What's New, Cupcake?: Ingeniously Simple Designs for Every Occasion
What's New, Cupcake?: Ingeniously Simple Designs for Every Occasion book cover

What's New, Cupcake?: Ingeniously Simple Designs for Every Occasion

Paperback – Illustrated, April 1, 2010

by
Price
$10.25
Format
Paperback
Pages
240
Publisher
Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0547241814
Dimensions
9 x 0.64 x 10 inches
Weight
1.92 pounds

Description

Product Description The endlessly imaginative duo who turned cupcaking into a national pastime is back, with utterly new, eye-popping creations anyone can make. Create a race-car cupcake, a robot cupcake, or ravishing jewelry cupcakes for a birthday party. Surprise the family with Chinese takeout dinner cupcakes on April Fool's or serve up a goofy chocolate moose. Captivate Mom with a bouquet of long-stemmed rose cupcakes and build sand castle cupcakes with the kids. All you need are candies from the corner store and cake mix and canned frosting. So what is new, Cupcake? Dozens of "EZ" projects that use just a few ingredients--perfect for kids and parties.• More pictures, brighter colors, bolder designs. • More faux-food creations--so real you won't believe they're cupcakes! • More comical critters and the cutest pets ever! • More irresistible party centerpieces to celebrate hobbies, from golf to knitting. • More spectacular holiday cupcakes: Valentine's, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. You'll end up with cupcakes so striking that you won't want to eat them--but so delicious you'll have no choice! Recipe Excerpts from What's New, Cupcake? An Apple for the Teacher Cupcakes Playing Koi Cupcakes From Publishers Weekly The authors of Hello, Cupcake are back, this time with the promise of simpler recipes. Relying on doctored, store-bought cake mixes and the option of canned frostings, recipe time is used primarily for assembling and decorating cupcakes that take the form of animals, food items, and holiday-inspired scenes. The TOC may leave readers guessing recipe selections with chapter names such as I Thought You Ordered Chocolate Moose and The House that Boo Built, but the unconventional names embody the playful spirit of this title. Basic techniques, including filling cupcake liners and frosting cupcakes, are explained, and recipes are formatted into clear, easy-to-understand numbered steps accompanied by full-color photos. Kids and adults alike will find joy in the many artful creations, including a pizza supported by cupcakes and topped with fruit pepperoni; a banana split with cupcakes in the form of ice cream scoops, and Chinese takeout complete with Tootsie Roll broccoli florets. This is an innovative title that doesn't hold back. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Called “the cake whisperer” by Gourmet , KAREN TACK is a cooking teacher and food stylist. Her work can be seen on the covers of Gourmet , Bon Appétit , Good Housekeeping , Family Circle , Woman’s Day , Martha Stewart Living , Parents , Real Simple , Nick Jr. , and many others. Fellow creator ALAN RICHARDSON has photographed dozens of best-selling cookbooks, and his work appears in many leading food and women’s magazines. He is the coauthor of The Breath of a Wok , which won two coveted awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. WHAT'S NEW, CUPCAKE? Ingeniously Simple Designs For Every Occasion By Karen Tack Alan Richardson HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT Copyright © 2010 Karen Tack and Alan RichardsonAll right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-547-24181-4 Contents Introduction..............................................1April Fool's Play.........................................22You Say It's Your Birthday?...............................50I Thought You Ordered Chocolate Moose.....................84Let's Party, Cupcake!.....................................116The House That Boo Built..................................152Hooray for Holly Days.....................................186Cupcakes, Frostings, and Cookies..........................218Sources...................................................226 Chapter One April Fool's Play French fries from pound cake, a banana with crunch, foot-longs with spice drops and taffy for lunch. Lo mein with fruit chews may sound gourmet, but think twice before eating-it's April Fool's Day. These cupcakes are the perfect foil for birthdays, holidays, sleepovers, or