What's Your Sign?

A selection of signage available now on ETSY:

Cottage Sign by ShinarMountainDesign/$42.o0


Cutie Pie Cupcake Sign by FarmHouseCountryGirl/$15.00


Cupcakes & Kisses Wood Sign by SundayTreasures/$12


Shabby Cupcake Cottage Sign by thebackporchshoppe/$14.95


Shabby Cottage Pink Cupcake Sign by mycountrycottagesign/$8.95


Shabby Chippy Cottage Sign by SignsByDiane/$32.95


Fresh Cupcakes Shabby Sign by thebackporchshoppe/$42.95

Two for One!

Congrats to the super awesome, totally addictive Top Chef on their Best Reality Show Emmy 2010 win last night. Hooray, they knocked that snoozer, The Amazing Race, off their high horse. But lets talk about what is truly important...CHECK OUT THIS PHOTO that was on the Bravo website. TWO of THE FINEST MEN on the planet, together! Sigh...Tom Colicchio AND Christopher Meloni, be still my heart! (Oh yeah, Padma is in the shot, as well.)

Top Chef - Photo Galleries - 'Top Chef' at the Emmys | Bravo TV Official Site

Britain's Cupcake Champ!

BRITISH BAKER: David Bennett of the Sunshine Bakery in Chapel Allerton, Leeds, is the newly crowned Cupcake Champion of Great Britain 2010.

Bennett set up the business only six months ago, having worked in Michelin-starred restaurants for 17 years, five of which were under Marco Pierre White. He switched from chef to baker and has quickly found success with his winning Banana & Mango recipe, tweaked from a Passionfruit & Mango recipe that sells in his shop for £1.50. He beat over 60 professional cupcake bakers to the title.

The competition was organized by British Baker as part of its build-up to National Cupcake Week, 13-19 September. The week is sponsored by Renshaw and Chevler and supported by BFP Wholesale and Robert Dyas. Food Network UK is the media partner and will be showing highlights of the competition on the channel (Sky 262, 263+1) during National Cupcake Week. Click National Cupcake Week or see @CupcakeWeek on Twitter or our Facebook page for more.For interview with Cupcake Champion of Great Britain 2010, David Bennett, click here.

Diamonds are Forever

Diamonds are Forever Cupcake, originally uploaded by The Lone Baker.

A gorgeous cupcake with a quick and easy way how-to for bubble sugar with isomalt complements of The Lone Baker.

Poke Your Boobies!

In an effort to boost the funds for the PINK CHALLENGE with 99.1 WMYX and the Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure, we are introducing our Breast Cancer edition of the CANCER SUCKS/CUPCAKES ROCK buttons. These special 1.5" square buttons will be available at the PINK challenge for $2 each or 3 for $5. Profits will be donated to the local chapter of Susan G. Komen for a Cure. They will also be available for our out-of-town friends via ETSY as soon as the shipment arrives here in Milwaukee.

What's Cooking?!

So excited to finally be allowed to tell you this. Last week, Michael & David (above) from allrecipes.tv came to Milwaukee. Why? They came to film me, in my home, making my AJBombers Peanut Butter and Bacon cupcake! We also shot a brief video tour of Milwaukee, we had lunch at Bombers and they even filmed our ICM Tailgate challenge!

September 9th will be the DEBUT of the Milwaukee edition of What's Cooking will feature all of the fun that was had. If you have not been to their site yet, you have GOT TO check out the awesome video tour of America they are filming this summer. It was an honor to have them add Milwaukee as a part of the ride! Oh, and be sure to follow Michael on Twitter @ARWhatsCooking

Wee Wee Wee...

I'm sorry, but this ad cracks me up, EVERYTIME!

If You Can Fimo...

Announcing the Kerry Bear Art Competition. Kerry Vincent, FOOD NETWORK CHALLENGE JUDGE and The Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show and our buddy, Lyndsay Zoratti of Sweet Cuppin Cakes Bakery have united to bring you this fantastic opportunity to show off your decorating creativity with your best bear! Kerry will judge the bears herself and name the Kerry Bear on October 3, 2010 at the Oklahoma Sugar Art Show! This competition is open to everyone NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! For more information visit If You Can Fimo, You Can Fondant.

Move Over Martha!

Looks like Duff Goldman of Ace of Cakes/Charm City Cakes fame has signed his name to a line of rock and roll baking gear and goodies. Pans, spatulas, fondant, spray grafitti sugar and more. Now on sales at Michael's stores!

She Wore Red Velvet...

You have heard of Chicken and Waffles, Chicken with Potato Chip Crust; well, now, there is the Red Velvet Chicken from American Cupcake in San Francisco. Brined chicken is soaked in red velvet cake batter and then rolled in red velvet crumbs, this crazy combination is then tossed in the deep fryer for artery clogging bliss. What would any chicken dinner be without mashed potatoes and what would any red velvet cupcake be without cream cheese frosting? It would be only natural that this fancy chicken be served with a scoop of cream cheese garlic mashed potatoes. Simply brilliant. (photo: Anthony Mylott)

Kupcake War with the Kardashians

Keeping Up With the Kardashians returns to E! tonight. Those feisty, screaming, crazy K woman (and spokesbabes for Hollywood's Famous Cupcakes) kick it off with a cupcake fight at Kim's housewarming party.

