I've reccently been curious about the cupcake store phenomenon. Apparently stores are staying afloat in this down economy selling nothing but cupcakes. I've had people rave to me about a cupcake they got at this or that cutsie cupcakery as if it gave birth to a litter of kittens while rescuing jesus from a flaming elevator. I love enthusiasm and was swept up in the excitement. This was until I took the time to eat one. Not to say it wasn't good, but it was just a cupcake. It was most likely the best cupcake of my life, I don't think that means much because, again, it was just a cupcake. I was expecting a little creativity, but no, just cake and frosting. Putting a mini reses cup on top of the peanut butter cupcake is as much as they did. Here's 6 cupcakes I made up right now that actually might get me excited to eat a cupcake:

1. Molten chocolate cupcake with hot gooey chocolate erupting out of every bite.
2. Custard enfused cupcakes. Basically you fill the top 20% of each tin with custard. The result is a dynamic cake which at the bottom is pure cake, at the top is pure custard, and in between is a glorious fusion of deliciousness.
3. Marble cupcakes: swirls are pretty to look at, and nothing is more PC than vanilla and chocolate dancing together in beautiful harmony.
4. Layered frosting. Why not have the peanut butter cupcake have a layer of chocolate frosting and peanut butter frosting. Seriously.
5. Bacon Cupcake. Yes bacon is annoyingly trendy at the moment but even that can't make me disown my favorite food. Any man who's girlfriend drags them to a cupcake shop will tell all their man friends about it. Follow the logic: Word of mouth = money, and bacon goes really well in mouths, therefore Bacon = money.
6. Ice cream injected cupcakes that are kept in the freezer.

So... lets make some dough.

The real money making idea of today is not actually upgrading the cupcake shop, it's a whole new beast: a cookie dough shop. The shop would sell cookie dough, and nothing more. Think about this. First of all i'd like to point out the low overhead cost. Cookie dough is raw, meaning that you would not need to get wrapped up in any of the costs of having a business with an oven. Also, people love cookies, especially warm ones out of the oven. But somehow the effort needed to make such a simple concoction has been deemed too great and tube cookie dough is all the rage. Tube cookie dough is bullshit. It's far inferior to home made and is from a fucking tube that provides no love, no fun conversations of how the cookies were made, and tons of weird preservatives that make it taste terrible. Plus, whenever you're at someone's house with fresh warm cookies there is a natural inclination to complement their recipe, which will lead into a wonderful conversation about the cute amazing new shop downtown. They'll become the hit at all the parties and potlucks. In addition, fun cookie dough treats would be sold to be eaten on the go. Cookie dough in a small cup and chocolate covered cookie dough for starters. Think about being a kid. You didn't make and get excited about cookies for the actual cookies. It was to eat the dough! Adults simply need to be reminded of their love. And they'll get addicted because the dough will bring back memories and feelings of childish glee. Also, cookie dough is so much more fun than cupcakes. Cupcakes are so limiting, like wearing a wool sweater to a dance club, while cookie dough is wild and free with no rules. Just think of all the fun amazing things you could add and all the fun amazing kinds of cookies there are in the world. Chocolate chip cookies alone could be offered in cakey, gooey, and giant for starters. You could rotate a new flavor in every Thursday and have fun seasonal favorites. Halloween could have a base cookie dough that you add your chopped up halloween candy to. Pumpkin for fall. Chocolate with rice krispies for the hell of it. Chocolate raspberry. Design flavors to match people's personalities i.e. the vin diesel cookie: vodka, hard heath, diced red hots (they'll be little explosions in your mouth like the big ones in all of his movies).  The ideas could continue on for a VERY long time. And none of the specials would ever be repeated. After 5 or so years of building a reputation you could package all the secret recipes into the ultimate cookie cook book complete with fun hip photographs beautifying the various stages of the cookie life cycle ending with a smiling child's mouth loaded with cookie crumbs (this is for aesthetic value. I'm assuming people don't want to look at chewed cookie dough).

So there is my ticket to fortune. I'm trusting no one steal it. Honor system. And if you do I want free dough for life.