My friend showed me this dress on the Black Milk Clothing website and I have got to ask you guys, as the ATC readers, what do you think of this cupcake animal dress by designer James Lillis?  Cupcake bottoms with animal heads make up this skin tight $99.00 dress and I’m not sure I would spend the money on this dress.  Based off the model it looks like the dress is intended for a youthful crowd but then I wonder what young shopper has $99.00 to spend on a dress.  Would you buy this dress? If you did buy it, where would you wear it?

If you have gone to a Pampered Chef party you know the best part of the party is getting to try their recipes.  I saw this recipe for White Chocolate Cupcakes with Truffle Filling on their website.  I’m sure you could substitute the white chocolate base for any cupcake recipe and you can add your favorite truffle flavor to the center.  I have not tried this recipe but I think the already liquid chocolate center of the truffle would result in a liquid chocoalte center in your cupcake.  My guess is that it would work better than the Hershey’s Kiss recommendation I blogged about back in June.  Have you tried putting truffles or kisses into cupcakes, if so did either work?

Normally I try to enjoy the season we are currently in, if it’s summer I try to enjoy the summer, not wish for cold weather.  When it’s winter I try to embrace the weather not beg for it to be flip flop season but this year I’m with all the other people asking “is it fall yet?”  Here in North Carolina it’s barely cooled down and I am ready for the cooler weather.  I saw World Market has a Fall Harvest section on their website which includes two cupcake kits! The kits include a chocolate turkey cupcake kit or a pumpkin pie cupcake kit.  The turkey kit which costs $7.99 and makes 12 turkeys includes the mix, frosting, eyes, nose, wrappers, and feather picks.  The pumpkin pie kit costs $5.99 and makes 8 pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon frosting.  The kits are the perfect way to enjoy those delicious fall flavors!

Crazy 8 has all their graphic tees on sale for a crazy deal price of $4.99!  It’s a great price, specially if you are looking for a cute cupcake tee for a little girl.  They have three shirts to choose from, a fun tee that features a cupcake and sprinkle raindrops.  Another shirt shows a little girl eating a cupcake and reads “life is sweet.”  The last shirt is a basic “I heart Cupcakes” tee.  At the crazy deal price of $4.99 and everyday $5.00 shipping you can’t go wrong buying one of these shirts!

This past weekend my mom and I thought it would be fun to take the dog to the beach.  Turns out in North Carolina dogs aren’t allowed on the beach until after September 30th not after Labor Day as we were thinking.  Poor planning on my part as we were two weeks too early and ended up taking the dog for a two hour car ride.  We managed to turn our failed beach day around with cupcakes!  We stopped by Coastal Cupcakes in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina and picked out five cupcakes to take home.  We brought back the oreo cheesecake, pink lemonade, red velvet, coconut, and key lime.  My favorites were the red velvet and the Oreo but all of the cupcakes were really good so I would definitely recommend trying Coastal Cupcakes if you are Wrightsville Beach or Wilmington!

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My mom and I were in Gymboree today looking for a baby gift and we came across the cutest cupcake baby items!  The cupcake bib might be my favorite thing we saw and it’s only $4.99!  I also liked the $4.99 two pack of socks and the “cute” little bodysuit for $9.99.  The Gymboree website has lots of other fun baby cupcake clothes so check it out!

While flipping through Food Network Magazine I saw a fun Target ad for some of their Halloween products, shown in the ad was Target’s two tiered, steel wire Halloween spider web cupcake stand.  For only $19.99 this unique cupcake stand is a fun and festive display piece.  I think I might be buying one of these for myself I like it so much!

How cute are these baby shower cloud cupcakes! They are simple and easy to make and look so sweet.  The cupcakes, as seen on a muse studio, fit in perfectly with the shower theme.

Primrose Bakery

For my birthday last month, my family and I went to London to celebrate! Since we were celebrating my birthday and London has several favorite cupcakes shops, I made sure trying the shops were on our to-do list! The first cupcake shop we visited was the famous Primrose Bakery.  We stopped in the location near Covent garden and enjoyed two classic flavors, chocolate cake, or sponge as they call it in London, with vanilla frosting and vanilla sponge with vanilla frosting.  Both cupcakes were delicious and I would say they lived up to their reputation.

Hummingbird Bakery

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Growing up I remember my siblings and I always played with the same monopoly movers, for some reason I was the thimble.  Now that I’m older Hasbro has made my cupcake loving dreams come true! Monopoly Junior Party has crazy cupcake movers! If you look at the picture above you can see the green and yellow cupcakes that are used to move around the board. The games only $10.99 and there are four different colored cupcake movers!

The end of summer is quickly approaching, before it gets here I recommend everyone gets their fill of peaches.  I spotted this peach cobbler cupcake recipe on Une-Duex Senses and am tempted to combine two delicious desserts into one awesome cupcake!

With so many recipes available to us through the internet, cookbooks, and magazines, sometimes I have a difficult time choosing the best recipe.  I want the recipe that will give me the best looking and tasting cupcakes but not all cupcake recipes are the same.  I found this yellow cake comparison on The Way The Cookie Crumbles website.  The blog post compares three yellow cake recipes from Cooks Illustrated, Martha Stewart, and Smitten Kitchen to see which is the best.  The Cooks Illustrated recipe was the winner, for the recipe and to read more about the comparison check out The Way The Cookie Crumbles.  There’s also a chocolate frosting comparison if you need help choosing a frosting for your cupcakes!