any time you need a laugh. Side of Fries 24 Hold the Anchovies 26 Faux Foot-Long 29 All Cracked Up 33 Chinese Takeout 36 Banana Split 41 The Coals Are Ready 45 Bake-Sale Pies 49 CHINESE TAKEOUT House Special: Pork Lo Mein and Vegetarian Fried Rice. The kids will love this broccoli: green fruit chews with green frosting and nonpareils on a pile of lo mein noodles made of frosting squeezed from a ziplock bag. Serve fried rice on the side: puffed rice cereal tossed with fruit chews and jelly beans. And don't forget the caramel fortune cookies. Makes 1 take-out order, 12 cupcakes, 24 mini cupcakes LO MEIN 6 vanilla cupcakes baked in white paper liners 6-8 green fruit chews (Jolly Rancher, Laffy Taffy) 3 pink fruit chews (Jolly Rancher, Starburst, Laffy Taffy) 1 1/2 cups canned vanilla frosting Green and yellow food coloring 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder (Hershey's) 1/2 cup dark green sprinkles (see Sources) 1 strand green licorice twist (Twizzlers Rainbow Twists), thinly sliced diagonally Large Chinese food take-out containers (optional; see Sources) 1. Line a cookie sheet with wax paper. For the broccoli stems, make a lengthwise slit halfway down the center of each green fruit chew and open slightly. Place the stems on the prepared cookie sheet. Microwave the pink fruit chews for 2 to 3 seconds to soften. Press the pink fruit chews together and roll out into a 2-by-3-inch rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. For the pork slivers, cut the flattened fruit chew rectangle crosswise into 1/8-inch-wide strips. 2. Tint 1/2 cup of the vanilla frosting bright green with the green food coloring, spoon the frosting into a ziplock bag, press out the excess air, and seal. Tint 2 teaspoons of the remaining vanilla frosting with 1/2 teaspoon of the cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon water and mix to make a smooth brown paste. Tint the remaining vanilla frosting light brown with 1 drop of yellow food coloring and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder. Spread the darker brown paste down the side of a ziplock bag and then fill in with the light brown frosting. Press out the excess air and seal. 3. Place the green sprinkles in a small bowl. Snip a small (1/8-inch) corner from the bag with the green frosting. For the broccoli florets, pipe mounds of frosting on the tips of the split ends of the green fruit chews on the cookie sheet. Holding the broccoli by the stem, press the frosted end lightly into the sprinkles to cover completely; return to the cookie sheet (see the photo above). 4. Snip a small (1/8-inch) corner from the bag with the brown frosting. To make the lo mein noodles, pipe the frosting in an irregular pattern all over the cupcakes, piling it high and letting it hang over the edges (the darker brown frosting will look like soy sauce). Arrange the pink fruit chew pork slivers randomly on top of the cupcakes. Add one or two pieces of broccoli on top. For scallions, scatter a few green licorice slices on top of the cupcakes. 5. To get the full effect, carefully place the cupcakes in the Chinese take-out containers, if using. (Continues...) Excerpted from WHAT'S NEW, CUPCAKE? by Karen Tack Alan Richardson Copyright © 2010 by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • The endlessly imaginative duo who turned cupcaking into a national pastime is back, with utterly new, eye-popping creations anyone can make. Create a race-car cupcake, a robot cupcake, or ravishing jewelry cupcakes for a birthday party. Surprise the family with Chinese takeout dinner cupcakes on April Fool's or serve up a goofy chocolate moose. Captivate Mom with a bouquet of long-stemmed rose cupcakes and build sand castle cupcakes with the kids. All you need are candies from the corner store and cake mix and canned frosting.
  • So what
  • is
  • new, Cupcake? Dozens of "EZ" projects that use just a few ingredients--perfect for kids and parties.
  • • More pictures, brighter colors, bolder designs. • More faux-food creations--so real you won't believe they're cupcakes! • More comical critters and the cutest pets ever! • More irresistible party centerpieces to celebrate hobbies, from golf to knitting. • More spectacular holiday cupcakes: Valentine's, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
  • You'll end up with cupcakes so striking that you won't want to eat them--but so delicious you'll have no choice!

