The Versatility of the Cupcake!

Cupcakes.  Such wonderful little things!  They can be a single work of beauty that stands alone...like this....

Black Forest Cupcake - a single sweet treat!

They can be baked in ice cream cake cones for a really awesome treat that makes for NO trash because there is no paper liner....

They can also be "accessorized" with pieces of cookie to create an entirely new look...like a high-heeled shoe!

Even better...you can stack them to create an object... like a race car!

You can arrange them in a shape like a circle to make a wreath....or in a triangle to form a Christmas tree....

You can lay out two dozen in just the right way and turn them into a beautiful trio of Christmas candles....

If you google "pull apart" cupcakes or "pullaway" cupcakes or search them on Pinterest, you will find lots of neat ideas for how to put cupcakes together in various formations.  You can even ice them afterwards so they look like an iced cake.  You can't see where they begin and end.  The cool thing about pull apart cupcake cakes is that you don't need a knife to serve them.  You simply take the cake to the event and everybody can just grab their cupcake and pull it away from the rest.  Less fuss!  Great for elementary school parties!  Here are some samples of pull apart cupcake cakes I have done....

This was for my daughter's birthday....an aerial shot of the community swimming pool we frequented.  She had her birthday party at this pool.

These cupcakes formed a type of badge awarded to Brownies (Girl Scouts) called Try-Its.  This cake was made to thank the troop leader who was retiring.

This was a map of the world that my nephew Joshua neede to make for a school project.  He was allowed to have help creating the map but he had to label 41 parts on his own after it was done.  The next photo shows the labels he added.  He was popular at school that day!

Joshua labeled 41 parts of this map and presented this map to his class, after which he and his fellow students and teachers got to eat the project!

Another great thing about making a pull apart cupcake cake is that you can use various flavors in the same cake.  The photo below shows a cake where the customer needed cake for 7 people.  He wanted two servings of red velvet, two of chocolate, and two of vanilla, and one of lemon.  I put the single lemon cupcake in the center and surrounded it by two each of the other three flavors.  I iced it on top so it looked like one cake and put a border on it to pull it together.  I instructed him ahead of time that the lemon one was in the center.  They were able to tell the other flavors apart by looking at the paper liners on the sides because the flavors showed through the paper.

Of course, cupcakes are great in LARGE NUMBERS as well.  The photos below show a beautiful display of cupcakes for a wedding.  Pictured are 146 cupcakes.  The wedding guests had four cupcake varieties to choose from.... chocolate with chocolate icing, chocolate with vanilla icing, vanilla with vanilla icing, or vanilla with chocolate icing.  I made a very small layer cake for the bride and groom to cut, but the wedding attendees got to choose cupcakes!

As you can see, the possibilities are endless when it comes to cupcakes! 

And don't forget the sprinkles.... because sprinkles are for winners!