Vegan, kosher fondant bacon by Man Bakes Cake

No, this fondant bacon isn't technically a cupcake, but I bet it would make a great cupcake topper, and it's by cupcake and cake artist Man Bakes Cake in New York City, along with some beautiful flower cupcakes and popcorn cupcakes. All via Man Bakes Cake on Facebook. Can't say enough good things about them: creative, inspiring and delicious! Contact owner Rudy Martinez at martinez_rudy at msn.com and find out more at manbakescake.blogspot.com.




Caramel Cake, Cooked Caramel Frosting, sprinkle of Sugar and Salt and topped with chopped peanuts and popcorn.

Brooklyn meetup alert: Eat cupcakes and learn about our Cupcake Cruise at Baked in Red Hook March 25th!

Mark your calendars for our next cupcake meetup, 3 weeks from today at Baked in Red Hook, Brooklyn, 359 Van Brunt Street, from 2-4 pm. Eat cupcakes with us and learn more about our Cupcake Cruise to Bermuda, from August 19-26, 2012, featuring Baked owners Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. You can take the B61 bus from Atlantic Avenue. Check HopStop for the best route from where you are. Bring cash/credit/debit cards for cupcakes and refreshments. Join our meetup group here to find out about our latest events and follow Baked on Facebook. Below is the official description of the recipe development class they'll be teaching:

Recipe Development Seminar
Cookbook authors and bakery owners Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito will talk about recipe development. Much like food writing, recipe development is taking what inspires you and telling a story with food. They will talk about the importance of reading cookbooks, tinkering with recipes and being inspired by ingredients. Recipe development seminar will also cover testing ideas, scaling up, making notes of what works, and finding the personality in each recipe.

Sprinkles Cupcakes will debut 3 24-hour cupcake automats in New York City this summer

An update on the big cupcake story of the week, the Sprinkles Cupcakes 24-hour "cupcake ATM" automated cupcake machine. It's not just for those in Beverly Hills! 3 of them are coming to New York City, according to the New York Daily News:

Good news for emergency sugar cravings — a Manhattan bakery is rolling out three 24-hour cupcake “ATMs” this year.

Called “cupcake automats,” the outposts of Sprinkles Cupcakes are planned for midtown, downtown and the upper West Side with the first whipping up business by summer, a company rep told the Daily News.

“We’re working hard on the exact locations now,” spokeswoman Nicole Schwartz said. “They’ll be restocked constantly throughout the day, so if it’s Wednesday, you’ll only get our Wednesday flavors.”

She said bakers at the popular Sprinkles on Lexington Ave. and E. 60th St. will pack each machine with a few hundred designer cakes at a time for on-the-go addicts.

Lemon berry brighteness at Georgetown Cupcake, plus hazelnut crunch and cookies and creme

I stopped by Georgetown Cupcake SoHo again, because SoHo is very convenient, you can't beat the $2.75 price and every cupcake I've had is delicious. I didn't love this cupcake, though I did love the look of it. I wish it had had lemon frosting because the lemon cake and lemon candy were awesome. I didn't hate the berry frosting, it just wasn't my favorite. Hazelnut crunch and cookies and creme were winners in my book. The crunch on the hazelnut crunch was a perfect texture and it was a thin layer of hazelnut frosting, just enough. Visit georgetowncupcake.com for more information.

"I wish I knew how to quit you" cupcakes

As seen at Eleni's in Chelsea Market today...cupcakes with various sayings, including "I wish I knew how to quit you." Not sure who you'd give this to or what it means regarding cupcakes, but I was amused.

Sparkly red, white and blue and soaked amaretto cupcakes by City Cakes

Red, white, blue and silver star and soaked Lush amaretto cupcakes by New York City's City Cakes via Twitpic. Follow them @CityCakes on Twitter. No, they're not really related seasonally or thematically, but I saw them on Twitter and liked them both!

Cupcake Walking Tour With Stay Calm Cupcake

Yesterday I met up with Jill Fontaine from Stay Calm Cupcake. She's in town from Florida for a marketing conference. I took her on a mini-tour of cupcakes places.  We went to Molly's Cupcakes, Sweet Revenge, Georgetown Soho, Baked By Melissa, Little Cupcake Bake Shop and Billy's Bakery. Walking to six places in two hours was quite a feat.  I think of Soho as a "cupcake corridor" since they are several bakeries in the neighborhood. Jill and I loved the Honey Banana at Georgetown Soho.



I really enjoyed the Toffee Crunch from Georgetown Soho.
Jill also gave some of her signature cupcakes in jars.



This morning I had one of yummy cupcakes for breakfast which was a cinnamon brown sugar cake filled with vanilla cream and topped with caramel frosting and dusted with cinnamon. Jill is also planning to have her cupcake truck and running starting this summer in Orlando, Florida. Follow @staycalmcupcake on Twitter for updates and check out the Stay Calm Cupcake Etsy shop.

Or your cupcakes could say "Stop Talking. Start Eating."

Via General Assembly (@GA on Twitter). Cupcakes by NYC custom cupcake makers (they also ship) Baking for Good, where you get to choose a charity to benefit from your purchase!



Baking for Good is also making custom St. Patrick's Day cupcakes for sale at Sanctuary Hotel New York as part of their "Sanct" Patrick's Day Package. Via Baking for Good on Facebook.