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(256)
★★★★
25%
(107)
★★★
15%
(64)
★★
7%
(30)
★
-7%
(-30)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

Cupcake, it's not just a noun anymore...

"Cupcaking," it seems, has joined the ranks of verbs like "scrapbooking." Where once a cupcake was a tasty treat, it is now an arts and crafts project. I must admit that I came to this book with a misconception. I thought the point was to create something good to eat. It is not. What's New, Cupcake is a triumph of style over substance. To eat the creations in this book is not only beside the point, it's bordering on sacrilege.

Clearly, I am an old-fashioned baker, or at least one cut from a different cloth. "Recipes" from cake mixes and the use of Twinkies and mini-donuts as additional construction elements are anathema to me. Now that my biases have been disclosed, I will admit this: The photographs of the projects in this book are AMAZING. The finished projects are gorgeous--more akin to sculptures than snacks. For the baker who aspires to such feats, this book should be equal parts instructive and inspirational.

For dinosaurs like myself, who are as interested in the edibility of their cupcakes as the attractiveness, there is certainly useful information. I advise using real recipes as a starting place. But there is much that can be learned about types and manners of icing and frosting, how to achieve textures, creative ways to use candies and other decorative elements, and more. It may encourage you to a more ambitious level of creativity.

This is a book for an extreme cupcaker. There may be more of you out there than I realize. For you, this book may well be the bible of cupcaking. For the more moderate cupcakers like myself, take what you can from the book and then "ooh" and "aah" over the pretty pictures.
91 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Egg mold helpful hints

I enjoy this book immensely and find the recipes to be very creative. Anyone else who whines that the recipes are cute to look at but inedible should stick to their boring cake recipe and frosting duo. I can tell you right now, they will never garner as much attention at a party as the recipes in this book do.
The first recipe I tried from this book was the Easter eggs which requires molding eggs out of candy melts from plastic Easter eggs. After a frustrating hour of maybe getting one egg out of 8 to not break while unmolding I ended up with barely three and a half candy eggs and a pile of shattered attempts.
The second recipe I tried was the "all cracked up" or the eggs on the back cover of the book. I dreaded doing egg molding again, but this time I came with several ideas and they worked!! So, I'm passing along my ideas so they can maybe help someone else who ran into the same problems I did.
First, I filled the inside of the eggs with the candy melts and then used a brush to cover up the bare spots. A knife or spoon will not work because they scrape the sides.
Don't be stingy with the candy melts. If the candy is spread too thin it will shatter. If I could see the color of the egg clearly through the candy I would add more.
Using a plastic squeezable bottle I would spread an excess layer of candy melts along the inside edge of the plastic egg on one side. After it chills this layer will harden and create an overextended "lip" of candy to grip with your fingers so you have a place to grip and won't create so much pressure on the sides and shatter the candy in the egg
I put the molds in the freezer simply because I was too impatient for the fridge. I'm not sure if that changed anything, but they were very hard when I took them out.
Next came the unmolding which was always a challenge because even with the plastic eggs greased that candy would not come out no matter how much you tapped the top or pull from the inside of the egg. So, I tried a different approach. While still cold from the freezer I took a hair dryer and used it on the outside of the egg. It only takes seconds and you need to evenly distribute the hot air on all sides (not underside obviously) otherwise you'll melt the candy. Exerting careful pressure and gripping the "lip" you created the egg will easily slip out. If it won't, heat it up a little more.
With this technique I had none break which was a certain change from my experience with the previous recipe. The end result was amazing with candy eggs that when served in the egg cartons made many guests assume that they were real eggs. I will certainly do this recipe again and I hope that these hints will help someone not give up on the "egg" recipes
44 people found this helpful
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Too Cute for Words

What I found the most striking about What's New Cupcake is the photography by Alan Richardson. The pictures are so vibrant and colorful that they almost seem to jump off the pages. This is a good-sized book, at about 9" x 10", so they are also nice sized and detailed photos. The cover photo with the "Rubber Duckies" cupcakes is too cute for words.

What's New Cupcake starts out like a craft book with a list of needed materials and tools. Nothing unusual is needed and most are items that would be already on hand, except for the variety of colorful candies. The instructions for decorating the cupcakes are clear and the Karen Tack's designs are fun and very decorative.

The first chapter, April Fools Play, has cupcakes that look like something entirely different. How about cupcakes that look like a sub sandwich or a banana split? There are sections with ideas for all of the major holidays and party ideas for children and grown-ups.

Just a couple of examples of the design titles are:

Busy Bees (a honeycomb of cupcakes)
Mum's the Word (beautiful flower cupcakes)
Fur Balls and String Monsters (You have to see it!)
Shower Heads (baby faces)
Knit One, Frost Two (knitting needles and yarn - my personal favorite)

Along with the decorating instructions there are quick dressed up cake mix recipes for cupcakes, frosting, and sugar cookies.
34 people found this helpful
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Just as awesome as the original!

