Cupcakes for the Rockers

Before today I had no idea what an Irish Car Bomb was. In case you are as clueless as me, it is a drink that is made with a shot Bailey's Irish Cream and Jameson's Irish Whiskey, which is then dropped into a 3/4-full pint of Guinness. That's not all...you must chug down the whole drink before it curdles. Because I enjoy savoring my drinks, this is not my thing.

The reason for the lesson on Irish Car Bombs is that Smitten Kitchen has posted a recipe for Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes, which contains the same ingredients as an Irish Car Bomb.


Although I am not a drinker of alcohol, Smitten Kitchen has given instructions for us non-drinkers. The Guinness in the cake bakes out, the whiskey is optional, and milk can be substituted for Bailey's.


The thing that grabbed my attention about these cupcakes is the filled center. I am starting to see a lot of recipes for cupcakes with something in the middle. I like that people are getting more creative.

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Pretty Cupcakes

One of my weaknesses is sprinkle donuts. Last weekend I was really craving them. Maybe it was because I could smell them as I rode past a donut store on my road bike.

This picture is my dream of mixing sprinkle donuts with cupcakes. I think I would go crazy!

Periodic Table of Cupcakes

I love this! And maybe it's because I've always been intrigued by the Period Table of Elements. Woman's Day has produced a Periodic Table of Cupcakes. The table is color-coded with different categories: Basic, Fruit, Nature, Holiday, and Kids' Faves. You can get the cupcake recipe described by clicking on the cell. The only one I might stay away from is Wormy Apple :)

Image Source: Woman's Day

Pacific Whey Cafe Discounts

During my 12 Days of Cupcakes, I featured Pacific Whey Cafe on the 9th day before Christmas. I tried their Chocolate Chocolate Buttercream cupcake. It was one of the richest cupcakes I have ever tasted!

Today the Fast Food Maven posted that Pacific Whey Cafe is discounting their baked goods 50% after 3:00pm every day. Not only are they discounting their bakery items, but they are also doubling their production of these items. During this "recession," most businesses seem to be cutting back, but Pacific Whey Cafe wants to stay away from the "self-fulfilling prophecy" of "cutting back," and they have seen success because of it. There is an increase of foot-traffic in their restaurants and they sell out of most of their baked goods.

Cupcakes are always a fun food to buy, but discounted cupcakes are even better. I will be stopping by soon to try some of their other flavors of cupcakes, along with their other baked goods.

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Happy Mardi Gras!

Image Source: flickr

Today is Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday)! Celebrate by wearing Mardi Gras beads and eating colorful cupcakes.


Mardi Gras cupcakes are available at SusieCakes for today only. You know how I feel about SusieCakes (I love them!). Get them while they last.

Red Velvet Cookies

My husband likes to bring in treats for his co-workers from time to time. Sometimes he asks me to help, which I am over-the-top happy to do! I love baking cupcakes and other desserts, but my triathlon "diet" doesn't want me to have a kitchen full of desserts that I shouldn't eat. So I jump at the chance to make goodies for other people.

I decided that I would test out Bakerella's Easy Valentine's Treats. All I needed was a box of red velvet cake mix, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup butter, and a jar of cream cheese frosting.


Interesting side note: I had somewhat of a hard time finding red velvet cake mix. I tried three different grocery stores (Ralph's, Fresh & Easy, Albertson's) before I finally found my cake mix at Target of all places! I stocked up so I wouldn't have this problem in the future.


Bakerella's recipe requires you to make your own frosting. Because of my limited time this weekend, I decided to just use frosting from a jar. I used Betty Crocker's Rich & Creamy Cream Cheese frosting.


I tested a few of the cookies out with my family last night. Delicious! They loved them! Now I will have to see how much my husband's co-workers enjoy them. Who wouldn't love one of these on a Monday?!

Bake You Happy makes me happy!

I love trying new cupcakes, especially if they are good cupcakes! Last week I came across a cupcake from Bake You Happy, a made-to-order cake and cupcake company. Bake You Happy was started by two women named Kim who wanted to do something they love, but would also allow them to stay at home and be involved with the community. Their company is based out of Castaic (which is in northern LA county near Six Flags).


