Sorry, this might be inappropriate, but somehow I just had to share it with ATC readers. Don’t blame me — blame For the Love of Cake of Toronto for this clever and hilarious decorating idea.

I always love flipping through an issue of Real Simple magazine.  They always have great ideas for making life simpler, and it turns out they also know how to simplify cupcakes.  These Short Stack Cupcakes are made by simply slicing a cupcake into 3 layers, adding whipped cream between each layer, and topping it all off with your favorite berries.

I know that these aren’t exactly cupcakes but I couldn’t resist not posting about them. They are so cute and look super tasty.

My best friend is throwing a Pampered Chef party. If you   are not  familiar with Pampered Chef parties,they are kind of like Tupperware parties, but it is all cooking stuff!

I was browsing the site to see what I want to scoop up and i saw these amazing looking S’more Cups!

I want to go find a campfire right now and have a s’more!

One year for my sister’s birthday she had a boston cream pie cake from the Cakery in San Luis Obispo, California.  Her cake was so good it makes me think these Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes by Sugar Plum would be a delicious mini version.

Having recently feasted on a Cumbs Bake Shop “Almond Bliss” cupcake (pictured), I thought to gather some almond cupcake recipes for you.

How about a Vegan Chocolate Cupcake with Almond Buttercream and Raspberry Glaze?    The “Oh She Glows” blog site has both the recipe and fantastic photographs for step-by-step instructions, including a video to guide you through piping.

Or, how about Honey, Lavender, and Almond Cupcakes, complete with the directions for making your own lavender milk for the frosting?  The recipe from Lily Vanilli in England is in metrics, but worth the math exercise to get you there!

Finally, from the Love & Olive Oil site, let’s go for the Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting.  This yummy recipe includes almond extract, vanilla bean seeds, and coconut milk.

This cupcake carrier carousel is designed like a giant cupcake that stores 24 cupcakes (3 stacking inserts hold 8 cupcakes apiece).  The inserts can also be used as serving stands.  This would be a great and compact way of taking cupcakes to a party or other event.

Well, we didn’t have quite the amount of entries that we thought so here are our 2 winners for the week!  They earn a code for three weeks of use of Sugar Coded Apps’ Kitchen Decoder.   Please email us at [email protected].  Thanks again to Sugar Coded Apps! 

Alicia  I love the walt disney world acronym decoder!

Seini  I love the kitchen decoder. I love to cook or bake whilst we’re overseas – genius

Is it possible to cupcake topping your way to happiness?

Let’s start with the basics:  a white cupcake with a white frosting.  Vanilla-on-vanilla, and I’m going to add a little vanilla ice cream.  Vanilla signals simple, uncomplicated, neat, cool enjoyment.

Put mini M&Ms on that same vanilla-on-vanilla cupcake, and it’s a game changer!  It’s not just adding the chocolate of the candies.  It’s adding everything associated with rainbow-colored M&Ms, like childhood, blue skies, remembering the brown ones, and even reminiscing about UK Smarties.

Likewise, take the Crumbs Bake Shop cupcake “Good Guy.”  How do I know, just by looking at it that it will be good?  It’s vanilla cupcake, vanilla frosting, rainbow sprinkles, and white drizzle.  Think Glinda, the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz.

Or, how about tye die and peace sign cupcakes at Cupcakes by Carousel?  Now there’s a sure-fire way to make me smile.  I don’t even think that there’s a flavor associated with this visual, but it signals to my whole being:  “Don’t worry – be happy!”

Cupcake with a smiley face, anyone?

One of my all-time favorite desserts is a Mississippi Mud Cake.  It’s hard to beat chocolate, pecans and marshmallows, all in the same dessert.  I found this recipe on Southern Living’s website, and it sounds delicious.

As I said in my bio (albeit jokingly at the time), I thought my spot with ATC might entice my parents to get into the act.  Sure enough, while visiting them, my mother and I went out on a cupcake expedition.  In Ridgewood, NJ, we found a local cupcakerie with flavors to spare.

