Great book for cupcake lovers!
346646
I love this cupcake book! Great pictures and easy to follow recipes! Easy and beautiful decorating ideas.  Can't wait to try out some of the wonderful recipes!
3925398
This was a gift for my daughter who loves to make cupcakes.  She uses it all the time!!  The recipes are delicious!
1130062
This book is so cute!!  I bought it as part of a cupcake gift basket, but almost had to keep it for myself.  I plan to buy another to keep.
2231911
I absolutely love this book.  For the most part, the cupcakes are not that difficult.  Great ideas for decorating supplies.  I have made the "TV dinner" one, it was the hit of the party.
1669531
I love this book!  I just made the swiss meringue buttercream (having never made any sort of frosting in my life) and it was delicious.  Took it to a birthday party and was enjoyed by all.  The instructions are laid out very well in this book, and that made it easy to cut the recipe in half and have it still taste good and look good.

I also made the purse cake earlier this year.  My first try at fondant.  Again, I found the instructions to be very thorough and easy to follow.  And the chocolate cake recipe for that was delicious as well and past the taste-test of my co-workers who are very picky.  haha!

Overall, the projects in this book are a lot of fun and I find they are helping me to learn to work with cake ingredients I hadn't before - such as gumpaste and fondant - and are making me get adventurous in my decorating.

Looking forward to her next one.
150297
Great books with many fun recipes to try.  We made 175 cupcakes for our daughter's wedding with the some of the recipes out of this book and they were a hit.
4549801
This book is similar to her other books on Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pie & Tarts. I have enjoyed the other ones and I will enjoy this one as well. There are a good variety of recipes, both common recipes, as well as some unusual ones. A few that are looking particularly appealing to me are the Molasses-Spice Cake with Cream Cheese-Sour Cream Frosting and Brown-Sugar Glaze(a lot of hypens but sounds delicious, especially for fall), Strawberries-and-Cream Cheesecake, Lemon Meringue Cake, and Cheesecake with Poached Apricots. Some of the features of the book that I really enjoy are having a color picure of each recipes, and having a list of all recipes at the front of the book under each chapter heading so you can easily glance through to find an appealing recipe or see if a recipe is included for a particular cake you are looking for.
4507045
This book gives much more than expected.  It is a "must buy" for all bakers.  It has cupcake recipes for both the cake AND for the recommended frosting, as well as decorating ideas.  It is easy to follow.  The book is set up into several sections: 1)includes recipes for specific types of cupcakes, more than you can imagine, with a recommendation for what frosting to use (including the page #) one each specific cupcake cake; 2) favorites for each season; 3) decorating ideas & special occasions; 4) master cupcake recipes; 5) the frostings, cross referenced with the recommended cupcake; and 6) cupcake fillings.

The book is approx 3" x 5" and despite its size will provide hours of baking fun.  The book is so terrific, I have purchased 5 additional copies today.  The book will make a great Christmas gift for my nieces with young children and daughters who bake treats and bring them to work.
1678140
My daughter is a fan of the cupcake girls and this book was definitely a Christmas hit.  Even I  enjoyed looking through it.  Great pictures and great ideas
3261158
Great book with cupcake ideas!  We purchased this item for our 10 year old daughter who is interested in baking and it has been helpful on several occassions.
1553419
I've only made a couple of the recipes so far, but there are so many more I would like to make!  I made the lemon cupcakes with raspberry filling for dessert tonight and my husband loved them.  I love that they included beet and squash puree :)
4667867
I LOVE THIS BOOK. This is by far one of the most artistically chic baking goods book out there. AND, it's the only one I've kept out of several I've had to hunt through in my search for THE ULTIMATELY MOST ARTISTIC, COOLEST CUPCAKE BOOK EVER! Can anyone help me? It was a favorite produced by Barnes and Noble for 2009-2010. There were several awesome decorating techniques in the back of the artful, unique cupcake book. I should have bought it back then. It had a slightly padded cover and was also a square vs rectangle shape. If you know of this one-of-a-kind Barnes and Noble Cupcake Book, PLEASE email me @ paris2332@hotmail.com But again, I did keep this beautiful book. I recommend it highly as most cupcake books produce tacky looking too sweet, too ordinary fare.
4025768
Pick up a copy for yourself.  It's great, even if you never made a cupcake.  I bought an extra copy for my daughter who is considering the kitchen as a career so that she has the full low-down of what to expect. Even I am considering a little part-time position in pastry.  It's that good.  I can't wait for the sequel...
1617853
A Cupcake Affair claims that giving someone a cupcake will procure a "yes" 97% of the time ...after enjoying this book I believe that may also very well be true if one gives this book to someone.

Personally, I never had so much fun reading a Table of Contents in my life. As a nutritionist, the only way I will buy a cookbook on baking is if it includes some sugar-free p. 106 -112, vegan p 119 & p 187 and gluten-free p. 84 & p 265 recipes...Once I had confirmed the above in the table of contents I got lost in the funny, clever and informative writing... A Cupcake Affair is a real page-turner full of everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-baking-but-were-afraid-to-ask.

So, whether you consider yourself a huge cupcake fan or just a person who likes to bake stuff, A Cupcake Affair provides 100's of baking and ingredient tips to make you a much better baker...(and who knows, maybe a better person too!).

I learned so much in the first 20 minutes of picking up A Cupcake Affair that I didn't even notice until I got to the end of the book that there are merely a handful of cupcake and frosting recipes inside. But this book gives you the know-how to substitute and rearrange ingredients of any conventional butter*sugar*egg*flour*based cupcake recipe and translate it into infinite varieties of cupcakes to suit your palate or to honor your dietary restrictions whether that be gluten-intolerance, calorie-restriction, soy, egg, or dairy allergy or veganism. The sky is the limit. Some how-to highlights:

* How to bake in high altitude or humidity

* What is the difference between baking soda and baking powder?

* Is sugar a liquid or a solid?

* What is an egg's role in baking?

* How to make a pastry bag out of a Ziploc baggie

* 3 methods for mixing ingredients (who knew there were 3 methods or why?)

* Several innovative methods for storing and transporting frosted cupcakes (thankfully, it's an art anyone can learn)

* When to use cupcake tin liners vs. when not to

* How to calculate calories and even WeightWatchers' points for homemade cupcakes

* How to substitute just about anything in a recipe..(The Flour Substitute Chart on p. 296 is worth the price of the entire book and the Sugar Substitution Chart delivers above and beyond the call of duty by providing information such as glycemic index for each sweetener and whether a substitute sweetener will caramelize...[How did the author know that my kitchen torch is my favorite kitchen gadget? A gluten-free crme brule cupcake is on my horizon]).

What will be next for the author, Isabella Anjuli? I think she deserves either a show on the Food Network or she needs to provide contestants of Donald Trump's, The Apprentice, with her persuasive cupcakes to help the contestants push all their deals in the right direction... In fact, she should probably head up to the cable powers that be right now with enough cupcakes in hand to feed everyone who works within...because you know, "97% of people will say `Yes' after eating a cupcake!"
959808
Fun story and characters you will cheer for and wish cupcakes came with the book!
2032486
There are a wide variety of ideas in this book that are simple, fun and creative. Children would love them all.
I purchased the book to make cupcakes for a three year old's birthday and found a multitude of fitting themes.
Kids would enjoy taking part in making these adorable cupcakes too. They are easy enough because they use
a lot of cookies and candies to help create the shapes and structures of the characters in the cupcakes.
It would be a fun way to teach children cake decorating skills and a great way to spend time with them.
3131771
I've always enjoyed baking (when the wife lets me!) and with a kids' party coming up soon I thought I'd help out by making some cup cakes. Searching Amazon led me to this book by Christine Matthews - largely due to the wonderful cover and the description. I'm not an expert cook, so I was looking for something even my amateur skills could handle without too much problem.

The description clearly indicated that this book was for people who weren't cup cake baking masters, so I jumped in and bought. I was so glad I did! From the interesting introduction giving you a history of the cup cake, to the guide on the best utensils to use, right through to the easy to follow, mouth-watering recipes - this book is a winner.

I'm happy to report that I easily managed to bake over 30 cup cakes for the party, and the kids absolutely loved them. If you are after an easy to follow guide to introduce you to the world of cup cake baking, buy this book!

Highly recommended!