Muffins: A staple of early 1990s coffee breaks with wide-ranging variations, from super-sized cakey monstrosities from warehouse stores, to pop-in-your-mouth mini sizes. Their popularity made big sellers out of special pans producing just the muffin tops.
Bagels: Though frozen bagels had been widely available since the 1970s, they reached critical mass only in the mid-'90s, when chains like Noah's and Einstein Bros. made freshly baked varieties widely available. Sales dropped significantly in 2002, as low-carb dieting became a national obsession.
Scones: Starbucks is directly responsible for the ultra-sweet updating on this Scottish biscuit. In the late '90s, the coffee giant began filling its bakery cases with dense cookielike pastries filled with cranberries, blueberries, nuts and what-have-you. These days, they're touting "healthy" multigrain versions with zero grams trans fat. Not surprisingly, they aren't very good.
Doughnuts: Oddly, while Americans were shunning bagels during the Atkins era, we were also obsessing about sugar-glazed rings from Krispy Kreme. When outlets arrived in Oregon in 2003, customers lined up for hours for the sweet treats. Interest waned in 2005 as the brand's cult following faded. In the end, it was a very good doughnut, but it was still just a doughnut.
Cupcakes: The recent return of these staples of the '60s and '70s inspired best-selling cookbooks, specialized baking equipment, even the popular blog Cupcakes Take the Cake on the Internet (http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com). The resurgence gave legions of home cooks new uses for all those muffin pans they bought in the '90s.
-- Grant Butler
