I don’t watch a lot of sports which might explain why I have never heard this term before.  According to Urban Dictionary‘s definition, a Cupcake Team “refers to the crappy team many Division FBS colleges use as a warm-up for their football season and to sell tickets to alumni.  Teams that fill up on cupcake teams often get fat and lazy.” Being a cupcake team seems to have a very negative connotation attached to it, have you heard any sports fans use this term?

Looking for a cupcake you can sneak into the movie theatre? Check out these Birthday Cupcake Candy Bites from Dylan’s Candy Bar. A box full of cake morsels covered in a frosting coating. A 4 oz. box is $4. You can order them online, and I also spotted them at J.C. Penney.

Check it out: Walmart is trying to cash in on the cupcake craze. I mean, what else would we use flour for … bread? Nah!

As you all know, cupcakes are really all the rage right now (we hope they will be forever! ). And they are not showing any signs of slowing down in popularity. They are so popular that there has even been a board game for kids centered around cupcakes.

Take the Cake sold at Amazon!

Lets get playing!

My mom spotted this cupcake find at Marshalls and I am curious about this The Inflate & Take Cupcake Carrier.  The carrier costs $30, similarly priced to other cupcake carriers on the market except with this one, you aren’t left with a big bulky plastic carrier to bring home.  You are left with a cupcake carrier that you can deflate to a smaller package.  Created by Silvermark, the website description states:

Your cupcakes travel in style and arrive unharmed and smudge free at a birthday party, office event or for any occasion where cupcakes are welcome. The WOW is when you are done; the Inflate & Take®; deflates for neat, compact storage. The trays stack and attach to one another so multiple layers can be combined to increase the capacity. The Inflate & Take® accommodates cupcakes of various sizes—even supersized cupcakes and muffins are held firmly in place.

Set contains 2 trays, each with a 12-cupcake capacity, and a separate storage lid. Each tray measures 21˝x 17˝x 4˝ when inflated. The set also includes a hand pump, carrying strap and storage case. Available in clear, blue or red.

I’m left wondering how the cupcakes are after being transported in this inflatable carrier? Is it like giant bubble wrap for your cupcakes? Would you buy this product?

Cake Mixes or Cupcake Mixes?

Is the only difference between a ‘cake’ and a ‘cupcake’ the wrapper?

I’ll tell you why I’m asking.  I am probably 50/50 on making cupcakes from scratch and making cupcakes from a box.  But, now that I’m blogging, I’m rethinking everything.

So, when I pulled out a Pillsbury box from my cupboard, I noticed the picture of the cake.  It took me to the baking aisle at my local Wegman’s grocery store, where I found that every box mix pictures a cake.  There wasn’t a single cupcake promo among them.  And, on the Pillsbury website, they don’t even list their cake mixes and frostings among their products.

Pursuing this further, I found a poll on Quibblo of whether a cupcake and a cake are the same thing, but only 9 people have answered (8 yes, 1 no).  WikiAnswers wasn’t much of an analysis.

And, while doing my research, I bumped into this:  the world’s record for a cupcake is 150.7 pounds!  Now how is that still a ‘cupcake’?

I am a cooking and baking fiend. I love finding tons of new gadgets and gizmos to help me out in the kitchen. One of my favorite go-to kitchen supply stores is Sur la Table .

I find some pretty great cupcake items here too! One of my latest finds was this Mini Filled Cupcake Pan. A easy way to create amazing filled cupcakes!

Spring is here and it is in full bloom! Just walking out of my apartment and walking to my car I see tons of different types of flowers. This got me thinking, why not make my own flowers that I  don’t have to wait for them to grow — Flower Cupcakes.

Here a few fabulous recipes and how to guides to help you make your own fantastic flower garden of cupcakes.

Mum’s the Word Cupcakes

Flower Cupcakes

Fields of Flowers Cupcakes

Hydrangea Cupcakes

From the makers of Cupcake Wines comes … Cupcake Vodka! I know, what took them so long?

To celebrate Earth Day today, treat yourself this cute cupcake reusable cupcake bag.  Waste-Less Bags has created reusable grocery bags that can hold up to 20 pounds.  The cupcake bag is part of the Too Cute line.  The purple colored bag has a cupcake tray image on the front and folds up into a cupcake shaped pouch.  The bag costs $4.99 and can be purchased from the company’s website.

This week’s nerdcake isn’t so much about the design of the cupcakes, in fact these cupcakes are decorated in a very basic manner, it is more about what is done with the cupcakes.  They play Tetris with the cupcakes!  This fun, 39 second video was posted on Instructables and features color coded cupcakes in the form of tetris blocks.  I love that when the cupcakes or blocks form a line they are eaten up!

These Southport Cupcake Truffles by Truffle Truffle look delicious and I am dying to try them! The description reads that these truffles are white cupcakes, rolled in vanilla butter cream, covered in white, milk, or dark chocolate and finished with sprinkles. The four piece box costs $6.00 and the 12 piece tin costs $20.00, the cupcake truffles along with more unique truffle flavors, caramels, and s’mores are available on Truffle Truffle’s website.

I know most people made their resolutions a little over two weeks ago but I just came across this resolution which cupcake lovers will appreciate.  Emily from the SCOOP made her first resolution for 2011 to be to eat more cupcakes. To kick off her resolution she stopped by Sprinkle’s new Chicago location. I like this idea as opposed to all the lose weight, get fit, eat a less sugary diet because it focuses on what makes you happy.  Also, it’s a lot easier to keep this resolution!

For Christmas I received Bath and Body Work’s Cupcake Pocketbac in two different scents.  The antibacterial hand sanitizer comes in five cupcake related flavors including red velvet, coconut, lemon glaze, blue chiffon, and strawberry.  While these are not available on the Bath and Body Work’s website, they can be purchased from amazon for as little as $0.55.