Last week a good friend passed along a cupcake from Bake You Happy (I say she is a good friend because she passed along a cupcake to me!). The cupcake I received was a chocolate cake cupcake topped with vanilla bean frosting and mini chocolate chips along the edges. The cake was perfectly moist, very delicious. The frosting was a sweet buttercream frosting. I really like the mini chocolate chips lined around the edges of the frosting. Sometimes adding a little crunch to a cupcake is a great idea!

Check out their website and blog to see photos of the creative cakes and cupcakes they have made. I wish I lived closer to them so I could try more of their cupcakes!

Sprinkles Cupcakes is ready for the Oscars!

During February 20-22 you can buy a "Red Carpet Cupcake" from Sprinkles Cupcakes. They are selling these cupcakes in honor of the Academy Awards on Sunday, February 22. The Red Carpet Cupcake is a Sprinkles signature Red Velvet cupcake with a gold star instead of the usual Sprinkles dot.

Sprinkles sure knows how to market their cupcakes. You are pretty much getting the same Red Velvet cupcake that you can always buy there, but they make it seem desirable by calling it a different name and limiting its availability. They are not successful because they are dumb.

Cupcake Coffee Table

Check out this crazy cupcake table! I received this link from reader Kris. This table is made by a company called Jellio. The 16" high, 24" diameter coffee table is available in nine fun colors. Jellio also makes other unique furniture, including a cupcake seat.

Cupcake table=great idea! $750=bad idea!

My Two Loves!

My two favorite treats are cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies. What a great idea for combining both! I love the person that thought of these Cookie Monster cupcakes.

Cold Stone Cupcakes are Wanted by Everyone!

It seems that everyone is as excited about Ice Cream Cupcakes as I am. I stopped by Cold Stone Creamery last night to try the new cupcakes but they were sold out! The employee I talked to said that the cupcakes sell out every day.

Even thought I was let down about the absence of Ice Cream Cupcakes, I figured that since I was in Cold Stone I might as well get some ice cream. I tried the Sweet Cream ice cream since it is inside the Sweet Cream Ice Cream Cupcake. I really enjoyed it and hope to try it in a cupcake soon.

I have received comments from some readers who have tried the Ice Cream Cupcakes. Several of them have expressed disappointment that there isn't more cake. I like cake more than ice cream so I might have the same opinion. But we will see!

One interesting thing to note is that the cupcakes are only sold in packs of six ($10). I was hoping that I wouldn't have to buy six of them because then I might be tempted to eat all of them.

Easy Valentine Treats

Bakerella doesn't leave the baking-challenged behind. If you aren't a baking genius, then give these "Easy Valentine Treats" a try. She even uses a box cake mix in her recipe.

All of you need to make these special red velvet moon pies is a red velvet cake mix, butter, eggs, cream cheese, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla. I bet you could even use cream cheese frosting from a jar to make this recipe even easier.

Cookies/Cake
1 Box red velvet cake mix
1/2 Cup butter, softened to room temperature
2 Eggs

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Mix ingredients until combined.
• Drop spoonfuls of cookie batter onto baking sheet about two inches apart.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes.
• Cool.

Cream Cheese Filling
1/2 Cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 8 oz. Package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 1lb. Box of confectioner's sugar
1 tsp Vanilla

• In a mixer, cream butter, cream cheese and vanilla.
• Gradually add sugar and mix until smooth.

Makes about 24 cookies or 12 cookie sandwiches

Cake? Chocolates?

As you can probably tell from all of my raving, I think Bakerella is a baking genius! She just oozes creativity. This may look like a box of chocolates, but it is actually a cake! And the chocolates on top are actually a variation of her famous cupcake bites.


Check out her post to get her detailed instructions of how to make this beautiful dessert. She also included pictures for people like me that need visuals. This is a perfect dessert for Valentine's, if you have the guts to attempt it.

Virtual Cupcake Sale

Electrolux and Kelly Ripa are pairing up to fight against ovarian cancer. Electrolux will donate $1 to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund for every virtual cupcake that you send in February. You can send the cupcakes here. This is an easy way to help out and it will only take one minute.



I sent one to my husband. It was a peanut butter cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting and mini peanut butter cups on top. A few minutes later I get Picture Mail on my phone. Along with the picture is a voice memo that says, "Your cupcake was good, but mine is better." No doubt that a real cupcake is better than a virtual cupcake.