The other day my dad brought home cannoli and as I ate one I thought they would make great cupcakes.  I thought the outside tube would make a good cake, top it with the filling as frosting, throw some chocolate chips in there and you would have a delicious cupcake!  Then I found Tide and Thyme’s blog and realized some one else already had the idea for cannoli cupcakes! The cannoli cupcakes Tide and Thyme made look as good as the ones I had dreamed up in my head!

Edible Arrangements now has a cupcake collection!  Ranging from $55-$93, and available in small, medium or large sizes; the arrangements feature cupcake-the traditional fruits, strawberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, and grapes in addition to cupcake shaped pineapple dipped in white and semisweet chocolate.

I am always looking for packaging for cupcakes that I bake as gifts.  It’s not just about how good your cupcake looks and tastes but also what the cupcake is presented in or on.  These small bird house cupcake boxes from Meri Meri are right up my alley! The single cupcake box cost $8.50 and are perfect for giving a cupcake along with a little note.

How lovely is this sweet bakery mobile from Gifts Define?  I love the strawberry cupcake and the birthday cake with a candle.  While it is a little pricey at $135.00, I think it would make a lovely gift for a new born baby!

I know by now everyone’s see the commercials for Snuggies but have you seen the cupcake Snuggie? Called the cupcake booty buddy and available from Urban Outfitters, this oversized poncho is $89.00.  Remember those cold winter holidays are coming if you need a gift for a loved one.

I have seen a few Post-It pixels before but this was the first Post-It pixel cupcake! This would be a fun idea for a co-worker’s birthday if you forgot to pick up cupcakes on the way to the office!

I noticed this Pamper Your Dog, Scientific Explorer kit while on a recent trip to Barnes and Noble.  For $19.95 you can make healthy cupcakes for your dog and then make tooth paste to brush your dog’s teeth! After the doggy Sprinkles cupcake our dog had in January I’m sure he’d love it if I made cupcakes for him!

I am a huge fan of Pinterest but at times I find my self clicking that “repin” and “like” buttons a little too much.  I have so many baked goods pins right now there is no way I will ever get around to making them all!  I have started to wonder with all the pins going around if things actually work, do the instructions for the DIY projects produce homemade items that look like the pictures?  Do the recipes turn out to be as awesome as they look?  I found Pintrosity, which claims that not all pins work out the way we hope they would.

The original pin, which I even have saved to my cupcake board, tells you to “Bake cupcakes for 5 minutes and then drop a Hershey Kiss in the center and continue baking. It sinks to the middle and makes a chocolate center!”  According to Pintrosity, the cupcakes failed miserably.  Years ago I made the red velvet cupcakes from Woman’s Day magazine that called for Hershey’s kisses in the batter before baking.  When I saw the kisses in cupcakes idea on Pinterest I thought back to these cupcakes and how the kiss turned out hard.  I thought the shortened baking time would help make the kiss soft and melty but Pintrosity says otherwise.  Has anyone else tried these cupcakes?  Did you end up with a chocolate center or a hard piece of chocolate?  Any other Pinterest cupcake fails our there?

I love the ombre effect trend that is popular right now!  Between the celebrity hair styles and the Pinterest DIY ideas the ombre effect seems to be everywhere!  Even stores like The Container Store have jumped on board with their ombre colored crunch cans! Somewhere Splendid definitely knows what’s popular right now!  They blogged about how to make ombre effect vanilla cupcakes! You obviously don’t have to make your cupcakes blue like the picture, you can choose any color you like!  These would be very cute for a baby shower!

I have always loved back to shopping; there is something about starting off the school year with all new products that I enjoyed.  On a quick trip to Target over the weekend I found several cupcake items in their back to school section!  There are dollar cupcake notebooks, composition journals, and folders.  I also spotted two cute little cupcake coin purses that are also only $1.00.  There was a pack of pencil erasers which included cupcakes for $1.99.

I absolutely love my local running store, Fleet Feet Raleigh.  They always have the best training programs, fun runs, and products.  On a recent visit to the store I noticed a Brooks running shirt that had a cupcake on it!  The shirt which is shown to the left, reads “run happy” is available on the Brooks website.  The shirt comes in three different colors and short sleeve for $34.00 or long sleeve for $40.00.  I have to admit I definitely run so I can eat cupcakes so this shirt would be perfect for me!

I have come to count on Walmart to have a few cupcake products every time I go in the store.  I was excited to find the cupcake cups shown above for only $0.97 in the party section.  They also had robots if you are looking for favors for girls and boys.

Walmart’s Hallmark Card section had several cupcake items including the cupcake gift bag shown above.  The bag came in three different sizes, the middle size cost $2.97.  There was also a pack of glitter cupcake stickers, shown to the right, that would make fun party favors or an easy gift if you include them with a birthday card.

I ran into my local Staples looking for a planner and found some great cupcake items in the back to school section.  They had a cupcake shaped tape dispenser for $7.00 and a jar of paperclips topped with a cupcake for $3.00.  In the Post-It section there was a notepad with four different cupcake designs in one pad for $2.99.  I was unable to find the items on the Staple’s website so you will have to visit a store to find these cupcake desk essentials.