Cannelle et Vanille is one of my favorite blogs, the food and pictures combine to make amazing recipes.  Recently she made Chocolate, Banana, and Teff Cupcakes.  According to her these cupcakes are not only delicious but also packed full of nutrients provided by the Teff and bananas.  Additionaly, the  cupcakes are gluten free because Teff is used.

Teff is a grass that is cultivated in Northeast Africa.  The grass contains various nutrients including fiber, iron, protein, and calcium.

Chocolate, Banana and Teff Cupcakes

Makes 1 loaf and 12 cupcakes

3 eggs
200 grams natural cane sugar
300 grams ripe bananas, mashed
175 grams light olive oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
100 grams teff flour
50 grams sweet rice flour
50 grams hazelnut meal
15 grams cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
100 grams chocolate chips

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, banana puree, oil and vanilla.

In a large bowl, whisk together the teff, sweet rice flour, hazelnut meal, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk until all combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Divide the batter between the loaf pan and cupcake molds. Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes for the loaf pan and 20 minutes for the cupcakes.

For the icing, I used my basic buttercream recipe and added cocoa powder to it.

I stand amazed. These cupcakes are little cartoon-y works of art. Works of art that get special points for the cool Futurama reference and the fact that they are delicious (at least, that’s what their creator Alicia Policia claims, and far be it from me to gainsay the words of such an artiste).

Ingredients used: homemade vanilla cupcake base (made from scratch), buttercream icing brains with a touch of grenadine, and gum paste slugs with royal icing eyes and flower stamen attenae. Neat!

I love decorating my house for all the holidays. It is a special bonus if I can find holiday items that are cupcakes too!  I went window shopping on Etsy this morning and found some cute Valentine’s cupcake creations that are very tempting.

Cupcake Dish Towel $7

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At my place of employment, we have a two little machines known as MakerBot Cupcake CNCs (I think the name comes from how the inventor of the Cupcake CNC originally wanted to make a frosting extruder).  These adorably named bots can print small 3D shapes out of plastic.  It didn’t take much time for the crafter-types who use a machine like this to put together a program (or two) that lets the Cupcake CNC print out cupcakes.  Out of plastic, mind you, but still cute little cupcakes.

Just recently, I heard about 3D bioprinters that can print basic organic tissue, technology that can hopefully someday be used to print full organs.  I also know that the folks at MakerBot Industries have been tirelessly working to create a fully functional frostruder, and may have in fact succeeded. What’s next in the world of 3D printing?  Carbo-printers? Printcakes? A girl can dream…

Red Velvet is officially the cupcake flavor of the hour.  It’s been mentioned everywhere this week, including right here on All Things Cupcake. Personally, I suspect it has something to do with a certain romantic holiday on the horizon, a suspicion that is upheld by a recent Google image search that shows almost every red velvet cupcake accompanied by little heart decorations. But I should give credit where credit is due: the deliciousness of vanilla cake with a kiss of cocoa and topped with buttercream plus the dramatic presentation of red cake and white frosting makes red velvet cake (and cupcake!) a classic.

With the domination of mini cakes popping up all over the world the word Cupcake has taken on a persona all its own.

I am watching one of my favorite shows and I have heard them use the ‘Cupcake’ at least twice in the past 20 minutes. And in the same episode they gave a little girl an Easy Bake Oven!

With this being a sort of slang I have taken it upon myself to look up the definition on the most popular Slang Dictionary,  UrbanDictionary.com.

Cupcake; …from outward appearance you would assume they are tough, but on the inside they are soft.
…can be very sweet….is the perfect size, just the right amount of everything….is also cute yet delicious….people are always in the mood to hang out with them, just like people are always in the mood to have cupcakes…people never get sick of.

Cupcake; someone you’re emotionally romantically involved with

Here is also a definition of it from Wikitonary.com

Cupcake!

Last year we shared with you Deep Fried Cupcakes from the Orange County Fair.  Kick Ass Cupcakes in Somerville, MA tweeted Friday that they have deep fried cupcakes on their menu!  These cream filled vanilla cupcakes are available Fridays through Sundays at the shop.

If you are not in the Boston area, you could always try making your own deep fried cupcakes.  Cupcake Project offers four step directions on how to create your own deep fried cupcakes.  Step one: make mini cupcakes.  Step two: prepare cupcakes for frying by coating in batter.  Step three: FRY! Step four, eat while hot!!!

As many of you know, cupcake hunting is a fun passion for me.  More than that, most of my friends have turned into cupcake hunters too!  Every week they are calling and emailing me to tell me about some wonderful little treasures they have discovered.   Many times I have seen (or bought!) the items already but not always.  Thank you my wonderful friends!  This week one of my best gal pals sent me these photos of cupcake finds at Ben Franklin Crafts:

I checked Ben Frankin’s  website and unfortunitely these items are not sold online. 

