Cute as a Cupcake

It's crazy how popular cupcakes are these days. I know I'm typically the last one on the band wagon (if I'm even paying enough attention to run after it), so maybe you've already been there done that, but if you are wanting to join the cupcake craze, you are going to want this book  by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.

There are so many creative ideas, and they do a great job of explaining how to do everything step by step. I was first lured to it by these guys.

I signed up to bring cupcakes to our church's Pumpkin Party cake walk last year, and this is what I made.

Authors Tack and Richardson have been featured in lots of magazines, so I got the other monster ideas from another article they did in Family Fun a couple of years ago (which I can't find now, sorry). By the way, if you end up making these to bring somewhere fast food cup carriers work really well to transport them. : )

For Father's Day last year I wanted to do something fun and different. So I picked out this pizza from the book.

However, when I read the instructions about gluing cookie pieces in with frosting to make the top even I thought, this is silly, why not just make a flat top to begin with and cut it like a pizza? So I baked a brownie on a round pizza pan (for a little less time than usual, since it's thinner) and then frosted it as instructed.

It was a hit. Plan ahead and make sure to save a pizza box, because that really makes it.

There's so many other great ideas in the book that I want to try. 

French fries and ketchup

Twinkie whales

yarn

and especially Chinese food. This would make an awesome April Fools Day food.

If you're looking for a little baking inspiration, I highly recommend this book. Don't get me wrong, they are time consuming, but once you experience the satisfaction of making these little show-stopping desserts you might find them kind of addictive. There's a whole new world of cupcakes out there, Cupcake.

Thanks for reading.

-Haley