Sprinkles Christmas cupcake extravaganza

In today's Inbox the Christmas/New Year cupcake round up!

The eggnog (top picture) has a fragrant spice cake with rich egg nog cream cheese frosting topped with holidays trees and stars.

The Joy (middle picture) box has chocolate peppermint, red velvet, coconut and vanilla peppermint cupcakes adorned with Sprinkles Joy sugar decorations.

And finally, the Peace box is on sale from December 31st, and includes dark chocolate, vanilla milk chocolate, black and white and vanilla cupcakes adorned with the Sprinkles blue peace sign.

They all make me wish I lived in the USA!!!

Gobble up those cupcakes!

According to Sprinkles, nothing completes a Thanksgiving meal of turkey and stuffing like cranberry cupcakes!

Flavours in their special Thanksgiving range include Ginger Maple, Pumpkin, Orange Cranberry and Dark Chocolate all adorned with either their signature dot or a rather fetching turkey sprinkle :)

More Halloween Treats

My lovely friend Dennis, currently residing in Ann Arbour, returned for a brief visit a few days before Halloween and we met for a yummy hot chocolate at Leon as he has a load of Halloween gifts for me! (Just for reference Leon do THE BEST hot chocolate in London - flakes of Valrhona hot chocolate with hot milk...yummy! I have to persuade them to do cupcakes now and it'll be perfect!)

Anyways back to the gifts! Dennis spoils me rotten and I do realise how lucky I am to get all this fab stuff but I couldn't believe all the goodies he bought me! Included in my haul were some rather fab cupcake pix - cutouts of monsters which hug your cupcakes, a "totally ghoul" pumpkin shaped cake pan, cupcake sprinkles, cupcake wrappers, candy cupcake decorations, cupcake toppers and a Sprinkles pumpkin flavour cupcake mix!

Aren't they all just too cute!!!

Boo!

The boo theme seems to be popular, with Sprinkles Halloween BOO box!

Ghosts, goblins and monsters of all ages will have a hard time turning down Sprinkles Halloween BOO box!

Vanilla milk chocolate, red velvet, black & white and caramel apple* cupcakes adorned with Sprinkles ghost and BOO sugar decorations. Sealed with a BOO spooky cupcakes sticker.

*spiced apple cake studded with granny smith apples topped with a buttery caramel cream cheese frosting.

I like the sound of the caramel apple cupcakes and they look adorable...I heart the little ghosts!

Nonparelis???

Today I was browsing Eleni's website as part of my quest to find all the great cupcake places in New York for my holiday!!). Whenever I looked at the descriptions of their scrumptious looking cupcakes one word kept cropping up...nonparelis. Having NO idea what this was I immediately Wikipedia'd it and lo and behold its a fancy name for sprinkles...well fatter rounder sprinkles! (does that make me the nonparelis of the human world???!). Are Eleni's reverting to the use of this old fashioned word after hearing about Sprinkles fondness for lawsuits..just incase?

Anyways nonparelis or sprinkles, who cares - how much do these pics make you want to lick the frosting off Leroy? *

By the way incase anyone is interested there are currently 177 days till I get to New York and the tour currently stands at 18 cupcake stores!!! My current plan is not to eat anything but soup from New Years till March in anticipation of cupcake overload!

*Leroy is the fancy pink cupcake above not some random man I wish to lick frosting from!

Hurrah for Mr Sprinkles

I mentioned Mr Sprinkles in the post below and had to share how fab he looks with you :) I shall be buying some in the States for sure!

More Sprinkles lawsuits

Beverly Hills-based Sprinkles pioneer of the cupcake-only shop and purveyor of miniature morsels beloved by celebrities is turning up the heat on competitors allegedly treading on its trademarked name and dot motif.

Three-year-old Sprinkles most recently set its sugary sights on Sprinkled Pink Cupcake Couture in Montecito. Last week, just one day after Wendy Jones opened her shop, she received a letter from Sprinkles demanding that she change the name of her bakery, which she registered when she got her business license in 2003."They're going too far," said Jones, who hasn't decided how to respond to the letter. "I'm sure they're protecting themselves, but there's a whole big United States out there. There's room for other cupcake shops. They shouldn't be bullying around or picking on little people like us. . . . I really honestly don't think they invented the cupcake."

All this fighting about cupcakes is ridiculous - surely cupcakes are a thing of joy not lawsuits! I think Wendy Jones of Sprinkled Pink Cupcake Couture speaks the truth, Sprinkles didn't invent the cupcake, and the word sprinkles has been round for years! They'll be going after Mr Sprinkles next!!!!

You can read the whole story here and here.

Cupcake Wars!

From my daily foray into Google news alerts on cupcakes

Cupcake makers at war over dot-in-circle trademark

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sprinkles Cupcakes, a California purveyor of mini-cakes beloved by Hollywood stars, has accused rival Famous Cupcakes of stealing its trademarked "Modern Dot" cupcake design to lure away clientele.

Sprinkles high-end pastries have made the rounds of U.S. media, from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to "Nightline", drawing locals and out-of-towners who regularly wait in long lines outside the company's Beverly Hills store.

