Merry Christmas Everyone! I woke up this morning to see it spitting snow outside and all I could say was, “Yay!”. I am not a huge fan of snow, but, I always like to have some on Christmas, it really make it feels like Christmas when it snows and there is snow on the ground.

In honor of the spitting snow in New Hampshire, where I grew up and am spending Christmas with my parents, brother and lovely dog, I have found these amazing snowflake cupcakes. The fact that they are pink makes it a million times better.

Pink Snowflake Cupcakes from Glorious Treats

Just in the nick of time, Magnolia Bakery now offers a monthly cupcake club with nationwide shipping.  Pre-orders are being taken and shipping begins on January 2 with caramel cupcakes, followed by a different cupcake each month.

So if you find yourself in a line that’s too long for someone who is too hard to please, how about putting at least yourself in the spirit?  And while you’re placing your order, why not order Magnolia Bakery’s “Truffled Chocolate Cupcake.”

I know what I’m going to click on as soon as I click on “publish!”

Good Morning ATC Community! and welcome to the official start of crunch time.  These are the days that we second-guess whether we did enough of everything and end up doing too much!

If you’re like me, you’ve baked a fair amount of holiday treasures.

But holiday week is a bit like a marathon and, in the home stretch, who isn’t looking for fresh ideas to keep inspired?  The challenge I set to myself is whether I can come up with a week of images, recipes, and instructions to keep us all – myself included – at 350F from now through next Saturday.

These Baked Ideas images are cookies, but so fresh and original they will inspire your cupcake decorating ideas. Here’s a smorgasbord of cookie decorating ideas from “Baked Ideas” by Patti Paige, along with the Baked Ideas’ Facebook page  and the video on the Baked Ideas mini gingerbread houses.  3,000 each season!

If you’re still looking for last minute gifts, Baked Ideas even sells yoga cookie cutters.  How did she do that?  Here’s her video on piping royal icing onto each one of the yoga posed gingerbread men and here’s the Baked Ideas gingerbread recipe.

Ah-ha!  My Muse gripped that one!

Today, I’m going to springboard those Baked Ideas into spice cupcakes with yoga shapes drawn on the top, including some Sandskrit symbols, such as “Namaste.”  And I know just who is on my list for these yoga cupcakes…

Now that’s what I mean about taking inspiration and giving yourself permission to be creative at the holidays!  What’s your idea?

Countdown:  6 days.

Glitter, glitter, and more glitter!  I just want these holidays to shine so that I can sing “Silver & Gold” along with Burl Ives when spinning the Rudolph soundtrack.

What’s more perfect to go with those silver and gold ornaments than cupcakes decorated as ornaments?

These ornament cupcakes come from Hoosier country, Indiana!  “Hoosier Homemade” had several holiday cupcake decorating ideas from a multi-week cupcake challenge.

Find other inspiration in actual vintage Christmas ornaments.  The 1950s ornaments were the very essence of elegance in design and can still be found at antique co-ops and flea markets and also on etsy and e-bay.

Mmmm.  Here’s the cupcake for you to share with Santa by the fireplace:  mulled wine cupcakes.

Not familiar with “mulled wine?”  It’s wine, simmered with ingredients like cinnamon, allspice and cloves until the air smells as warm and inviting as the holidays.  Don’t be timid about experimenting with your wines or your spices.  Then trust your nose.  (Although sampling might be half the fun of being the chef for this one!)

I’m going to put this under “cupcake,” even though I’m generally a purist and a round ball wouldn’t qualify as a cupcake.

But ’tis the season, I’m on a quest for the most beautiful of holiday cupcakes, and these cupcakes were created by Cupcake Envy, a bakery of “sculpted cakelets” by owner Amy Eilert.  Cupcake Envy’s Facebook photos sport so many great shots, you’ll have no shortage of inspiration.

You may also want to notice that Cupcake Envy sells “how-to” videos.  Not a bad idea, if you think that you’ve been nice!

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?

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!

Sweets for Sweetest Day by Shari's Berries

The third Saturday in October is Sweetest Day; this year that falls on October 16th. It’s a wee holiday that’s mostly celebrated up in the Great Lakes region with the giving of small gifts to loved ones. Sweetest Day originated in Cleveland, Ohio in 1922 as a PR move by a committee of Cleveland confectioners: on the first Sweetest Day, 20,000 boxes of candy were distributed to the city’s poor and unfortunate by movie stars. Admittedly, giving boxes of candy to the needy is great press, but what I take away from this is that Sweetest Day is about giving to those who need it most.

I want to advocate for a revival of Sweetest Day as a holiday where we again give to the most vulnerable among us.  Since we can all agree that cupcakes are way better/sweeter than candy, it’s pretty easy to see how we can fit our favorite baked good into this equation.  Also, from what I’ve read in All Things Cupcake, cupcake aficionados are all about uniting our favorite food with philanthropy.  This is something we do naturally – it’s no secret cupcake-lovers are sweethearts.

Celebrations of Sweetest Day can be as literal as giving cupcakes to orphans, but they could also take the form of bake sales to feed the hungry or to raise awareness about epilepsy. We’ve already seen the outpouring of cupcakes and funds in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti and Jody Hall‘s use of Cupcake Royale as a platform for social justice.   Let’s use Sweetest Day as a way to celebrate the best parts of ourselves and to use cupcakes to their greatest potential – helping our fellow human beings.

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If you decide to plan something for Sweetest Day, let us know! We at All Things Cupcake would love to hear about our readers plans to bring back what is possibly the only cupcake-related social justice holiday in existence.

Cayenne Chocolate Cupcake by Carpe Cupcakes!

National Cupcake Day was way back in March, so it’s about time for another cupcake holiday, right?  I’m pretty sure that National Chocolate Cupcake Day wasn’t created by an act of Congress, but if Cupcakes Take the Cake and National Food Holidays say it’s a holiday, that’s good enough for me.

In case chocolate isn’t your thing, National Angel Food Cake Day is October 10th, National Dessert Day is October 14th, National Candy Corn Day is October 30th, the third Saturday in October is Sweetest Day, and of course there’s Halloween. October has plenty of good reasons to bake and enjoy delicious cupcakes!

You all are never going to believe these sweet decorations I found on Bakerella today.  I want her to come decorate my house next year.  These are just a few of the photos so head over to Bakerella to see the others.  I am absolutely speechless…