The task that Food2 (the Food Network’s sassy younger sibling) puts to challengers is deceptively simple: take pictures of cupcakes, submit them at the Food2 website, and may the best photo win.  Multiple entries are allowed, and the cupcake or cupcakes don’t have to be yours (but the photos do, of course).  Food2 started taking submissions for the Cupcake Cup yesterday and the will continue taking them for the next 40 days.  Photos have already started to come in if you’d like to take a look at the competition, or vote for them for that matter.

And what will you win?  A silicone bakeware Giant Cupcake Baking Set… and the eternal glory of being the first person to win the Cupcake Cup.

It has been snowing here in central North Carolina since last night so the roads are covered and  kids are enjoying the snow which is rare for the area.  This got me thinking, someone has to have made a cupcake sculpture out of the snow! I was right, I came across these two awesome images that cupcake loves created out of snow. Be sure to let us know if you attempted a snow cupcake.

I think cupcakes are pretty great. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be writing for All Things Cupcake, right?  But it takes something special for me to bestow an “OMFGBBQ CUTECAKES!” award.  CakeSpy has it…CakeSpy, in fact, takes the cutecake.

I first discovered CakeSpy a few years ago at I Heart Rummage, a local artist swapmeet that goes on every other month at Chop Suey (Capitol Hill, Seattle).  I stood at the booth for at least five minutes paralyzed and making cute noises over freakin’ adorable drawings of wee little cupcakes living their little cupcake lives: checking the interwebs at a coffeeshop, falling in love, and running from zombies.  It made my week.

Turns out that CakeSpy (aka artist and writer Jessie Oleson) not only does prints of the wee lives of cupcakes, she also have a blog and plenty more merch. I mean really – what says awesome like a hip cupcakes and unicorns tee in the closet, a cupcakes and unicorn checkbook in your purse and teeny-beeny cupcake and unicorn magnets on the fridge?

As I was walking past some storefronts this afternoon, I noticed something I had never seen before: a cupcake calendar.  My boyfriend confirmed that while this was the first year he had seen it too, the Hello, Cupcake! calendar is in stores all over town. It’s sort of a companion to the Hello, Cupcake (Irresistably Playful Creations Anyone Can Make) book, being as it’s made by the same folks out of their favorite illustrations from the book.  From the pictures on their website (the little doggiecakes are the on front cover of the calendar), it looks like a darn cute way of keeping track of the days as well as a serving as a muse for the creative in the kitchen.

This week ourFacebook Fan Page  hit an amazing milestone by having over 1000 fans! If you haven’t already fanned us, please click here to join in on the fun.  Recipes are shared, questions are answered and photos are posted. Here are some of my favorites this month from fans Shawna, Andrea and Deanne:

This are too amazing for words!

Cupcake Table

Cupcake Seat

Ahh if only there weren’t so expensive. I’d have the sweetest decorated living room!

kimberlyloc recently posted on her blog the Lady Gaga Cupcakes she made.

Here is a full array of all of the cupcakes she made.

This is my favorite one …

If you check out her post you can see all of the cupcakes she made compared to the photograph of Lady Gaga  that inspired that cupcake. You can also see all of the drawings she did before hand for the cupcakes!

I think she did a great job. Very very very creative!

If you were to fashion cupcakes after your favorite singer or famous person who would you choose?

I would choose McSteamy, Eric Dane who plays Mark Sloan on Grey’s Anatomy! :)

Last week my errands led me to Walmart and as usual I found some cute cupcake items there. Here’s what caught my eye this trip:

Cupcake Pillows in the Toy Section $12.97

Marshmallow Cupcakes in the Valentine’s Section $1

Fleece Cupcake Pants in the Sleepwear Section $9

I also saw a pink cotton shirt and pant cupcake set there too but neglected to snap a photo!

And the winner is… Erin Bailey!
Congratulations! Please email us at [email protected] or go to www.sweetbling.com and email them directly. Thanks to all who entered and commented on their wonderful items.  Special thanks to Sweet Bling for sponsoring this giveaway!

LuxSugar is a full service bakery catering company out of  Br0oklyn,  New York ! They make muffins, cupcakes, cookies & dessert bars.

