The Next Big Idea? Butch Bakery, Cupcakes for Guys

David Arrick was intrigued by the cupcake craze, but realized all the tasty offerings out there seemed, well, a little girly. So he cashed in his 401(k) and began selling "aesthetically masculine" cupcakes made with beer, bacon and other manly ingredients

By Patrick Sauer @ AOL Small Business

"It's the middle of a recession, and there's a line of women down the block at Magnolia Bakery," Arrick says of the uber-popular cupcake outpost featured on the popular HBO show. "It's sugar, it's cake, people love it, but I thought, 'Why aren't my boys being represented?..'"

Arrick and friends collaborated on manly recipes. They mixed-and-matched chocolate, peanut butter, banana, buttercream, cinnamon, booze, beer and the dessert de resistance: bacon. ("Bacon makes everything better," Arrick says. "And I'm a Jew.") They came up with 12 cupcakes with names like the Rum & Coke, the Big Papi and the Jackhammer. Arrick likes a bit of crunch with his sweets, so each cupcake has a candy disk on top in patterns like camouflage, plaid and houndstooth.

"We turned the cupcake business on its ear and tapped into something out there," he says.

Cupcakes were requested for soldiers in Iraq and fishermen in Alaska, but the publicity outpaced baking ability. At present, deliveries are only being made in New York. The company recently moved into a new commerical space, but Arrick hopes to add a storefront soon..

• The Next Big Idea? Butch Bakery, Cupcakes for Guys