Cupcake Collection

Classic Cupcakes

Crazy Cupcakes

Classy Cupcakes

Colorful Cupcakes

Cartoon Cupcakes

South Park cupcakes by anna_bananna72 on Flickr

Crochet Cupcakes

You can get these cuties at Etsy. I’m hoping my sweetheart will send me the Valentine’s box filled with them – but I’m not holding my breath… I’m more likely to bake some real cupcakes with my daughters.

Cupcake Crave

Cupcakes have become increasingly popular over the last few years, to the point where there are stores that specialize in them and entire reality shows based on them (DC Cupcakes, Cupcake Girls). There are also cupcake trucks driving around many major cities and concession stands offering a wide variety of choices.

Sugar Cave

I recently discovered a swe-e-e-e-e-e-t blog called Sugar Cave, which has inspired me to dedicate this instalment of Driving and Dining to all things cupcake (stay tuned for a part 2, when cupcakes are featured in our Concession Obsession column). If you’re not craving cupcakes by now, I suggest you check out the above-mentioned blog for pictures of the following varieties: rocky road, guava, chocolate oreo, and red velvet. Heck, there’s even a maple bacon cupcake on their blog, as well as reviews and recipes of other sugary treats.

Home Sweet Home

Or, you can also make your own cupcakes. It can be as easy as buying a cake mix and some frosting, or you might try out a more challenging recipe or decorating technique. One recipe that is still pretty easy, but will impress party guests and make kids really happy is the cupcake cone. This is a cupcake baked inside an ice cream cone and then decorated to look like ice cream. The recipe is widely available – here is one version at food.com.

There are also lots of recipe sites dedicated to just cupcakes. I found a recipe for rocky road cupcakes at cupcake-recipes.com (pictured below). I thought the Black Forest cupcakes at all-about-cupcakes.com also sounded very tasty.

Or if the mention of bacon cupcakes above had your taste buds in a frenzy, here is mkecupcakequeen’s dark chocolate bacon cupcake recipe (at allrecipes.com).