As I was just talking about my sprinkle collection, I thought I would post a few pictures of cupcakes that I have done lately. I made these cute Pokemon cupcakes for a birthday party. Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream, topped with pokeballs from Amazon.

Here is what they look like without the Pokeballs.

These are some of my favorite sprinkles, the blue sanding sugar with the gold stars!

So this was technically not a cupcake, it was a cake, but I loved the contrast of the chocolate cake with the vanilla frosting swirls and the bright colored sprinkles.

Here are the cupcakes to go with the cake. I don’t usually do chocolate cupcakes, you have to be one of a select few to get me to make them!

Lastly, these are pretty simple and fun, but love the color combination of these.

What is your favorite sprinkle color combination?

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Minus the dressing up, Halloween might be my favorite holiday – I mean all the treats and eats make my heart go pitter patter. I put together this eight pack of cupcakes for friends: the pink reminded me of brains, a classic jelly pumpkin, Butterfinger skull, candy eyeballs, black and orange non pareil sprinkles, a Halloween orange colored cream Oreo, Halloween colored crystal sugar sprinkles, and pastel fall pumpkin spinkles.

I whipped up some classic chocolate chip cookies and then topped them with these Pillsbury ready to bake ghost sugar cookies to make a “best of both worls’d” cookie. The kids gobbled these up in seconds flat.

A Halloween favorite is always the spider donuts from Dunkin.

Another cupcake set with cute cupcake wrappers and fun Meri Meri toppers.

Rice Krispie treats are always more fun when you use orange Rice Krispies….and when you top them with fun Halloween themed sprinkles.

And if you’re looking for a little bit of an elevated treat, for your sophisticated adult palate, head over to Heirloom in Weston for these cute homemade Oreo sandwich cookies. Drop a note in the comments about what your favorite holiday is!

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If you’re looking for an affordable birthday party option, Trombetta’s in Marlborough is your spot. Perfect for kids ages 5-8, they can host birthday parties of any size. You can bring your own food or have pizzas delivered from one of the local shops (Plum Tomato or Post Road Pizza). Bring your own drinks and snacks, party decorations and balloons to make the party room as fancy or as simple as you’d like.

We brought our own cupcakes (golf themed cupcakes with golf ball rings I found on Amazon) to pass out as favors at the end because we had the kids make their own sundaes at the party. At the beginning of the party, kids chose from 5 kinds of ice cream. While they golfed, Trombetta’s pre scooped the ice cream. When it was time to come back into the party room, each guest sat down to their ice cream and was able to add the toppings of their choice: candy, sprinkles, hot fudge and whipped cream.

We also made these fancy sprinkle cupcakes for those who wanted cupcakes instead of ice cream sundaes. You can bring your own cake or you can have Trombetta’s make you an ice cream cake.

When the kids were ready to go home, we passed out these gift cards as favors, $5 gift cards for them to come back and either spend on golf or get another cone for free.

Trombetta’s Farm

655 Farm Road, Marlborough, MA

https://www.trombettasfarm.com/

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Lulu’s Sweet Shoppe used to be located on Salem Street in the North End and recently (well, not so recently) moved into the former Cocoanuts space on Parmenter Street. Sandy Russo opened the shop in 2004, after spending time working in a number of restaurants and hotels.

I went in for the cupcakes. Pictured above is the red velvet cheesecake (!!) cupcake. Not a flavor you see very often, but super tasty.

We also tried the Oreo cupcake. Over the top decadent! Other cupcake flavors include: chocolate turtle cheesecake, chocolate peanut butter, chocolate cherry bomb, blueberry cheesecake, whoopie pie, pistachio and port wine, lemon curd and brownie sundae to name a few. The store also carries a variety of home made ice creams in flavors like salted caramel, strawberries and cream, cookies an cream, chocolate chip cookie dough, s’mores, Thai tea coconut, and green tea with ginger. There are an assortment of delicious looking candies for sale at the shop as well.

Nice change of pace from the traditional Italian desserts in the North End. Parking is a bear, so try taking public transportation to get here.

Lulu’s Sweet Shoppe

28 Parmenter Street, Boston, MA

http://lulussweetshoppeboston.com

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Just before the holidays, I stopped over to the Boston Public Market to check out Whipped Urban Cupcake Co. and their delicious bite sized cupcakes. The only bad part about the cupcakes was that they were gone in two (ok one) bites.

Left: Nuttin Betta (from the Bougie collection), a dark chocolate cupcake with rich peanut butter frosting, topped with French chocolate sauce

Middle: Get Hyped (from the OG collection, a coffee cupcake infused with fair trade organic coffee grounds and topped with coffee frosting and an espresso bean

Right: Bite Me (from the Bougie collection), an apple spice cupcake topped with tart apple molasses, vanilla frosting, and a fresh apple slice

Cupcakes can be ordered (and hand delivered in Boston) by the two dozen and will run you $43.

Each cupcake was fresh and frankly downright adorable. I’d say too cute to eat, but let’s get real, I’m totally eating those cupcakes! The flavors are bold and you can tell that they only use high quality ingredients. Their products never contain any preservatives, additives or artificial colors (even their sprinkles are colored with vegetable and fruit juice!)

These would be great for a birthday party or a baby shower, or maybe just a night in with you, your couch, Netflix and two dozen cupcakes all to yourself.

Check out their website here.

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What trip to New York is complete without stop at Magnolia Bakery? We were staying in midtown (let’s not talk about it) and so we headed up to the Rockefeller Center location. Not quite as charming as the Bleeker Street location, but hey…let’s not get picky.

Have you checked out their instagram account lately? I dig what they are doing these days!