All of their cupcakes  are named after Celebrities. Some of my favorite sounding ones are;

Marilyn Monroe – Red Velvet cake w/ cream cheese  frosting

Audrey Hepburn – Vanilla bean cake w/ vanilla frosting

Rick James – Chocolate Cake w/ chocolate & mint frosting

Prince Harry – Carrot cake w/ cream cheese frosting

The Gaga – Blueberry Lemon Cake with lemon icing

The Diddy – Chocolate cake w/ semi-sweet chocolate frosting

These sound yum yum yummmy!

Sometimes dietary restrictions can make it hard to enjoy the finer things in life…like cupcakes. But in LA, things became just a little bit easier for the dietarily-restricted cupcake lover with the opening of Babycakes earlier this month. This New York transplant serves up the sweets with the health and allergy-conscious in mind – all of their offerings are egg, soy and dairy-free, and many are refined sugar and gluten-free as well. While their ingredients are restricted, their menu has plenty of options. Babycakes features red velvet, vanilla, carrot and chocolate cupcakes along with a plethora of cookies, crumb cakes, muffins and other delicious baked goods.

Just this last Friday, Beverly Hills’ haute-cupcake bakery Sprinkles jumped into the game with the introduction of their vegan and gluten-free red velvet cupcake.  Is this the start of a health-conscious cupcake war in LA?  If so, I can tell you right now: the cupcake lovers will be the winners.

Cupcake Royale's "cupcake fit for The King"

Seattle is a big cupcake town, so it’s no surprise that new styles and flavors show up all the time. Nor is it too surprising to have a flavor named after a celebrity. But Elvis’ famous favorite snack, the banana and peanut butter sandwich, transformed into a cupcake in celebration of The King’s 75th birthday? That’s original. And that’s the Velvet Elvis, Cupcake Royale‘s newest creation and present cupcake of the month.

I stopped by Cupcake Royale’s Capitol Hill location to try a bite-sized version of the banana bread cupcake with peanut butter and chocolate frosting a few days ago. It was sweet, but also rich, with a depth of flavor that is often lacking in cupcakes. If you’re a cupcake fan swinging through Emerald City, I recommend giving it a try – it’s well worth the stop.

Just a reminder that Sunday is the last day to enter our cupcake shirt giveaway sponsored by Sweet Bling.

Please click here to enter.

The Arizona Cardinal fans in Scottsdale were in for sweet treat this weekend. The renowned bakery Sprinkles Cupcakes, which is probably responsible for the present cupcake revolution in the country, gave away free Cupcakes to the Arizona Cardinal fans.

They gave away Red Velvet Cupcakes (their most famous creation) which were renamed as Cardinals Red Velvet cupcakes for the day. The fans were asked to come wearing the teams jersey or hat to pick up their sweet present, on January 16th.

Even though the bakery was first opened in Scottsdale, it has now branches in Palto Alto, Newport Beach and Dallas. Two new stores in Houston and Chicago will be opening very soon.

The bakery offers cupcakes for $3.25 each and has two dozen different flavors. Take your pick from flavors like Chocolate coconut, Peanut Butter Chip, Ginger Lemon and many more flavors.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/consumer/articles/2010/01/15/20100115free-sprinkles-cupcake-card-fans.html

She is hardly bigger than a cupcake herself, but her heart is much bigger than many people on the face of the earth. A 4 year old girl from Louisville, KY is motivating people to help the earth quake victims in Haiti by baking cupcakes.

Little Ella Cordrey saw the devastation in the island country on TV. She, along with her parents decided to do something to help the victims. They are now baking cupcakes and selling them to people. The proceeds will go to the victims of the earth quake. The response has been astounding.  They started with just 20 cupcakes, but now they have baked over 180 cupcakes.

They have raised over $600 so far. They will donate all this money to a group called World Vision who is helping orphans in Haiti and in other poor countries.

http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=11855594

My family and I just got back from a wonderful trip to Walt Disney World in Florida. We saw Mickey and Minnie and all the Princesses and yet I still found myself looking for cupcakes. Even better, my family members were looking too! Here’s what we found!

At Downtown Disney I found this lovely sight in Goofy’s Candy Kitchen:

I chose the chocolate cupcake with the vanilla frosting.  I loved the Mickey sprinkles but the cupcake frosting was overly sugary and the cake a bit dry.   These cupcakes were also spotted at Epcot in a Germany treat shop.

Also at Downtown Disney in the Disney Christmas Store, this little Tinkerbell ornament caught my niece’s eye:

I also spotted Minnie’s Cupcake Mix at several stores in Downtown Disney and Magic Kingdom. 

My husband found some delicious cupcakes at the Main Street Bakery at Magic Kingdom.  My daughter picked out this pretty one with blue frosting and it was surprising delicious.  Just the right blend of buttery cake and sugary frosting.

Let us know if you have more Disney cupcake spottings to pass on!