believe Starbucks DID probably solicit Bakerella's help and possibly compensate her for the idea, based on some rumors I've heard about their production on these cake pops. If thats the case I'm sure there was a non-disclosure agreement since Starbucks is such a huge company. I really do believe this to be the case, I mean, she wrote the book!
So calm down because frankly, no one knows the whole story and for all we know Bakerella is making a few cents on every cake pop sold!
Great input Heather! :) I was putting this out there hoping she did get some credit, happy to spread the good word about these delicious treats. Thanks for following the blog!
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