Of course my go to is the vanilla with buttercream frosting. Still as sweet as I remember with light and fluffy cake. One bite will put you in a diabetic coma, but hey, isn’t that part of the fun? Can’t make it there? Don’t worry, they ship. Not quite the same as walking into the store and getting a fresh one, but when you don’t live in NYC, sometimes you have to make do.

Have you had their banana pudding? Tell me about it! Curious minds want to know…

Magnolia Bakery

1240 Avenue of the Americas at 49th Street, New York, NY

http://www.magnoliabakery.com

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Little Cupcake Bakeshop was founded in 2005 in Brooklyn. They have expanded to two locations, one in Brooklyn and one in Nolita. We visited Nolita and loved the feel of the bakery (it just feels like a real bakery). They had an amazing assortment of cupcakes, it was hard not to buy one of everything! We got ours to go, but there are a bunch of tables for you to sit at and eat your sweets right away.

Rose Pistachio cupcake ($3.75) Such an interesting flavor – like the adult version of those green pistachio cupcakes. Great frosting to cake ratio.

Carrot Cake ($3.75) Delicious – carrot cake is one of my favorites.

Mini white chocolate raspberry cheesecake ($7) was really dense – and no matter who makes the cheesecake, there is never enough raspberry for me. That being said, this was an excellent after dinner dessert choice!

In addition to selling cupcakes and cheesecakes, they also have cookies, pies, ice cream, bars and breakfast items. They have gluten free and vegan items as well.

Little Cupcake Bakeshop

30 Prince Street, New York, NY

www.littlecupcakebakeshop.com

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Sprinkles is located in Brookfield Place, on the second floor, in the food court. Sprinkles was the world’s first cupcake bakery, founded in 2005 by Candace Nelson. The first store was opened in 2005 in Beverly Hills and they have expanded to 14 locations across the country. If you can’t make it to a Sprinkles store, you can buy the mix at Williams Sonoma and make them at home! The signature dots on the cupcakes tell you what flavor cupcake you’ve chosen. See the menu here. They have gluten free, sugar free and vegan options in addition to their standard and seasonal flavors.

(Clockwise starting at top left) ($3.75 each) Red Velvet: red velvet cake with cream cheese icing, Key Lime: key lime cake with key lime vanilla frosting, Cuban Coffee: Belgian light chocolate cake with coffee frosting with notes of cinnamon and cocoa, Chocolate Marshmallow: Belgian dark chocolate cake with marshmallow cream and bittersweet chocolate ganache, Carrot: walnut studded cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, Vanilla: vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.

My favorites were the cuban coffee (I loved the flavor), the carrot (for the cinnamon cream cheese frosting) and the classic red velvet (decadent but not overly sweet).

Sprinkles

225 Liberty Street, New York, NY

http://www.sprinkles.com

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Probably one of my favorite cupcake shops in New York. I always try and stop here to grab a cupcake or six. The shop is tiny with only a few tables – but it’s cozy, decorate in 60’s and 70’s decor. The shop opened in 2003 by two friends, Peggy and Debbie.

The pistachio is a pistachio cake with “moose”. It’s light and the cake is so fresh! I die…every time.

The sunshine ($2.25) is yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. A classic, but they do it so well!

Here’s a complete list of flavors:

Sunshine: Yellow cake with vanilla buttercream
Bob: Yellow cake with chocolate almond buttercream
Ooey Gooey: Chocolate cake with chocolate almond buttercream
Sexy Red Velvet: Red velvet cake with “The Moose”
Sassy Red Velvet: Red Velvet cake with chocolate almond buttercream
Black & White…Just Right: Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream
Pistachio: Pistachio cake with “The Moose”
Pumpkin: Pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing
Lemon Yummy: Lemon cake with lemon buttercream
Goodie Goodie: Dark chocolate cake with whipped peanut butter buttercream
Faux-Coconut: Coconut cake with satin buttercream
Strawberry: Strawberry cake withcCream cheese or Peanut Butter buttercream
Holla Back Girl: Banana cake with cream cheese icing
Oreo Cookie: Oreo cupcake with satin buttercream

Where’s your go to cupcake spot in New York?

Sweet Sugar Sunshine

126 Rivington Street, New York, NY

http://sugarsweetsunshine.com

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I had head about Molly’s Cupcakes from their win on Cupcake Wars. I decided to head over to their New York location to see what all the hype was about!

I loved the feel of this place – and was surprised that more people weren’t hanging out here (I could spend all day here!) I picked up a few cupcakes for the girls at my office – they were pumped!!

(Clockwise starting at the top left) Cake Batter: vanilla confetti cake, raw cake batter, vanilla buttercream, festive sprinkles, Cookie Monster: vanilla chocolate chip cake, raw cookie dough center, buttercream, mini chocolate chip cookie, Flourless Chocolate: flourless chocolate cake, dulce de leche ganache filling, french vanilla buttercream, chocolate drizzle, Bimi’s Butterscotch: vanilla cake, butterscotch caramel pudding, salted vanilla buttercream, caramel drizzle, Strawberry Shortcake: vanilla cake, fresh strawberries cooked in brown sugar, vanilla buttercream, fresh strawberry topping, Chocolate Decadence ($3.75)

Lemon Mreingue ($3.75) lemon cake, lemon curd center, meringue. I loved this cupcake, from the light cake to the little bit of a crunch when you bit into the meringue.

Peanut Butter Nutella ($3.75) peanut butter cake, nutella filling, nutella buttercream frosting, with a dusting of cocoa. Check out their full menu here.

What’s your favorite flavor?

Molly’s Cupcakes

228 Bleeker Street, New York, NY

www.mollyscupcakes.com

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