If you liked [[ASIN:0618829253 Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make]] then you'll love this book.
Everything you need to decorate will be candies that you are familiar with (it never asks you to use fondant).
My favorite idea is "Chinese Takeout," where the cupcakes are decorated to look like Vegetable Fried Rice, Pork Lo Mein, and of course, a Fortune Cookie. (This is in the "April Fools" section of the book.)
The first one I will probably make could be "Gingerbread Village," where the cupcakes are decorated to look like Gingerbread houses - for my brother-in-law's housewarming party.
One feature that this book has that "Hello Cupcake" didn't have, is the "EZ" stamp on the more simpler recipes.
As with "Hello Cupcake," this is mainly a how-to-decorate cupcake idea book, and not a recipe book for different flavors of cupcake batters, etc. Although it does have some recipes for different flavors of cupcakes that you can make, it is mainly a decorating book. The pictures are beautiful.
Along with "Hello Cupcake," these are two of my favorite recipe books.
13 people found this helpful
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Cute but inedible

My kids and I have both of the cupcake books and we've made several of the projects from them (corn, bake sale pies, penguins to name a few). While the creations are adorable and get rave reviews for looks - they are too sweet and too piled with frosting, candy and baked goods to be eaten. Take the pies for example, once you add two layers of frosting and jelly beans to a cupcake it's too sweet to eat.

I love to bake from scratch and (call me old-fashioned) I think the final product should be delicious and beautiful; not either or.

This book deserves a 4 for cuteness ( although it's not as fresh as "Hello, Cupcake") and a 2 for eatability.
7 people found this helpful
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There are much better cupcake cookbooks

I am dumbfounded by the number of 4 and 5 star reviews. While there are many very cute designs, this book uses boxed cake mixes and canned frosting. Perhaps this book is okay for children's activities but it's definitely should not be considered a true cookbook.

Fortunately, I did not purchase this book. I took this book out of the library, as well as a few others, to get ideas for a bake sale. There are much better cupcake cookbooks out there. Cookbooks that do not rely on box mixes and canned frostings. I'm still checking out more books but following are a few that are very good -

Martha Stewart's Cupcakes by the Editors of Martha Stewart Living
Cupcakes by Ceri Hadda

By the way, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes has some great designs as well as recipes.
6 people found this helpful
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Some great ideas...

I am a huge fan of the Hello Cupcake book so I couldn't wait to get What's New Cupcake? I love some of the ideas but a few of the designs were similar to what was in the first book. I like the use of jolly ranchers to make some really cool decorations for the cupcakes! More than anything I think both of the books are great for ideas to make your own cupcake decorations...seeing the different candies used is great because sometimes it's hard to think of things in a particular color. All in all I highly recommend this book.
6 people found this helpful
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Excellent Sequel with More Clever Cupcakes

The authors of Hello, Cupcake have done it again. This sequel is packed with even more fun, whimsical ideas to take advantage of the cupcake trend. And, again, they do it without fancy equipment or complicated ingredients.

What's New, Cupcake builds upon the basics found in the first book by showing you how you can use sugar cookies to expand your cupcake building skills. They also add a technique for making hard candy decorations.

The sense of whimsy is what sets this series apart from other cupcake books. The point is not just to make a cute cupcake, but to get a reaction from the people eating them. So while they have a duckie cupcake pattern (as shown on the cover) they also show you how to make a diving duckie. Which the kids find hilarious.

There are more April Fool's cupcakes, also. Cupcakes meant to look like other food items. The broken dozen of eggs is probably my favorite, but the french fry cupcakes are pretty clever, too.

And not to worry if you're not a bake from scratch aficionado. It's perfectly fine, and sometimes preferred, to use mixes and already prepared frosting. Which means you can put that extra time and effort into making these cupcakes look even cuter.

There are a few more cupcake "cakes" where multiple cupcakes are used to create one overall design. And although many of the designs are cute, some aren't as good as the original book or rely too much on specific candies. Overall, though, this was a great follow up and well worth adding to your cupcake decorating library.

FTC disclaimer: Digital galley read through Netgalley
5 people found this helpful
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Use Your Imagination!

I've read several reviews complaining about the usage of Twinkies and other "non-cupcake" items to build some of these creations. While it is true, those items have not been traditionally used, this book was written primarily for an audience that does not normally decorate cupcakes! For anyone with decorating skills, it is not difficult to figure out how to replicate the pictured cake without needing to use marshmallows, gum or fruit leather. I have made several different kinds using my knowledge of icings and decorating techniques. I have made some very complex things in the past that have made no impression on my son or his friends, but anything coming from this book has gotten an "Oh my gosh! You are the best baker, Mom!"
3 people found this helpful
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I can do these

I am not a fan of decorating cupcakes. the area to work within is far too small and the work is labor intensive. These creations can go either one of two ways. really detailed or a serious mess. Mine ususally go for the serious mess. while reading through this book for the first time I found myself saying over and over "I can do that" Each page had detailed instructions and fantastic photos to work from. I am very happy with my purchase and know I will get years of use from this book.
3 people found this helpful

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