Mardi Gras King Cake cupcakes in Brooklyn at Robicelli's

This week at Robicelli's in Brooklyn and their special locations: King Cake, Pecan Praline, Rue McClanahan, Bananas Foster cupcakes! (clockwise from front) Via their Tumblr (click through to see where you can buy them). The Rue McClanahan is to celebrate her birthday!


King Cake: Almond cake, almond custard filling, almond custard buttercream, feuillitine

Pecan Praline: Pecan cake, vanilla buttercream, homemade pecan pralines

Bananas Foster: Banana cake, rum-salted caramel buttercream and drizzle

Rue McClanahan: Peach cake, cheesecake buttercream, brown sugar & peach compote

Big yellow taxi New York cheesecake cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake SoHo

I'll post later about how much I loved the new Georgetown Cupcake SoHo (see Stacie Joy's post about launch party), and more details about their blinged-out mixer, but a short post for now about their cheesecake cupcake, one of many flavors they sell. Below are details about Sunday's meetup there from 2-4 pm. One thing I love is that they have different flavors daily. I've circled the ones I want on the handout they give you, so I know when to come back for which ones. I have a feeling I will be back very often (like today, tomorrow...) because there are so many I want to try! Georgetown Cupcake, 111 Mercer Street, NYC. Visit georgetowncupcake.com for more information.





The cheesecake was good, though I'm not really a cheesecake fan, so a true cheesecake lover could tell you more. I liked the way it looked and it was smoothy and creamy. I bought this one ($2.75) mainly because I liked that it was New York specific. It was a bit crumbly, and had a graham cracker crust on the bottom. I'm not sure what the disk on top was made of but it was very sweet; edible, but I'd say leave it for decoration. If you like cheesecake, I recommend this; they also had cheesecake cupcakes with Broadway street signs on them.

Cupcakes Take the Cake Meetup
Sunday, February 19, 2-4 pm
The famous Georgetown Cupcake from the DC area has just opened a location in New York City. We are going to eat cupcakes, meet people and have fun. Georgetown Cupcake is in Soho at 111 Mercer Street between Prince & Spring Streets. Please bring cash/credit/debit card as cupcakes are a la carte. The Cupcake Meetup will be from 2PM-4PM.

You can get to the bakery by taking the R to Prince Street or the 6 to Spring Street.

And yes, the meetup page says we're full, but feel free to show up and join us, and make sure to join our group so you can keep up with all our wonderful plans. And everyone is welcome on our Cupcake Cruise August 19-26, 2012, from New Jersey to Bermuda! More details on that coming next week.

Blueberry crumble mini cupcakes at Baked by Melissa; flavor of the month!

In addition to the limited edition Fashion Week Betsey Johnson cupcakes they're selling, New York City mini cupcake company Baked by Melissa has blueberry crumble cupcakes as their special flavor for January. As always, they're $1 each, and I found it an odd flavor, good for people who adore blueberries, but not as good as their other flavors of the month, though the cake was very pretty and I like the crumble on top, for flavor and texture. Visit bakedbymelissa.com for ordering information.

Georgetown Cupcake to open February 11 in SoHo, New York City, plus Super Bowl cupcakes

This just in from Village Voice food blog Fork in The Road, something that's been hinted at for months now: the opening of famous cupcakery Georgetown Cupcake at 111 Mercer Street in SoHo in New York City:

"In addition to our flagship location in Georgetown, we ship our cupcakes nationwide, and the number-one shipping destination for our cupcakes was New York City," explained Katherine. "We were also driving cupcakes up to New York City frequently for large parties and events. We had so many people asking us to bring Georgetown Cupcake to New York, so when we found the perfect spot in Soho, it was a very easy decision for us."

The shop will officially open on Saturday, February 11, and will feature the sisters' signature baked goods, including their most popular seller, the red velvet cupcake, and flavors including salted caramel and peanut butter fudge. The sweet treats will be baked daily on-site and packaged in the sisters' signature pink boxes.

And expect to see the new shop making a cameo on the television show. "We're filming a special episode on the construction and lead-up to the grand opening of our Soho shop so people can see what really goes into starting a bakery from scratch, and we'll also be filming new episodes of the show in Soho in the spring, as well as in D.C.," notes Katherine. Adds Sophie, "We're so excited to finally be opening in Soho! We can't wait to meet everyone and hope that everyone has a chance to visit and enjoys our cupcakes."

My first home in New York was a dorm at 240 Mercer Street so I'm looking forward to checking this out, though SoHo is probably the most oversaturated cupcake bakery area of Manhattan now, with Billy's Bakery, Little Cupcake, Ivy Bakery, Baked by Melissa and SoHo-adjacent Molly's Cupcakes and Sweet Revenge. I hope the lines aren't as gargantuan as they are in DC; the last time I was in Georgetown I didn't have two hours to wait. Here are the Super Bowl cupcakes they're selling, via their Facebook page.



More info on them: "Each cupcake is a Valrhona chocolate cupcake, filled with dark fudge and frosted with green-tinted butter cream “grass.” The cupcakes are then decorated with fondant footballs, Patriots and/or Giants jerseys. For the Patriots, the fondant jersey has Tom Brady’s number on it, and for the Giants, the fondant jersey has Eli Manning’s number. Georgetown Cupcake Super Bowl cupcakes are available by pre-order only and are $2.75 each, $15 per half dozen, and $29 per dozen. These will be available for pick-up, local delivery, and national shipping." See georgetowncupcake.com for more information.