Cupcakes by Carousel is on Main St. in Ridgewood, next to the movie theater.

The product line starts with “Classic White/Chocolate with Fudge” and “Red Velvet” and moves on to “Vanilla Dirt Worm” and “Chocolate Pretzel.”  “Pink Marshmallow Snowball” and “Turtle” looked almost too pretty to eat.

The winners in our taste selection included “Key Lime Pie,” which my mother said included candied lime, made by taking lime zest and packing it in sugar (the moisture makes the sugar adhere to begin with until it soaks in).

Dad had the gluten free vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing and gave it a thumbs up.  This is a new product line for Cupcakes by Carousel, and, from pans used only for gluten free to individual cupcake holders for gluten free, it’s just the recipe for those with celiac disease.

I might just be going home to visit my parents again…soon!

I’m not the biggest fan of sushi, but I could definitely go for these sushi cupcakes.  They are vanilla cupcakes cut into balls, iced, and rolled in white sprinkles.  Fondant was used for the fish, wasabi, and ginger.

Disney has some of the cutest cupcake ideas! I know we recently blogged about Disney’s Family Fun Cupcakes but another Disney creation has caught my eye. Remember squirt from Finding Nemo?  Well these Squirt Happy Turtlecakes look as cute as the turtle in the movie!  Made from candy, listed below, this cupcake is completely edible and kid friendly. For the four step instructions head over to Disney Family!

• Cupcakes
• Frosting
• Sour Peach Gummi Rings candies
• Gumdrop candies (red and green)
• Spearmint Leaves candies
• Mini chocolate chips
• Wooden kitchen skewer or toothpick

Drink your booze and eat it too — in your cupcakes! Think of all the different liquors and beers there are out there. Now think of all of the cupcake flavors out there. Put them together and the recipes are endless.

Pastry Artist Kate Legere’s passion for baking lead her to experiment with cupcakes and liquor – which lead her to constructing this cook book!

Intoxicated Cupcakes: 41 Tipsy Treats from Amazon.

Down here in the South, we had a record-breaking high of 110 degrees today.  With the scorching heat, an evening cup of coffee didn’t sound particularly enticing tonight, but these espresso-laden ice cream cupcakes from Everyday with Rachael Ray sure would hit the spot!

Finely ground ice-cream cones and butter form the crust, and chocolate, almonds, coffee-flavored ice cream, and chocolate-covered espresso beans make up the filling.  The topping is a smooth mixture of whipping cream, confectioners’ sugar, and chocolate shavings.

One cool (no pun intended) thing about these cupcakes is that they can be frozen for up to three days, so if you are making them for a party, you can do all the work ahead of time.  Or, if you’re just making them for yourself, you can enjoy them for several days (that is, if you can keep yourself from eating them all at once).

The recipe for these strawberry cupcakes from Milwaukee’s Honeypie Cafe calls for strawberry gelatin and a healthy dose of puréed fresh strawberries.  Jen Vernig, the one who requested this recipe, wrote, “This is my favorite sweet treat in the city…tasting so fresh and so delicious. I cannot say enough about how amazing this dessert is and how it represents the best of what Honey Pie does.”  This recipe might berry well be worth a try!

Oh, Hello Friend: You Are Loved is one of my favorite daily blog reads.  Dani has amazing style, a beautiful Etsy shop and I love reading her posts, some of my favorites were about her engagement and wedding! And I check every monday to see what the weeks’ good cheer deals are.  The good cheer deals are discounts and specials to different websites and Etsy shops.  I was excited when I saw her post for a DIY: Summer Succulent Garden that included a cupcake liner garland. I really like her color choices and think the cupcake liners add a nice pop of color to the little garden.I’m thinking about making my own garden to give my mom as a birthday gift in a few weeks.  Of course I will be baking cupcakes for her as well!

