Gimme S'More!

Once, during a brainstorming fit, I came up with a whole bunch of "genius!" ideas for cupcakes. Some really were delicious-sounding (chai tea cupcake with a creamy-gingery frosting), though I came to realize that none of them were particularly groundbreaking.

The one that made me salivate the most was an idea for a s'mores cupcake featuring a rich chocolate cupcake with a marshmallow-y topping and some kind of buttery graham cracker crumbly thing sprinkled generously on top.

Of course, I'm not the first person to come up with a s'mores cupcake. So, I feel a little less special than I did before, but at the same time, it's so awesome to see the seemingly endless cupcake variations of this campfire classic. To see a whole roundup of s'mores cupcake recipes from the web, check out this list from the lovely ladies who edit Cupcakes Take the Cake.

The most recent s'mores cupcake I came across is this one (pictured), currently offered on Fridays at Boston's Kick*ss Cupcakes. The flavor description reads: "graham cracker cupcake with chocolate ganache and a toasted vanilla bean marshmallow."

Um... yum!?!

Interestingly, this same bakery is apparently holding a competition in October to find new cupcake ideas. Clearly I can't submit my s'mores idea, but there are plenty of others where that came from! I just might want to Google the ideas before submitting...

Cupchives: Bittersweet Cafe Birthday Treats

Wellll, okay, "cupchives" is my way of combining "cupcake" and "archives," as in, older, archived photos/stories about cupcakes. Aw, just humor me! :)

The vegan cupcakes are coming later this week — really! Along with a special themed treat on Wednesday, which is, as everyone knows, Top Chef Day. More to come on that...

For now, I present some photos from my last birthday, November 2008. I went on a "cupcake crawl" around San Francisco, though at some point it turned into just cramming my face full of sugary treats of any sort. First stop: Bittersweet Cafe on Fillmore Street.

As you can see, I couldn't stop at just one little mini-cupcake.

In addition, I had to try the dense chocolate biscotti (which turned manageably soggy — but not gross — when dunked in the amazingly rich cup of Blue Bottle Coffee), a chocolate cookie, and a homemade hunk of marshmallow which puts those gummy pre-packaged tubular marshmallows to shame. Seriously. The marshmallow cube was sugary but not too sweet, dusted finely with powdered sugar and dissolved beautifully in the mouth. Divine! The mini-cupcake was great as well — yummy chocolate cake topped by a dollop of light frosting. Not too much, not too little.

I'd recommend Bittersweet to anyone and everyone who has ever enjoyed anything sweet.

"When you look at a cupcake, you've got to smile."

- Cake baker Anne Byrn

It's so true, isn't it?

Bienvenue à CupKate Land!

Welcome to my long overdue cupcake blog. I devote this blog to all things cupcake — from the history of the miniature cakes to my own adventures in baking to my exploration of the various cupcakery offerings around San Francisco (and elsewhere!).

This just might be the sweetest little blog around.

To start, I present some photos of the best cupcakes I've ever made, using a recipe for Hummingbird Cake (banana, pineapple, pecans, spices — utterly delicious) with a cream cheese frosting piped through my new (at the time) piping tools.

Behind them you can see the photos of how they should turn out, and this is probably my most true-to-picture production of...well, anything ever. I brought these into the office and proudly passed them around. After gulping down some, ah, not as perfect cupcakes over about a year and a half, my coworkers were thrilled with these.

Stay tuned for more cupcake awesomeness. Tomorrow I'm venturing once again into vegan territory — and this time I'll actually capture it in photos before they're all gobbled up. :)