Sea Life Cupcakes! (photo by Ashley of The Cupcake Cauldron)

The BP Oil Spill is a disaster of such proportions that it can seem like there’s nothing people like us can do to help…until cupcakes show up on the scene. Ashley of The Cupcake Cauldron decided to do her part the best way she knew how – by making and selling cupcakes and donating the proceeds to help wildlife affected by the BP disaster.

Ashley’s delicious Sea Life Friends Cupcakes are available for $35 a dozen and all proceeds go to the National Wildlife Federation.  These ocean-friendly cupcakes come in any variation of chocolate or vanilla cake and frosting that you’d like, along with adorable Sea Life cupcake toppers.  Get ahold of thecupcakecauldron(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to have your cake and save the ocean too.

 This post might be a little PG-13.  Recently, two of our faithful ATC readers sent in pictures of their tattoos, each of which were, ahem, in, ahem, some interesting places.

About this one, Michael wrote:  A bunch of my friends and I were sitting around talking about silly tattoos. I offered the idea of getting a cupcake scuba diving right in my groin area. I went home later that night and drew the concept on the back of my Macy’s bill … It’s a great conversation starter!

And Jamie writes that these tattoos serve as her conscience!

Food52 was recently ranked as one of the top 50 mom bloggers by Babble.  Since they were awarded #2 best recipes and #4 best photography, in addition to being co-founded by a New York Times food editor, I knew I had to check out the website.  The site is impressive with a blog, videos, recipes, and even a shop.  Of course I had to check to see what cupcake recipes they might have come up with and I was intrigued by the Grand Gold Cupcakes. The description you will think these are “the best cupcakes ever,” even before you know the contain alcohol.   I think this recipe would be great to make this summer, especially for the 21+ crowd.  Adults like cupcakes too, especially those containing gold tequila and grand marnier! Below is the recipe but be sure to checkout their site for other recipes!

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Does the name Johnny Cupcakes ring a bell to anyone? Well if it doesn’t, it should and it will.

Johnny Cupcakes all started when a young man named Johnny was given the name Johnny Cupcakes while working at Newbury Comics. He used this nickname as inspiration for designing t-shirts with the  name ‘Johnny Cupcakes’ on them, obviously the t-shirts had Cupcakes on them! (click here to read more about his story)

He started selling these t-shirts out of the back of his trunk, and people went wild for them. And people are STILL wild for them. He has 2 east coast shops, one in Hull Massachusetts and one in Boston Massachusetts. He also has a brand new store that just opened up on the west coast in LA.

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Before I start talking up the cupcakes.  I just want to say that I hate horns.

I am starting to dream that we are suffering a plague of mosquitos (millions of them) and am slapping myself awake at a very unfriendly hour!

If you do not know what I am talking about, then you obviously haven’t got a fever! :) World Cup Fever that is!  But some amazing bakers around the world have and they have been cooking up their support since the opening game on the 11th June!  And speaking of that game, Grace who bakes at Cupcakes by Design in South Africa created these for a client’s Friday Football celebration.

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Carrie Middlemiss with her couture

I’ve written before on ATC about how cupcakes can make jobs and how cupcakes can be classy. Because of the success of Bella Cupcake Couture, purveyor of chic textile-inspired cupcake wrappers, I now get to write about how cupcakes can do both at the same time.  BCC founder Carrie Middlemiss, formerly a marketing and events rep at the now defunct Washington Mutual Bank, went from “pink slip to pink frosting” when she was laid off early last year because of the bank’s collapse due to the economic downturn. Read the rest of this entry »

POM Wonderful recently sent us here at ATC some of their pomegranate juice to test to see how it works as an ingredient in baking cupcakes.  After looking around online to see what types of pomegranate cupcakes are out there (and one unsuccessful attempt* at replicating an online recipe) I decided to use an ingredient that compliments pomegranate juice.  I decided to bake banana cupcakes with pomegranate cream cheese frosting, topped with cocoa sprinkles.  I altered the banana butterscotch cupcakes from Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans and cut down the POM cream cheese frosting recipe from the POM website. The end result was a unique and delicous cupcake, recipes below.

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