J. Cruise

J. Crew has entered the cupcake game with their new ad campaign. Beautiful people eating beautiful treats. Doesn't that just make you want to run out a buy a $100 dollar sweater? OK, why am I so snotty about this one? Well, I have tried, and now failed, to avoid the overly reported and bragged about cupcake obsession that is seemingly OWNED by Katie Holmes. Because, rather than simply ROCK the cupcake/fashion campaign, they felt compelled to cast Mrs. Cruise in the shots as well.

Cupcakes Save Lives

It's official. We have a scientific chart that says so!
Thanks Jeremy, for sending this to me!

Bring It!

NEW! IronCupcakes Can Beat Up Your Cupcakes!
The latest creation available from our friends at toomuchmetal.com!
Orders being taken now! Available in chocolate, plum, lime and teal.
Sweet!

ICM:TAILGATE - Root for the Home Team!

No one can resist a great Tailgate and this weeks IronCupcake:Milwaukee challenge was no different. A great crowd gathered to enjoy cupcakes inspired by everything from the Kentucky Derby to bicycle racing to vintage Lombardi era football to a multitude of college salutes.


Sooo many special guests tonight. We were lucky enough to have self-professed tailgate expert, 99.1 WMYX's Kidd O'Shea on hand to MC our evening. As if here were not enough, we had a surprise visit from Roscoe, the mascot from our very own hockey team, Milwaukee Admirals - no, none of us have quite figured out WHAT he is. Perhaps that is part of the charm. As a gesture of thanks to the Admirals for allowing Roscoe to come and pay us a visit, we will be donating to the Admiral's Powerplay Foundation to support local youth sports charities. Plus, we were collecting t-shirts for teecycle.org. Whew!


And a special koo for IronCupcake, the host of allrecipes.tv's What's Cooking, Michael Ketchum was in attendance along with his camera man, David. They filmed our event, interviewed the bakers and we can expect to see their final product at allrecipes.tv in the near future. How cool is that? Oh, and we got Michael addicted to the world of Twitter, so be sure to follow him at @ARWhatsCooking.


For the PARTNER'S PICK, our partner for the Tailgate challenge, milwaukeesportsgeeks.com, could not pass up the delicious creations submitted by #12 - Haley. Her Never Melting Cones were a chocolate mint ganache cake topped with a fluffy peppermint icing. The kicker, the adorable little icecream cones she used instead of cupcake liners.


First time competitors and sister to one of our regulars, Jeremy; #17 - Emily and her team mate Chelcey brought their Root for the Brew Crew cupcake, a rootbeer cupcake with peanut butter frosting and a white chocolate baseball or mit garnish. In addition to their delicious cupcake, they made an AWESOME Brewers scoreboard that garnered them the QUEEN'S CHOICE award for the evening.


It was another extremely close race and it was just a matter of singular votes that kept this team from winning both display and taste; but it was the TASTE prize that they ultimately took home. The team from #18 - Peter Sciortino's Bakery (Melissa and Erin) brought their Brew Crew BBQ cupcakes. A smokey barbequed chocolate cupcake, filled with a mocha beer caramel. It was topped with an italian buttercream and spicy candied pecans.


And the winner for the best DISPLAY was the outrageous homage to, of course, the Green Bay Packers. Her cupcakes were Dark Chocolate cupcake with a Dark Chocolate Frosting, but it was the green and gold pulsing through her veins that brought home the win for #25 - Erica.


As if all these winners were not enough, we also debut the IronCupcake video. Produced by Media Sandwich, we hope to send this bad-boy off to media outlets and production companies to get the word out about how awesome the IronCupcake:Milwaukee world really is! Food Network, here we come!

As always, many thanks to Fred for text voting, at toomuchmetal.com; and to our dear friend Jim at JamesConwayPhotography.com for the gorgeous photography. See the slide show below:



Our next challenge is Monday, September 20th, where we will be cooking up PINK cuppies to save the "C" cuppies with 99.1 WMYX and Susan G. Komen for a Cure.

No Finer Gentleman...

...than the one and only Mr. Peanut. This awesome oversized cupcake with Mr & Mrs on top was created by none other than our friend, Vinny Garcia from Bleeding Heart Bakery!

Recipe for Pupfection

Another great ETSY find:

Cups, pups and frosting! You really can't get much sweeter than this! Featuring the whimsical and humorous art of She's SO Creative, "How PupCakes Are Made" art print is perfect for dog lovers, cupcake lovers, bakers, and everyone in between!

Created from original pen and ink drawing, signed by artist, and printed on ultra premium enhanced matte paper.

Size: 11 x 14". (frame not included)

All of our prints are original designs created by Stephanie Orma, She's SO Creative. They are inspired by her love of whimsy, humor, typography, and illustration. All images copyright She's SO Creative, thanks.

How It All Began!