Already feeling like you need to hit the gym to work off some of that holiday food?  When you go why not take this little towel along with you.  It’s perfect to wipe off sweat and to remind you that you’re burning off those cupcake calories! From Words to Sweat By, this 16X24 towel is $9.95

One of our lovely sponsors, Cindy from Angel Heart Designs was recently featured in the Christmas edition of  Romantic Homes. She talked about her new line of ceramics that is available on Etsy at Cynthia Joy Ceramics, it is vintage french-inspired decorations for your home.

She also talks about her husband of 32 years who is a source of on-going inspiration for her. As well as some of her most valuable possessions — her friends and family and her Lalique from her french in-laws.

Her cupcake night lights and cupcake trinket boxes are also featured in this article —

You can take a look at both of these items in Cindy’s shop.

Be sure to check out the full article when the magazine comes out in a few weeks.

Follow Angel Heart Designs and Cindy at her blog and on her Facebook page.

I absolutely love Etsy! The sellers on there never cease to amaze me with their creative and unique products.  My sister sent me the link to this cupcake ukulele handcrafted by Celentano Woodworks, which is a great example of how talented Etsy sellers are.  The $450.00 ukulele is made to order and you can watch this youtube video of it being played: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkIvYCb0L2I

Looking for a new ice cream topping? Smucker’s now offers their Magic Shell Ice Cream Topping in Cupcake flavor! Just in case you don’t know, the magic shell topping pours out of the bottle as a liquid then freezes in seconds to form a hard shell over your ice cream!

The Smucker’s website offers two options for purchasing this product, enter your zip code in the flavor finder to find the flavor at your local grocery store or purchase directly from their website.  When I go shopping this weekend I think I might have to pick this up just to try it!

I was pondering 50’s style earlier today, looking at the dresses, the fantastic matched accessories (hats, gloves, bag, shoes) and then got to thinking, as is the progression, to cupcakes and wondering what I could find in the way of 50’s cupcakes!  Well that is 50’s memorabilia for cupcakes and baking as opposed to an actual 50’s cupcake!  Firstly I adore this little picture of a girl rolling pastry, she is adorable.  And I loved this old baking poster.

Then I found these classic images…

Read the rest of this entry »

Every bakery has a story, about the people and the passion that over time, combined with lots of hard work has formed part of its success.  In this particular case, Joanne (now 62) proved that there is no barrier, not even age there to stop you from living your dream.

Joanne gave away her career in nursing and with her husband opened a home based cupcake bakery in Naples after recognizing that although there was a cupcake craze sweeping the nation, it hadn’t yet reached them.  Every Saturday she would be up early to sell her cupcakes at the Farmer’s Market, and every week she would sell out.  Joanne, without the money to invest in a physical store, decided instead to build an online cupcakery.  They established the website and are now the successful owners of  Simply Cupcakes of Naples.

Joanne and her husband Ken, learned a lot from the numerous trials and errors they faced over the past years of building their cupcake business from Farmers Market to retail store and now have extended their business model to include Cupcake Training.  This isn’t ‘how to bake a cupcake’ but a concise series of training sessions on how to establish your own cupcake business.  In fact if you are interested, the 2010 session is due to be held on July 30 to Aug 2 and more information can be found on their website.

Last week I discovered environmentally friendly cupcakes and the Build a Green Bakery in New York, and I got to thinking about how you can think green with your baking at home, or should I say brown?

Most cupcake liners are bleached and waxed, making them perfect for all our party needs, but when I am at home and need a fix, do I really care if the wrapper has colored polka dots on it? Lets face it, the little wrapper no matter how cute is going to end up in the bin anyway!  As long as my cupcake tastes good, I’m happy.

Unfortunately the eco-friendly options in Australia are limited so for now when I want a green cupcake, it will need to cook in its ‘birthday suit’ opposed to its ‘birthday wrapper’!  However in America, two companies produce these little brown babies; If You Care and Beyond Gourmet.

Understandably, they are well ‘brown’ and yes, a bit ‘boring’, so for those times when you need something a little more fancy, Green Party Goods has a number of different green options for home baking and display!  One great option they offer is the eco-cupcake stand, because who really looks at what the stand is made of? Especially when it looks so good decorated with a little bit of ribbon.

So this is a bit of a different post for me.  I was cruising some news items and happened across a headline in the Huffington Post ‘How a Cupcake Ruined My Day (and No, I’m Not On A Diet)‘ and I was intrigued.  The crux is that she was served her cupcake in an “excessively large plastic container,” and when she asked the man serving where the recycling bin was when she was finished, she was told “we don’t recycle”.

I understand her angst, doing what we can is important, everyone helping could make a difference. I understand commercial reality too, but supplying recycling bins shouldn’t be that hard.

Anyway instead of dwelling on the poor, I wanted to give a thumbs up to another bakery which is the opposite and while it may not be possible for every bakery to go to this extreme, there are certainly ideas a plenty on the Birdbath / Build a Green Bakery website!

Their cups are made of biodegradable corn, the countertop and shelves, from recycled paper, they are wind powered, their paper bags are not wax lined, the floor is reclaimed timber. They use organic flour, sugar and butter, deliver by bicycle-driven cargo rickshaw and compost their coffee grounds daily.  Also they offer a 25% discount to customers arriving on a bicycle or skateboard. Sounds very GREEN to me!

Happy  Friday everyone!  Here’s a cute little stop motion cupcake video to help you kick off the weekend.

Vera Bradley has two cupcake titled prints which are currently on sale.  The “cupcakes pink” and “cupcakes green” patterns are applied to over 109 different items ranging from purses and wallets to stationary and headbands.

Thought I would share today’s Family Circus Comic: