Few words invoke my creative juices quite like, "Will you bring dessert?" Of course, the answer is always yes. I begin giddy with excitement, poring over my cookbooks for just the perfect confection for the occasion. The flip side is that this excitement usually turns to sheer panic as I find myself covered in frosting and short just three more candy canes at the eleventh hour. Alas, dessert is a labor of love and goodness knows, I'm smitten.
Last month, I took on the challenge of Easter dessert, deciding to put my cake decorating chops to the test with the "Rabbit Hole Cupcakes" featured in Karen Tack & Alan Richardson's Hello, Cupcake! They're cute, whimsical, and I figured I could cut the cost often associated with the very specialized candies needed to make many of these cupcake designs work. I also chose to bake my own cupcakes from scratch, rather than from the box, using the "Vanilla Cupcakes" recipe from the same cookbook.
