Cupcakes are, well, taking the cake as the latest dessert craze to sweep the country. People can't seem to get enough of the bite-sized goodies, says Rachel Kramer Bussel, founder and blogger of Cupcakes Take the Cake, one of PC Magazine's 100 Best Blogs of 2007. Cupcakes have been referenced on "Saturday Night Live," mentioned by Hillary Clinton on the "Late Show with David Letterman" and selected as one of Oprah's favorite gifts in "O, The Oprah Magazine."

After pleasing palates on both coasts, the trend has made its way to Utah, with a handful of custom cupcake companies officially opening in the last 12 months. Now, Utahns are serving cupcakes instead of cake at weddings, sending a dozen as a "get well" instead of flowers and offering them to guests at dinner parties.

The cupcake craze is widely attributed to New York City's Magnolia Bakery, which began offering cupcakes a la carte in the late 1990s. After being mentioned on the HBO hit show "Sex in the City," lines for cupcakes at Magnolia were out the door. Word of the small wonders spread, and entrepreneurs across the country began baking up business plans for their own cupcakeries (cupcake-only bakeries).

"In the past three years, we've seen cupcakeries and custom cupcake companies popping up where you'd least expect them, in places like Eagle, Idaho, and Sandy, Utah," said Bussel, whose 3-year-old blog is known as an authority on all things cupcake. "I think the local bakeries are looking to the success of the cupcakeries in cities like L.A. and New York and seeing that it's possible."

Mini's was the first to market in Utah, says owner Leslie Fiet, who started her company in March 2007. The Curious Cupcake, a delivery-only business based in Sandy, was founded in October of that year. At least two other cupcake companies have cropped up since Jan. 1 -- So Cupcake, a brick-and-mortar cupcakery in Salt Lake City and SugarRush, a home-based custom-cake business.

"When I started, people looked at me crazy when I said I wanted to sell cupcakes," said Elizabeth Plehn, owner of The Curious Cupcake. "But there has definitely been an increase in demand and now they are cool."

Prices range from 75 cents to $2 for mini cupcakes and from $1.50 to $3 or more for regular-sized cupcakes. The price point for custom cupcakes is higher than those sold at the grocery store bakery, but cupcake bakers are quick to point out that their goodies far exceed grocery store goods.

All of the cupcakes are made by hand from scratch, with some bakers, like Natalie Jensen of So Cupcake, using recipes she developed herself through old-fashioned trial-and-error. Most use strictly top-of-the-line ingredients, says Plehn, who uses Madagascar vanilla, real butter and fine chocolate in each of her decadently decorated treats. Mini's Fiet is careful about where she buys her first-class ingredients because she wants to maintain high product integrity.

"I buy locally so I don't get huge Costco discounts for what I buy," Fiet said. "There is no cutting corners and there isn't some machine that is automating the process."

The sugary creations of Fiet and others aren't just the standard chocolate or vanilla, either. With the exception of The Curious Cupcake, which focuses on elaborate frosting, most cupcakeries offer a surprising variety of cupcake flavors -- some with clever names that are frosting on the cake. So Cupcake's Hanky Panky Red Velvet is made with red velvet cake and burgundy buttercream frosting, while Mini's Breakfast at Tiffany's vanilla bean cupcake comes complete with edible gems on top. SugarRush offers 23 flavors, including The Elvis, made from banana cake batter and topped with peanut butter frosting and chocolate chips.

Even though most potential customers acknowledge the process sounds time-consuming, a $3 cupcake is still hard for some people to swallow.

That doesn't bother Fiet, who says that for every person unwilling to pay the price for quality, there are dozens more who will.

"People who want grocery store cupcakes for a quarter are going to go to the grocery store," Fiet said. "My flavors are a little more sophisticated and the design of them is a lot more sophisticated and people are willing to pay for them. My clientele enjoys being able to buy something a little more upscale, a little more gourmet, because it fits in with who they are."

And "they" are mostly women, Fiet says, a few of whom drive to her store from Ogden, Wendover, Nev., and even Wyoming.

Plehn, Jensen and Kathy Bowman of SugarRush say their clientele is mainly female, but there are men who place orders, as well.

"Women think they're cute, I guess," Bowman said. "It's like your own individualized cake."

"You can just grab them and eat them and you don't feel so bad eating one cupcake," Jensen added. "A cupcake has become one of those yummy treats that we just love to indulge in."