The company, which also runs stores in Texas and Arizona, accused Famous Cupcakes in a federal lawsuit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles of incorporating the "nested circle design" featured on Sprinkles cupcakes on Famous Cupcakes packaging, store decor, and "each and every page" of its website.

Unlike other cupcake imitators around the world who ceased using "Modern Dot" after being caught by Sprinkles, Famous Cupcakes has not responded to repeated requests to "promptly stop using its trademarked design," the lawsuit said.

The owner of Famous Cupcakes, who said on its website she began selling cupcakes door-to-door at age 7 and believes "one cupcake is never enough", could not be reached for comment.

I do hope they can sort this out amicably - remember make cupcakes not war!

I have to say I do like the look of the Famous cupcakes bouquet though!

DIY cupcakes - LA Style

My adorable friend Dennis returned from his trip back to Ann Arbour with a veritable feast of goodies for me. I'm so lucky to have someone who will happily schlep to Williams Sonoma for me, although he claims he refused their offer to sign up to their mailing list and pleaded with them to restrict internet access to America only..pshaw! Never mind I check the site LOADS! Way too much actually -its a bit obsessive!

Of course I'm ALWAYS excited to meet my friends but this time was particularly exciting as Dennis - the worst surprise keeper ever - had already told me what he'd bought me on the phone so I was totally excited all day Monday and it was worth it as he'd kept some secrets...like the two Cup A Cake containers (for cupcakes on the go!) he'd gotten and a MASSIVE amount of Hello Kitty goodies! And of course the TWO bake your own SPRINKLES sets complete with their trademark dots! wuhu

I can't wait to bake them and eat them of course :)

Box of cupcake goodies

There were so many cute pics to share I couldn't fit it all into one post so had to make it into two!

As well as the fantastic cupcake Manowar bag Renee made me she also bought me some fantastic cupcake goodies, including some fab sprinkles, with some fab cow, dolphin and dinosaur ones, black sugar and some fab cupcake cakes! Also some incredibly cute silly feet silicone cupcakes cases! How cool are they!! I cannot wait to get baking and use them! Think I'll have to take a day off work to bake! And to top it all they all came wrapped up in a ultra-cute cupcake bag!

In all it was a box of total cuteness which put a smile on my face for days, and still continues to do so!

When I get baking using htem I shall take pics and post them - I only wish Renee didn't live so far away so she could try my silly feet cupcakes! She really deserves a cupcake for sending me such grand goodies!

Saving the earth one cupcake at a time

Sounds like a FANTASTIC plan to me, so its more the pity that I don't live near a Sprinkles as they are donating the proceeds from their vanilla cupcakes to local tree planting and environmental care groups in celebration of Earth Day! What better excuse for stuffing your face with cupcakes than saving the world!

If I was a superhero could I be Captain Cupcake??? Although having seeing Captain Cupcake's outfit (above) I'm not too sure! Wonder if Mrs Cupcakes outfits nicer?

Further information on locations offering this wonderful offer are available here. PLEEEASE hurry to London Sprinkles so I can help save the earth quicker!

Her name was Lola....

And she wasn't a showgirl, BUT she did make exceedingly good cupcakes! I honestly didn't mean to eat these many cupcakes in a week BUT I had an impromptu days leave last week and decided to go to shopping up town. This led to me walking for MILES hrough crowds of irritating people and finally after the hell that is Primark at lunchtime I NEEDED to go somewhere lovely and peaceful, and that place was the food hall in Selfridges, where I stumbled upon Lolas. Okay, I knew it was there and it was my very reason for going there but like I said I needed something nice after Primark!

I got myself a vanilla (insisting on pink - the girl serving wasn't one of the usual nice staff and seemed perturbed I specified what frosting colour I wanted..pshaw she obviously did not fully comprehend the significance the colour can make!) and Manny a chocolate. I resisted the urge to get two each so we could try the lovely looking Pistachio Cupcake (current flavour of the month - check here for all available flavours). I also resisted the urge to eat them on the way home and instead waited patiently till I was in the house, before scoffing mine with a cup of tea. I was drooling while taking the pics - aren't they just stunning looking! It was worth the wait, all vanilly goodness with frosting you want to drown yourself in, and you very nearly could - look how thick that frosting is!!! I then had to further avoid temptation as Manny was at the forge blacksmithing and his cake was calling me from the kitchen..however I was a good girl and made do with my own one! Greed is a sin you know ;)

Oh my.......SPRINKLES are coming!!!!!

I think I've just passed out with excitement...SPRINKLES are coming to town!!!!!! Oh my, I've wanted to try Sprinkles cupcakes for aaaaaaaages as I keep reading how fab they are and have even asked Dennis my lovely chum who lives in Ann Arbour to pick me up one of their mixes from a cookery store near him so I can make them at home and (kinda) try a Sprinkles cupcake but now I don't have to bake cuz they're coming to London!!!!! wuhu wuhu wuhu!!!

I'm going to have to go to eat another of my GORGEOUS mini cupcakes from Crumbs and Doilies that I picked up today just to calm down....more on them in a bit, I'm too excited to type much more...oh except the reason for the doggy pic - Sprinkles do doggy cupcakes too..how cool :)