Propose a $16 muffin!

Cafe Society
1

Note: This post is inspired by the current scandal with DOJ, conferences, and overpriced catering. See this link if you care about it: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/opinion/welch-sixteen-dollar-muffin/ . But this thread isn’t about the scandal - I just want to play with a modest thought experiment:

What would a muffin genuinely worth $16 look like? Post your proposals below! Take care, though, that you don’t stray too far from the spirit of the thing. A muffin served on top of a steak, for example, is not a $16 muffin. But a muffin topped with caviar might be.

Go nuts!

2

Hmm… A saffron banana muffin topped with macadamia nuts and ornate gold leaf presidential seal stamped into a thin truffle?

3

A Boston cream (thickened with quail egg yolks) muffin topped with melted Godiva chocolate and infused with Louis XIII Remy Martin cognac.

And gold leaf.

4

Nice! I like this, though it does raise a question: What is the distinction between cupcakes and muffins? I mean, where do you draw the line?

5

Cupcakes are uniform throughout. Muffins have characteristic air pockets. If you slice one down the side, you should see areas where air bubbles were captured and solidified (ETA: Solidified is the wrong word, perhaps captured and didn’t bake out is better).

Difference in batter composition and gluten formation result in a different texture of baked good.

6

You wouldn’t confuse bread with cake, right? Muffins are to bread as cupcakes are to cake.

7

This is $16 US we’re talking about, right?

8

Can you have espresso beans on a muffin? Those civet poop beans would add to the cost.

9

Yes.

10

For the sake of your stockholders, I hope each muffin doesn’t infuse too much of the $80/oz. cognac.

11

I had the same idea, but slightly more traditional.

A chocolate chip vanilla muffin infused with NAVAN liqueur and Amedei Porcelanachocolate wrapped in an edible gold leaf muffin cup.

12

Well, my $16 muffin would probably be a nice lemon poppyseed one. I really like the taste of those two together. There might be a little icing on top as well, probably lemon flavored as well.

Oh, and it would be served in 2075.

13

A few years ago our firm had a major, multiday meeting at a very famous hotel in NYC. I was relaxing in the tech room one afternoon when a guy from the hotel showed up to refresh our snack tray - he had a normal sized tray with candy bars, little bags of potato chips and other standard fare on it. If you bought the stuff at CostCo it’d probably run you about $30 total.

I signed for the delivery and did a double-take when I saw what we were being charged for this stuff - that tray of snacks was costing us over $1,000.

If I’m paying a grand for some bags of peanut M&Ms they’d better come with Jessica Biel wearing a bikini and feeding me the snacks by hand.

Now back to your $16 muffins :smiley:

14

I was aghast at the idea of a $5 muffin, let alone a $16 one. :eek:

Possibly that civit shit coffee bean roasted into and ground for expresso, whatever that handpicked fair trade uber’organic’ cocoa hand dutch processed and some processed into expresso-chocolate chips. Add Pili nuts and Edmund Audry ‘exceptional’ cognac, and bake it up. Drizzle the top with a cognac and sugar glaze, and go to town.

15

It better have a hole in the bottom, for 16 bucks…

Joe

16

Not to spoil your fun, but $16 muffin would be about $4 worth of “food costs.”

Hazelnuts, dried cherries, and some really good dark chocolate would get you pretty close.

You could do something kind of savory with toasted pinenuts, fresh herbs, and really expensive cheese.

If that doesn’t do it work in some Bob’s Red Mill almond flour at $15 a bag.

Repeat those two but make it organic gluten free and they’d probably retail for $20.

This is obviously a sign I’ve been in catering too long, I need to get me one of those DoD contracts.

ETA Don’t forget some high quality vanilla paste, and maybe some maple syrup.

17

nm
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18

Dear $16 Muffin,
I feel we have arrived at a point in our relationship where it is time to take things to the next level. Where do you see us in ten years? Twenty? Thirty? Me, I see us then like I see us now, maybe older, maybe wiser, maybe slightly less crumbly, but still, together then as we are together now. So, to set in stone by law what is already set in stone in my heart, I hereby ask you, would you do me the honour…
Wait, whaddaya mean ‘not propose to’ …oh. Well nevermind then…

19

Actually, the $16 figure was for an entire breakfast (including tax and tip), not just a muffin. Since is was served buffet-style, people could have multiple muffins, plus juice, fresh fruit, coffee/tea/hot chocolate. In other words, this was a typical hotel restaurant spread for breakfast breads.

20

Nope. Not at all. From the Justice Department’s report (PDF), page xix: