Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make

by Alan Richardson, Karen Tack

Witty, one-of-a-kind imaginative cupcake designs using candies from the local convenience store. Americas favorite food photography team, responsible for the covers of Americas top magazines, shows how to create funny, scary, and sophisticated masterpieces, using a zipper lock bag and common candies and snack items.With these easy-to-follow techniques, even the most kitchen-challenged cooks can raise a big-top circus cupcake tier for a kids birthday plant candy vegetables on Oreo earth cupcakes for a garden party trot out a line of confectionery pupcakes for a dog fancier serve sausage and pepperoni pizza cupcakes for April Fools Day bewitch trick-or-treaters with chilly ghost chocolate cupcakes create holidays on icing with turkey cupcake place cards, a white cupcake Christmas wreath, and Easter egg cupcakes. No baking skills or fancy pastry equipment is required. Spotting the familiar items in the hundreds of brilliant photos is at least half the fun.

Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 09/08/2008)

Cupcake Magic: Little Cakes with Attitude

by Kate Shirazi

Kate Shirazi makes beautiful and irreverently decorated cupcakes with eggs from her own free-range flock of hens rescued from laying cages-they are cupcakes with both conscience and attitude. Combining a simple, straightforward approach to cooking and an insatiable appetite for cake, here is a collection of delicious new recipes and fun designs for cupcakes. A lively, colorful book packed with baking tips, captivating new cake designs, modern photography, and delightful illustrations, it is split into low-fuss, middle-fuss, and high-fuss recipes, with ideas for sweet and savory, children and adults, and seasonal and special occasion designs. There is also a section devoted to ingredients and equipment. The author writes in such an informal style and with such enthusiasm and humor that any reader will soon share her passion for cupcakes!

Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 09/08/2008)

Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse: Cupcakes, Small Cakes, Muffins, and Other Mini Treats

by Kaye Hansen, Liv Hansen

Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 09/08/2008)

Bake Me I'm Yours Cupcake: Over 100 Excuses to Indulge (Bake Me Im Yours)

by Joan Belgrove, Graham Belgrove

Cupcakes are all the rage, with `cupcakeries' such as New York's Magnolia Bakery leading the way.

Cupcakes are now an established alternative to the traditional cake at weddings and other celebrations.

The first book to combine recipes with a celebration of the joy of cupcakes themselves.

This indulgent, beautifully photographed, yet totally practical celebration of the world of cupcakes features 100 ideas for baking, decorating, displaying, serving and consuming cupcakes--the small cake with BIG potential. Recipes include a range of yummy sponge cakes, icings and frostings, while ideas for embellishment and display show that the sky's the limit. Includes suggestions for incorporating cupcakes into every occasion, from chic weddings and cute baby showers to festive Christmas parties and sassy girls' nights in. Written by two experts in the world of cupcakes who know just how cupcake connoisseurs want their creations to look and taste.

Amazon Price: $10.19 (as of 09/08/2008)

Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook

by Jennifer Graham

Amazon Price: $14.28 (as of 09/08/2008)