October 14th, 2007 — Products
If you or somebody you know has a gluten allergy, it’s simple to substitute gluten-free (GF) flour for the flour in any cupcake recipe. The main problem you’ll run into, of course, is that gluten-free flour isn’t as sticky, so the cupcakes will be much more crumbly. You can solve this by adding thickeners like Xanthan gum powder.
I’ve made a few things with Xanthan gum, and personally, I like to cut the amount called for by half. The gum powder has its own unique flavor that doesn’t work for me, especially in lighter vanilla or white cake. But cutting the amount of Xanthan gum down seems to work just fine.
A typical cake or cupcake recipe with GF flour would call for a teaspoon or more of Xanthan gum. I used about half a teaspoon and the cupcakes bake up great. They’re still a little more crumbly than with regular flour, but they taste yummy!
October 11th, 2007 — Cool Sites
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I bought Krystina Castella’s book Crazy About Cupcakes a couple of months ago and I’ve been in heaven ever since. She’s just an amazing writer and her designs are beautiful and delicate.
On her site, she has a bit of the history of the cupcake, which is fascinating but, dare I say it, left me hungry for more. 
I’m going to keep looking for more tidbits of cupcake history, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I really recommend Krystina’s book and her site.
October 10th, 2007 — Cool Sites
Actually, I’m pretty good at math, it’s just the whole metric conversion thing I never really understood. And a lot of great recipes online happen to be spelled out in metric measurements. So I looked around for a good calculator.
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There are some really good conversion calculators out there. I’d love to hear about any that you like. Personally, I really like the one at Global Gourmet. It’s very easy to use and makes it simple and quick for me to convert the recipes online.
October 10th, 2007 — Cool Sites
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I love the way Crazy Cupcakes uses glow-in-the-dark Halloween teeth and fingers to decorate cupcakes at Cupcake Recipes. She’s got a very simple vanilla cupcake recipe and photos of several, really wonderful designs. Also, check out her Date and Lemon cupcakes, which, while not Halloween cupcakes specifically, look absolutely scrumptious! I’m going to be trying those out soon!
October 9th, 2007 — Free
Once again, we’re offering this free Halloween Cupcake Ideas PDF, full of cool ideas and models for Halloween cupcakes.
Get a free Halloween cupcake ideas PDF on this site. Click the Owl, or click here.
October 9th, 2007 — Cool Sites
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The Coolest Birthday Cakes site has some, well, really cool cupcake ideas. I especially like the mummy cupcakes, but the ghost cupcakes are very cute too.
October 9th, 2007 — Cool Sites
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I love this site and the book by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. It’s not only a great vegan cupcake book, it’s a great cookbook, period, whether you are officially a vegan or not. And the cupcakes taste great!
October 8th, 2007 — Cool Sites
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Check out Debra Schoch’s Hop Hop Jingle Boo for the most amazing Halloween cupcake ideas and ornaments. Just incredible.
October 8th, 2007 — Cool Sites
Check out the latest at the great site of Cupcakes Take the Cake for a really nifty red velvet ladybug cupcakes. These three gals have some of the coolest cupcake designs around!
October 7th, 2007 — Cool Sites
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Check out Not Martha for a lot of really great Halloween ideas. I especially love the crawly cakes!
