Product Description

The cupcake is America’s darling. It’s celebrated in upscale bakeries, on Sex in the City, on the cover of Gourmet, and in thou-sands of classrooms—where every day, it seems, a parent has sent in a batch for the kids to share. The very word conjures up whimsy, coziness, pleasure, nostalgia. Not to mention the fact that their diminutive size means you can eat a lot of them.

Once upon a time, a family had only two recipes for cupcakes—chocolate and vanilla. Not anymore. Now Anne Byrn brings them to the next level. And who better? Recognized as the master of cake-mix baking, Anne is the author of The Cake Mix Doctor and Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor, which have a total of over 1.8 million copies in print. In Cupcakes she offers 135 tempting recipes for children and grown-ups, for special days and everyday, lunch bags, holiday festivities, and an unexpected dinner party dessert.

You’ll never believe these artful little cakes started with a mix. Coconut Snowballs, Jelly Doughnut Cupcakes, Kiss Me Cakes, Warm Chocolate Cupcakes with Molten Centers, Red Velvet Cupcakes with White Chocolate Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting. There are surprising additions (tuck a chocolate kiss orpiece of cookie dough into the batter). Creative toppings and easy from-scratch frostings (whipped cream spiked with Kahlua; miniature M&Ms; a creamy malted frosting with crushed malted milk balls).Terrific decorating ideas, from glittering golden dragees or elegant chocolate curls to yellow peeps for an Easter cupcake or—for Groundhog’s Day—a groundhog’s face made out of chocolate frosting and jimmies. Includes a 16-page full-color opening essay.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12165 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780761135487
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
From chocolate ganache to toppings with panache, this latest addition to the Cake Mix Doctor canon offers creative ideas and 135 recipes for tiny, delicious cakes. The detailed table of contents and alluring cupcake likenesses in the opening assemblage of photos will have readers salivating. The Cupcakes with Class chapter offers tasty elegance, from Cappuccino Chip to Harvey Wallbanger (which contains vodka and liqueur). Kids' cupcakes range from Cotton Candy to Caterpillar, and priorities delightfully in place, Byrn provides party-planning suggestions for favors and activities that complement the cupcakes. Helpful hints abound via "The Cupcake Doctor Says" tidbits, which appear throughout the book, and mini-essays that ponder questions such as "What's a Muffin? What's a Cupcake?" The Muffins: Breakfast Cupcakes chapter suggests ways to move beyond the classic blueberry (though Byrn offers a new take on that standby, too); Cupcake Cousins and Cupcake Creations will give do-it-yourselfers the confidence to try making fancy desserts in muffin tins. Fans of the regular QVC guest will already know that homemade frostings are a must, "the strand of pearls setting off the classic little black dress." Recipes for creams, glazes, frostings and sauces will help cupcake chefs "experiment and enjoy." (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover
Cupcake magic...Cupcakes are celebratory, cupcakes are comforting, cupcakes are peel-back-the-paper and tickle-your-inner-child treats that elicit smiles wherever they appear.

But leave it to bestselling cookbook author Anne Byrn to take cupcakes to the next level. Proving that cupcakes can do everything a big cake can do, only better, here are 135 dazzling recipes —and you'll never believe they started with a mix.

About the Author
Anne Byrn is known to millions of fans through her Cake Mix Doctor and Dinner Doctor cookbooks, which she's promoted in over 200 television appearances on Good Morning America, Roker on the Road, QVC, and local stations. Her books are also favorite subjects for lifestyle editors in newspapers across the country. Anne lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and three children.

Customer Reviews

But where are the rest of the pictures?
I like the book. The recipes look great, and it's very detailed on what to do (and not to do). Lots of variations on each recipe, and also a lot of the questions that I ask myself when trying a new recipe are already answered (like, if I change this, what will happen?)

But the reason I gave it 4 stars are the pictures and the art included. The art pictures are repeated over and over in the book (the teapot and tea cup, the daisies, the chicken timer). I don't want to sound snobby, but it looks amateurish, and I know Anne Byrn is a pro. If there was going to be too much white space that needed to be filled, maybe rearranging the format or including other photos/images would have been a better solution. Which brings me to my other issue.

Normally for a recipe book, you don't get a photo of each recipe. That is understandable, it makes the books bigger and color is expensive. But in this case, the main purpose of some of the recipes is the presentation, especially in the case of the cupcakes for kids and the seasonal cupcakes. It's hard to picture the arrangement of the billiard ball cupcakes if you don't play pool. Or how the pilgrims' hats cupcakes look in the end. I'd love to have a picture of the volcano cupcakes. There is enough white space in the book to add these images, and even if they were black and white, they would be very helpful.
"The Cake Mix Doctor" has color pages with a picture of each of the cakes. Yes, it's a very small picture of each, but it gives you an idea of the end result. I would much rather have something like that in this book, instead of the flashy spread that shows only some of the cupcakes.

Did those two things stop me from buying the book? No. Is it a good buy? Yes. I can't wait to make the cupcakes for my kids' birthdays. But more illustrations would definitely be an improvement for future editions.

Cupcakes to Die For!
I don't often give cookbooks a 5 star, just because many of them have only a few new recipes that I would try, or because the format is poor. Oftentimes, I check out cookbooks from my local library, pick out the recipes that I want to try, and jot them down. When I started to do that with this book, however, I noticed that I was marking several pages in a row, and pretty soon had most of the pages bookmarked! I stopped marking, returned the book to the library, and purchased my own copy.

What makes this seemingly simple concept so special? Well, as the author points out, most people love cupcakes. They are versatile, portable, and easy to create. You can make cupcakes as simple or as creative as you would like. And this great book of over 135 recipes can help in any situation. Need 2 dozen cupcakes for the class bake sale and want the cupcakes to look incredible? Want to impress your dinner guests but not spend hours in the kitchen? Want to wow your kids with a special treat after school? You can make up a batch of cupcakes that will accomplish all of these tasks.

I loved the fact that most of the recipes start with a box of cake mix, and ingredients that I keep in my pantry and refrigerator. Some of my family's favorites include: Red Velvet Cupcakes, Coconut Snowballs, Caramel Spiced Apple Cupcakes, Fresh Raspberry Cream Cakes, and the Marshmallow Frosting.

The author has 2 other books that are also worth a try, "The Cake Mix Doctor" and "The Dinner Doctor". Enjoy!

Nice ideas
Anne has some really nice ideas for cupcakes, and most people I have served them to do not think they came from a mix. The Italian cream cupcakes are absolutely wonderful, and the orange marmalade cupcakes are excellent, too. The red velvet cupcakes came out looking very strange, but I served them anyway, and everyone devoured them and wanted the recipe.

I am not sure why everyone is so upset about the lack of color photos. It is pretty easy to visualize what the cupcakes will look like (well, maybe not the over-the-top children's ones), and almost none of the cookbooks I use regularly (Joy of Cooking, Fannie Farmer, Mark Bittman, James Beard) have extensive or color photos.