Cupcake Inspiration

I was at Barnes and Noble with my mom and brother today and while they were checking out the kids section, I decided to peruse the crafts/cooking section of the bookstore. Immediately my eyes drifted to the "cake" books in the cooking section, which were all super girly, pastel and bright, mostly pink, with pretty covers. This book, however, attracted me the most with its sleek packaging, beautiful cover, and interesting contents. It's Betty Crocker's Just Cupcakes and it comes in this really pretty pink binding that almost resembles a binder. And the cover is just so freaking attractive, I can't stop staring at it!! I'm such a sucker for packaging. The cover for this book screams sunshine and rainbows to me, and it literally brightened up my entire day. Yummy cupcakes with pink ribbons, come on! How can you not feel a bajillion times happier after seeing that? 

I peeked inside, expecting to see some crazy expert-level cupcake recipes. But I was actually surprised to find how easy some of the cupcakes were to make! I really liked this book because it had something for bakers of all levels and interests. Some of the recipes focused mainly on cupcake decorating, while others focused on fancy cake batter ideas. It also had an index of classic recipes (yellow cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, frosting, etc) for those new to baking. It also had some recipes made with boxed cake mix for people who just want to focus on cake decorating rather than cupcake recipes. Needless to say, I loved this book for its diversity in contents and the fact that it had something for everybody and all moods. And even the decorating ideas were so well explained and the pictures were clear cut. Among the recipes that caught my eye were the Easter bunny cupcakes, Halloween-themed cupcakes, the confetti cupcakes, turtle cupcake cake, and the classic recipes. 

I'm really really thinking about purchasing this book sometime in the spring. I hesitate to get this now because I have a lot of reading material I want to catch up on and a lot of Pinterest recipes I want to try first before investing in this one. I most likely will end up getting this book sometime in the middle of the black hole called Step 1 studying because it is just too damn attractive to pass. And I'm sure seeing the cuteness that is this book will cheer me right up out of my study slump. 

Now, making cupcakes from scratch again has LONG been on my bucket list. Last time I made cupcakes from scratch was back in high school, and I really really miss it. There's just something therapeutic about baking and cake decorating. This book really inspired me to want to try and bake cupcakes from scratch again. I brought this up to one of my good friends and he suggested that I try making some from scratch for his Superbowl party on Sunday. After Pinteresting around, I found an allegedly-delish yellow cake recipe and a really adorable decorating idea for football-themed cupcakes. I think it would be such a cute idea to try making these! And the ingredients really shouldn't cost more than $5-10. And plus, a willing audience to test my baking creations? I'm sold!