Let’s face it.  We start strong.  We mean well.  But in a few days, we’ll be thinking, “Smile!” as we count the remaining hours.

I’ve found the perfect inoculation to the upcoming holiday stress:  cupcakes with bling!

Have you seen a more sparkly cupcake?  These darlings were created at The Voluptuous Cup Cake Company, down under in Perth, Australia.  Just clicking on this blog spot of her cupcakes is enough to cheer a girl’s heart.

What’s your most sparkly, glittery, magical cupcake topping for the holidays?

I love going to Trader Joe’s! They always have delicious samples and great food products, I highly recommend the Pastry Bites with feta cheese and caramelized onions!  My sister told me they have giant peppermint cupcakes for the holiday season, I haven’t tried them yet but the next time I’m in Trader Joe’s I plan on picking one up!

Dominique of  Sugarplum Cupcakes from across the pond over in England shared her masterful animal cupcake creations with us.  My favorite is the sheep.  The pearls woven together to simulate the wool is adorable.  She will be offering a “Novelty Cupcake Workshop” to share her tips and tricks:

Forgot to mention I host cupcake workshops in Suffok, UK. These four
characters are stars of my latest ‘Novelty Cupcake Workshop’. Haven’t
named them yet, but really excited about filling a whole class with
them in the New Year! – Dominique

Too bad we are on the wrong side of the pond to attend.  Register by contact her at her website contact form or on her Facebook page.

Sugarplum Cupcake
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sugarplumcupcakes
Website: http://www.sugarplumcupcakes.co.uk/

What do you get when you take a steak house owner and put him in a cupcakerie?

Answer:  Coke + Ruffles cupcakes!

Now I know that everyone is thinking holiday cupcakes and presents, but, after all, Santa Claus is a man, so perhaps our stockings would become a bit more plump if we left guy-inspired cupcakes beside the fireplace on Christmas Eve?

4 Rivers Sweetshop owner John Rivers has come up with several of these “sweet and savory” cupcake ideas, including Moutain Dew + Doritos cupcakes.  Rivers told The Today Show that he’s working on Nehi grape soda cupcakes, and that the secret to using sodas in frosting is to boil it down to syrup thickness.

Now that’s one Ho-Ho tip I’m headed into the kitchen to try!

With cupcakes being so popular, this Little Tikes cupcake kitchen set from Toys R Us would make an excellent Christmas gift for your child, and it’s a great deal for only $29.99.  Just think of the hours that he or she will spend “baking” cupcakes and serving them up to friends…with no clean-up involved!  I especially love that the stove burners make sound effects!

And our ornament winner is…

Ashley Shelton
A cupcake Christmas is the only one for me! I am from Tennessee and while we like to keep things traditional and tender during the Holiday Season I am opting for a more sweet approach. This year I am decking my silver tree with sweet cupcake ornaments to remind us to be a little sweeter this Christmas!

 Congratulations!  Please email your mailing address to [email protected].  Thanks to all our sweet fans and to KamNCo for sponsoring this great giveaway!

This cupcake cake comes from a bakery in Massachusetts.  I thought it was so creative and I wanted to pass along the idea.  I love the idea of making gingerbread houses, and a cupcake gingerbread house sure would taste yummy!

After hours of shopping and trying to find all those great deals, you are probably exhausted and ready to put your feet up and relax.  Why not kick back with a cupcake?

I searched for Black Friday cupcakes and found these yummy-looking creations.  It’s not too late to whip up a batch of these!  This one is a dark chocolate cupcake filled with vanilla bean cream, topped with ganache and drizzled with chocolate sauce.

What is it about Thanksgiving that invariably leads to pleas from turkeys for clemency?  Do we see similar images from cows at Fourth of July?  Fish and shrimp at New Year’s Eve?

Perhaps the answer is that we draw the turkey as children, tracing our hands with crayons, turning our thumb into the smiling turkey face, our fingers into the colorful feathers.  Seemingly every child is connected to turkeys, while all other animals are, well, options.

In an hour-long scan of turkey cupcakes, ranging from cupcakes made from ground turkey to cupcakes celebrating turkeys, this is the one turkey who captured my heart and made me think twice about the bird in my refrigerator.  If I had seen this handsome Tom earlier this week, perhaps I would have served up imitation cupcakes, under silvery domes, to be lifted to the surprise of my guests.

(Maybe next year.)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ever thought of turning a boring old meatloaf into a cupcake?  The Meatloaf Bakery in Chicago specializes in meatloaf cupcakes.  They have taken the average meatloaf recipe and turned it into something unique.

Check out this meaty Thanksgiving cupcake, made of lean ground turkey, fresh garlic, herbs, and Parmesan cheese and topped with stuffing.  Go here to check out some of their other original creations, including “El Loafo del Fuego” and “No Buns About it Burger Loaf”.  I just might have to give this place a try since they’re not too far away from me!

So, what are your thoughts? Would you try a meaty cupcake?

For those of you already gearing up for Christmas, you will love this week’s giveaway.  It is sponsored byKamNCo and check out these adorable cupcake Christmas ornaments they create.  Many people call them “cupfakes” because although they look real, they are made with inedible ingredients.   I have one and am amazed by it’s realistic appearance.  And they are light enough to go on a children’s Christmas tree.  How unbelievable  would a whole tree decorated with these be?

One lucky winner will receive a cupcake ornament!  So sweet!  To enter this week’s giveaway, click on the comment area below and tell us how you love to decorate for the holidays.  Do you use cupcakes?  Or maybe you go for a traditional country look?  Tell us what you do!  One winner will be chosen on Monday November 28th.  Thanks KamNCo for sponsoring this giveaway! 