(Note: His cupcake was a Sprinkles Chocolate Marshmallow, one of their Valentine's cupcakes.)

Mammoth Cupcakes

Just got back from an AWESOME three-day weekend in Mammoth! As you may remember, I reviewed the seemingly only cupcake to be found in Mammoth Lakes last November. So I was very surprised to see my husband bring me a tray of cupcakes along with lunch at Main Lodge two days ago. "Two cupcakes for $3.00!" he exclaimed. That's probably the cheapest thing you can find in the cafeteria. (The food prices there are worse than Disneyland!)

The cupcake flavor was red velvet. The result was not great. The cake was very dry, but also sticky. The frosting was a light, sugary cream cheese. I even found a chunk of cream cheese in the frosting (actually it was the best part of the frosting, but not something that should happen). Needless to say, after a hard day of snowboarding through heavy winds and low visibility, I inhaled the cupcakes.

And despite the cupcakes being not that great, I was still excited to see them being sold in a ski resort lodge. Mammoth Mountain, you rock!

Cold Stone Cupcakes

Cold Stone Creamery sent out a press release this morning announcing that they will be selling Ice Cream Cupcakes for a limited time. These Ice Cream Cupcakes will be sold in a six-pack for $9.99 and will be available starting today (February 4) until March 31, 2009.


The Ice Cream Cupcakes will be available in three different flavors. They all sound so delicious:

1. Cake Batter Delux: red velvet cake with fudge and cake batter ice cream in a rich Belgian chocolate shell, topped with pink frosting and sprinkles
2. Sweet Cream: yellow cake with fudge and sweet cream ice cream in a rich Belgian chocolate shell, topped with Bettercreme frosting and Duo Mistrals topping
3. Double Chocolate Devotion: devil's food cake with fudge and chocolate ice cream in a rich Belgian chocolate shell, topped with Bettercreme frosting and Oreo cookie

And if that wasn't good enough, select locations will let customers create their own ice cream cupcakes. It's been a while since I've been to Cold Stone, but it looks like I need to visit soon. Let me know if you've seen or tried this new treat!

Bristol Farms to relocate

I heard that one of the two Bristol Farms locations in Orange County was closing. Since I have only been to the Newport Beach location, I had my fingers crossed that it wasn't that location. After reading more of the article, I found that it was the Mission Viejo location that would be closing.

Why would I be so concerned about the closing of Bristol Farms? Well, Bristol Farms sells some delicious cupcakes! Last year, the OC Register chose Bristol Farms for Best Overall and Best Frosting on cupcakes in their Cupcake Challenge. That's a pretty big deal considering there are a lot of good cupcakes to be found in Orange County. After reading about the Cupcake Challenge, I decided that I needed to try a few cupcakes from Bristol Farms. Check out my review here.


So back to the story...the good news is that even though the Mission Viejo location is closing, Bristol Farms is going to relocate to a new location between San Clemente and Mission Viejo. Although this location is not closer for me, at least Bristol Farms is not diminishing it's Orange County presence.

Success at The Perfect Circle Cupcakery

I have stopped by my local cupcakery (The Perfect Circle in the Orange Circle) several times since it opened in December. This weekend I was finally able to secure a Red Velvet cupcake! And it was wonderful! The cake was super moist and the cream cheese frosting was near-perfect. I think there needs to be a little more frosting on the cupcake to maintain a good cake-to-frosting ratio. Besides that, this cupcake lives up to its hype.

Cupcakes Make People Happy

I received a set of notecards from a friend a few weeks ago. This card made for a perfect wall hanging in my kitchen.

Cup-A-Cake

Never heard of a Cup-A-Cake? Neither had I...until last Friday when my mom stopped by my office to surprise me with one. Think "Cupcake Courier," only smaller. Cup-A-Cake's website claims:

This unique container will hold a frosted cupcake in place with protrusions positioned in such a way that the cupcake will not move within the container if jiggled or turned upside down.

Cup-A-Cake is available through a variety of bakeries, as well as catalogs and stores. Mine came from Williams & Sonoma. A set of three costs $10.50.

I am so excited to try this out! This will be prefect for bringing a cupcake in my sack lunch.