it's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas north pole cupcakes!

Here's an idea for a holiday cupcake treat: Chocolate peppermint cupcakes with a candy-cane swirl! If you can, look for those pretty edible silver and gold balls, they're great for holiday decorating, and no, they won't break your teeth. Other holiday ingredients you can add to your cupcakes are ginger, apple-spice, pumpkin, egg nog...I'm going to experiment with an egg nog cupcake this week by just substituting egg nog for the liquid required for a cake mix and a pinch more cinnamon and nutmeg. A nice ganache of whipped cream, icing sugar and a splash of baileys/rum/rum flavouring would be a great way to celebrate the holidays.

yum.

EEEEE-ARGGGGH!

Ay Matey! These pirate-themed cakes were created for a co-worker of mine for a Halloween party. After doing some 'research' I came up with these fun designs - I did a google image search and found quite a lot of cakes pirate-style! I used red sprinkles, mini m&m's, and silver balls for the decorations. What flavour of cakes would compliment a pirate-themed party? RUM of course! (non-alcoholic rum flavouring - find it in your grocer's baking section) :)

pumpkin~patch~cakes

This was a fun and easy design: simply ice your cupcake, dip into orange sprinkles, use a toothpick to make some indentations in your pumpkin and then pipe some icing in the indents to create the grooves. You can use green licorice for the stems or ice them on too! There's a quick youtube video about how to create these cupcakes here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCvFGsHkoRw

To make pumpkin flavoured cupcakes follow the directions on a spice/yellow/white cake mix box, add 1 can pumpkin, an extra egg and sub buttermilk in for the water. Then add your pumpkin pie spice: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. The result is an aromatic, light and fluffy cake reminiscent of pumpkin pie :)