These lemon cupcakes with raspberry buttercream icing sound like a refreshing treat in all this heat!  The lemon cupcakes are made extra light and fluffy by using cake flour instead of all-purpose flour, and you can use fresh raspberries and candied lemon peel for some added flavor and decoration.

Another thing that I love about summer is the Summer BBQ’s! I went to a big BBQ this weekend with friends and family and it was lovely!

I love the smell of BBQ cooking — whether its hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, turkey burgers — I could go on.

Here are some cupcakes that are an ode to BBQ’s!

BBQ Cupcakes from Disney Family Fun

This week we are hosting a giveaway for Sugar Coded Apps.   They specialize in useful applications for any iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) product.   Thirty fans (yes, thirty!) will receive an app code good for three weeks of free use of the Kitchen Decoder app.   This app is a handy guide to common kitchen weights and measurements and has helpful cooking convertions, abbreviations and so much more.   To enter this giveaway, just visit Sugar Coded site and then tell us what app you liked best in our comment area below.  30 winners will be picked on Monday, August 8th. 

Sugar Coded Apps is on Facebook and Twitter too!

As opposed to heavy chocolate cupcakes these lemon cupcakes with lime & ginger whipped cream sound light and perfect for summer.  These cupcakes were created by Rachel from The Pleasure Monger.   If you’re not a ginger fan I’m sure you could make these cupcakes without the ginger in the whipped cream for a purely citrus cupcakes.

I noticed in an issue of Martha Stewart Living this Erhman Tapestry Cupcake pillow.  While it’s not my taste, especially at $78.00,  I’m sure someone out there would be interested in this pillow.

My daughter just spotted this little girl’s tee at our local WalMart!

Rosewater.  A near completely forgotten about ingredient, except that I was daydreaming of France and how often the bakeries feature edible flowers.

So, a petit selection of the loveliest of the rosewater cupcake recipes I could find.

How about Organic White Chocolate Rosewater Cupcakes?  Yum.  The cupcake includes the white chocolate and coconut milk.  The frosting is a meringue buttercream with 3T of rosewater.

Then, let’s get a little carried away with Persian Love Cupcakes.  Candied rose petals on top.  Lemon peel and cardamon seeds within.  A frosting with rosewater, saffron threads, and pistachios.  C’est l’amour!

Just in case you don’t have rosewater handy, here’s a recipe to make your own rosewater at home.  Note that every type of rose creates a different rose water, naturally, so this, too, becomes a lovely opportunity to play in the kitchen.  From one batch of cupcakes to the next, using a different rose’s water will create a different flavor.

Ever heard of a cupcake crawl?  It’s the equivalent of pub crawling or bar hopping, except it involves cupcakes.  Basically, you spend a day or an evening visiting several different bakeries and sampling cupcakes.  Sounds pretty sweet, huh?  According to one cupcake enthusiast, a cupcake crawl is best done in a place where there are a number of bakeries to choose from.  Mandy Bekoin, an Illinois newspaper designer and editor, and her friend Sara embarked on a cupcake crawl in Chicago and came back with this tasty treat (and many others, I’m sure!):

The Twixie, inspired by the Twix candy bar at Swirlz Cupcakes

One word of advice from Mandy to aspiring cupcake crawlers?  If you’re going to be out in the heat of summer, bring a large, insulated bag for leftover cupcakes.  If you’re visiting several bakeries, chances are you won’t be able to finish off every single cupcake (sounds crazy, but four or five cupcakes is a lot!), and you’ll want to get your money’s worth out of the adventure.  When you get home, you can freeze the leftovers and enjoy them another day.

Sounds like a fun way to end summer vacation!

My friend recently brought to my attention a new theme among cupcake apparel: Monster devouring cupcakes.  The Monster Face Tee shown to the left is from Delia*s and is $19.50.  The Domo-kun Nom Nom Nom Cupcakes Babydoll seen to the right is from ThinkGeek is $19.99 and shows a monster eating cupcakes!