Of all the precious and clever desserts in the book What’s New, Cupcake?, some of the coolest are the trompe l’oeil cupcakes. Imagine cupcakes that, through an intricate process of kitchen wizardry, are made to look like Chinese takeout, pizza, French fries and even soft-boiled eggs. They’re so realistic that you probably bite into them expecting them to taste savory, but then you find they really are sweet, frosted cupcakes.

The creators of popular cookbook Hello, Cupcake! are back with a second volume of showstopping cupcakes, including tiny desserts made to resemble apple pie, rubber duckies, a beehive, whales, lobsters, skunks, dachshunds, flamingoes, lollipop rings, robots, crocodiles and a golf green complete with sand trap.

The big secret is authors Karen “The Cake Whisperer” Tack and Alan Richardson’s use of such ingredients as Twinkies, doughnuts, gumdrops, caramels and candy corn. They sculpt animal shapes and so on from various reworkings of candy, plop them on the cupcake and frost over them with buttercream icing to create recognizable forms.

Their techniques are varied, and their tools are kooky. You can check it all out at a demo, book signing and sampling with cupcake mavens Tack and Richardson at Left Bank Books in the Central West End tomorrow, Tuesday, April 27, at 7 p.m.

– Byron Kerman

By Bryan A. Hollerbach

Tags: Alan Richardson, cupcakes, Hello Cupcake!, Karen Tack, Left Bank Books, What's New Cupcake?

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