I posted some fuzzy cupcake slippers yesterday, and today I am posting some cute cupcake hats for little girls.  What a great stocking stuffer idea (especially when they’re only $4.95 a piece)!  With such an adorable hat, they will be sure to keep it on in the cold weather.

Looking for a stylish way to keep you or your little ones’ toes warm as the temperatures drop this winter?  Here are several pairs of cupcake slippers that are both fun and functional.  Click on each picture for more information.  The last two pairs of slippers are linked to patterns in case you are feeling like a knitting or crochet project.  And if you don’t like any of these, be sure and search for more, because there are tons of cupcake slippers out there!

Slippers to match your American Girl doll:

Slippers for your toddler:

Crocheted toddler slippers:

More crocheted toddler slippers:

Remember those trendy Fisker’s cupcake toppers we showed you over the summer?  Well now Lisa Stroms has a twist on the mustache cupcake toppers, edible mustache cupcake toppers!  These are really easy to make, just sketch or print out the mustache shape you want to use as your template and cover with wax paper.  Next melt chocolate and fill into a ziploc bag.  Snip the corner of the bag and pipe the chocolate following the outline of the template first and filling in the mustache second.  Then use chocolate to “glue” on a lollipop stick, once dry you have edible mustache cupcake toppers.

By the title, you might think I am talking about cupcakes and ice cream and a carbonated beverage, but I am actually referring to the floats that we will be seeing on Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and other holiday parades.  Since I will be attending a parade this weekend, I got to thinking about what kinds of cupcake floats have been done.  I thought I would share what my search came up with.  I wonder…will there be any cupcake floats in Macy’s Parade this year?

I was treated to a local production of Red Velvet Cake War this past weekend, and they did a very cool thing! A local bakery (renowned Hilman’s Bakery of Fairfield, Maine) donated a giant red velvet cake, along with many, many mini red velvet cupcakes. During intermission, actors in costume came out into the audience with trays of the mini cupcakes, handing them out. Then, as we were all contentedly munching away, they announced that one of the cupcakes had an X on the bottom. The person who got the X’d cupcake got to take home the giant cake! What a great idea! (And the play was great too!)

In just a little over a week we will all be sitting down to Thanksgiving turkey and dressing and pie and all the other delicious Thanksgiving foods.  Why not add cupcakes to your Thanksgiving tradition?  Here is another turkey cupcake recipe that I found.  I like this one because it doesn’t require lots of extra ingredients for the decoration–just candy corn and sprinkles.

As I was doing a little shopping at Old Navy yesterday I noticed an adorable little cupcake tee for toddler girls.  If I had a little girl, I think I’d definitely have to splurge on this!  It would even make a cute shirt for their first birthday when they get their first bite of cupcake!

While flipping through a magazine an ad for NFL Shop caught my attention.  The ad was of a frosted cupcake in a teams colors and topped with a helmet party pic.  The party pics come in a package of 24 as part of the NFL cake decorating kit that costs $19.99.  There are cake decorating kits for 24 different NLF teams.

I love fall centerpieces made of pumpkins and gourds and Indian corn.  I would probably love them even more if they were edible, like this lovely display of Indian corn cupcakes.  The kernels are made from autumn shades of Jelly Belly jelly beans, and the husks are made from sheets of Phyllo dough which are toasted in the oven.  Thank you, Jelly Belly, for the unique idea!

I admit: I don’t have much patience for fondant. I’m just not that artistic. But I finally got around to trying out these fondant flower cut-outs from Wilton, and guess what? It wasn’t so hard!

The cupcakes were ganache-filled chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting. Yep, I was pretty popular, for a day.

I think they came out pretty cute! Not bad for an amateur!

Do you remember cinnamon toast crunch breakfast cereal?  I always think of the commercials from the 1990s with Wendell and the other bakers which used the slogan “it’s the taste you can see.”

Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes can now be added to the list of breakfast cupcake, along with pancakes, cinnamon rolls, Pop Tart, and Cap’n Crunch Cookie cupcakes.  These cinnamon toast crunch cupcakes are the creation of Your Cup of Cake and they have me craving that cinnamunchcruncy taste!

Not long ago we celebrated National Chocolate Cupcake Day.  Well, TOMORROW is National Vanilla Cupcake Day.  I thought it was only fair to give you a little extra warning so that you could make plans to celebrate tomorrow.  With the current cupcake craze, there is a seemingly endless variety of cupcakes to choose from, but sometimes it’s nice to just have a plain, old vanilla cupcake.  Go celebrate tomorrow by eating a vanilla cupcake from your favorite bakery or by making your own!  It’s a perfect excuse!

KamNCo is a fun little Etsy shop that offers faux cupcakes.  These realistic cupcakes range in price from $3.00 to $8.00 for a single cupcake to $24.00 for a party pack of 4.  Each cupcake is approximately 4 inches tall and the cupcakes come in a variety of colors and decorations.

ATC was sent the pastel party cupcake in aqua for review.  As soon as I opened the package I was immediately amazed at how realistic these cupcakes are.  Inside the package t looked like I had a mini cupcake with vanilla butter cream frosting and topped with a chocolate drizzle and multi colored sprinkles.  As the product description reads the faux cupcake is very light weight, which means if used as a decoration on a Christmas tree, they will not weigh down the branches. Read the rest of this entry »

Raise your hand if you like Dexter? *raises hands & feet*

I abosolutely love Dexter! I never thought I’d like such a sick and twisted show, but I know I am not the only one. Sisters, Celina and Nicole of Blissful Bites created these amazing cupcakes for some lucky Dexter fans.

Check out Blissful Bites Website and become fans of them on Facebook