New York Cupcake Contest Today Deadline

By: Daniel Maurer for New York Magazine

As you probably know by now, we don’t much like cupcakes. Correction: We like ’em just fine (sugar, flour, and eggs, what’s there not to like?), but we don’t get why so many otherwise intelligent folks would glorify such a pedestrian foodstuff, obsessing over its every possible permutation. It’s not like they’re hamburgers! We realize this might be a problem — a food blog that isn’t "coo coo" for cupcakes is like a fashion blog that doesn’t worship Marc Jacobs (to use the Bleecker Street analogy). So we’re asking you, dear readers, to turn our frown upside-down. The person who e-mails us or comments with the most convincing argument — the sort of argument that makes us bring in a box to the office and send out an e-mail saying “Cupcakes!!!!!” — will win the Magnolia Bakery T-shirt you see here (size large, $22 value). Just don’t send us photos of your Halloween cupcakes. We’ll announce the winner at the end of the day tomorrow.

Click here to participate.

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I got inspiration to make some fun caramel apple cupcakes from chokylit a while back, but didn't do them. This year I remembered to do them. Now I'm a single mom and with this economy I'm using Duncan Hines to make the batter. I added 1/3 cup apple marmalade to the batter. I made a marshmallow icing and added a few chunks of melted then cooled caramel and caramel sauce to the icing. I dipped the cooled cupcakes in the batter, added a cinnamon stick to look like the core and threw some sprinkles ontop. Kids love the sprinkles. This cupcake is very sweet. Drink plenty water.

MARSHMALLOW FROSTING:

1/4 cup
1 jar (7 oz)
1 tsp
1 pkg (16 oz)
1 - 2 Tb Margarine or butter, softened
Marshmallow crème
Vanilla
Powdered sugar
Milk, one Tb at a time

Place margarine, marshmallow creme and vanilla in small bowl; beat on medium speed until well blended. Gradually add sugar, beating after each addition until well blended.
Blend in 1 Tb of the milk. Add remaining 1 Tb milk if necessary for desired spreading consistency.

Turkey Meatloaf Cupcakes w/ Mashed Potato Frosting

Ok. It's fall. It's meat and potatoes time and boy have I found a cupcake that my daughter loves!!. It's the Meatloaf Cupcake. Try it. Although my pic doesn't like as pretty as Fine Furious Life it was cute enough for an eight-year-old to devour. lol

Cooking Time: 45 minutes. Servings: 18 medium size cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground turkey
	1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
	1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
	3 tablespoons ketchup
	1 egg
	1/2 teaspoon celery salt
	1/4 teaspoon pepper

mashed potato icing - two red potatoes(skinned, boiled, mashed) or box of mashed potato flakes

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 12 muffin tin cups with foil bake cups.

2. In a large bowl, mix together all of the meat loaf ingredients until well combined. Divide the mixture evenly among the lined cups (the liners should be about three quarters full).

3. Place the filled muffin tins on cookie sheets and bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes or until cooked through.

Make mashed potatoes. Take a plastic storage bag and snip a corner to use for piping the potato unto the cooled meatloaf cake.

12 cupcakes.

Karen Tack s Corn on the Cob Cupcake

Karen Tack of Alan Richardson and Karen Tack's "Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make" was on The Today Show today.She uses styorofoam and toothpicks to build her cupcake structures. Here is the sweet corn cupcake recipe.

Makes 8 ears of corn: 24 cupcakes

Our corniest project ever! The ears are bursting with fresh summer flavor. But surprise: Those kernels are jelly beans, the butter pats are fruit chews, and the salt and pepper is black and white sugar.

INGREDIENTS

• 24 vanilla cupcakes baked in white paper liners

• 1 can (16 ounces) vanilla frosting

• Yellow food coloring

• About 3 1/2 cups small jelly beans (Jelly Bellys) in assorted yellow, cream, and white colors

• 4 pieces yellow fruit chews (Laffy Taffys, Starbursts)

• 1 tablespoon each black and white decorating sugars (available at baking supply stores)

• 8 sets of corn holders (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Tint the vanilla frosting pale yellow with the food coloring.

2. Working with 3 cupcakes at a time, spread yellow frosting on top of each. Arrange about 5 rows of jelly beans, close together, on each cupcake. Place the 3 cupcakes side by side on a corn dish or a serving platter. Repeat with the remaining cupcakes, frosting, and jelly beans.

3. Cut the fruit chews into eight 1-inch squares, and soften the edges slightly by hand so that they look melted. Place 1 square on top of each group of 3 cupcakes. Sprinkle with the sugars. Insert 1 corn holder, if using, in each of the end cupcakes.

More cupcakes recipes to follow.

Finally, Bunny Cupcake Pics!!

My picture taking skills suck here, but if you squint you will see the pink bunny cupcakes. The recipe is two entries below.

Mother's Day CupCake Recipe Wanted

I want to have a Mother's Day Brunch. I caught between a pear champagne cupcake, but my Mama refuses to eat anything with alcohol in it. :) Help!

Easter Bunny Birthday Cupcake

I can't believe how I have not posted any of my cupcakes on the blog. Confession: I haven't developed any pictures. I'm archaic. No digital camera. So one day you may come here and it is full of cupcakes I've done since July. Don't slap me. I intend to update regularly and get these pics developed. Lately I've been on a adult cupcake kick. So my new recipes will follow that vein. Poor Selah. She' s on a cupcake diet.

Selah's birthday was last Saturday. We had an Enchanted/American Girl sleepover. I made Pink Peeps Easter Cupcakes. The bunnies and chicks were pink Peeps, marshmallow candies. The icing was edible grass from Walmart mixed with basic marshmallow icing from chocolit and a sprinkle of Kool-Aid green. Picks will be coming soon. Girls thought it was cute. It was way too sweet.

Here is a pic from Quirky Cupcake. My cupcake looked similar except my cupcakes were huge(paper muffin cups) and the icing was green with grass in it instead of sprinkles. Think enchanted, girly.

Wheeler's Scoops Boston

Wheelers is excited about opening its South End shop and so is Boston and so are we!!

For five years, Cambridge-based Wheeler (a self-described "ice cream designer" who, in true artiste fashion, rarely uses his last name) and partner Damion Lord (a former Carvel employee, he developed lactose intolerance after eating too much soft-serve) have been selling their soy-based treats by special order. This month, with their planned South End shop Wheeler's Frozen Desserts, they're bringing their product to the open market, offering as many as 20 to 30 rotating varieties. Most spring from Wheeler's imagination, but he's more than happy to create custom flavors like chocolate pretzel crunch and sweet potato on request. "If you told me, ‘When I was in sixth grade, my favorite flavor was marshmallow bubblegum,' I'll do that," he says.
-excerpt from Amy Traverso's Oh Soy Tasty, Boston Magazine April 2008

Congratulations, Wheelers. When are you coming to Atlanta?

Anyone have any great recipes to go with the icecream or any recipes that includes their drinks? I'm looking for some grown folk cupcake ideas.