Ten Speed Press

Cannabis Cupcakes

With so much talk of late about cupcakes and legalizing marijuana, we should have known a Cannabis Cupcakes cookbook wasn't too far behind. "What better way to take advantage of both [the cupcake and cannabis] trends than with a cookbook that satisfies these guilty pleasures?," the cookbook's press release asks. Well, the publisher has a point.

Other fun nuggets from the press release? "Not only is the high from eating cannabis baked goods more intense and longer-lasting (THC is more potent when dissolved in fat), it's also a healthier and tastier way to get stoned." We're pretty sure those health claims have not been FDA approved, nor have we heard many restaurant critics rave over marijuana-spiked French pastries. Then again, this is a baking book that specializes in all-American "quarter-pounders" in pot cupcake form.

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A. Scattergood

a Golden Deli cupcake

There are myriad reasons to stand in the seemingly permanent line that fills the San Gabriel strip mall sidewalk outside of Golden Deli. There are the cha gio, or fried spring rolls, which function as magnets for certain neighborhood foodists. There is the glorious pantheon of phở, which is happily catalogued on the menu pages, like CliffsNotes to a masterwork. And there is now something so incommensurate that it took two recent visits for some of us to really believe it exists. What is the last thing you'd expect to find in a San Gabriel phở palace? Guess. Guess again. Cupcakes.

Yes, for the last few months, Golden Deli has been serving cupcakes. Not a few cupcakes, not one or two that might reasonably pair with your order of bánh hòi , but, at last count, FIFTY SIX flavors of cupcakes. That's in caps so you know it's not a typo.

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georgetowncupcake.com

Georgetown cupcakes

When looking out over the restaurant and food shop landscape, what comes to mind when pondering the question "what's missing here? What do we need more of?"

If the answer you came up with was "CUPCAKES!" then you're in luck. Because the trend that won't die is getting two new soldiers in its battle for sugary dominance.

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Victoria's Kitchen

Sweet literary snacks

We think it's fair to say that, although we clearly are better at Olympic sports (OK, we'll give them dressage), the Brits are a tad more sophisticated than us Yanks. Case in point: Our "fancy" cupcakes might feature Oscar the Grouch or perhaps a pretty rose or cute doggie. British fancy cupcakes sport such items as perfect replicas of literary classics. These are from Victoria's Kitchen in London, a home-based boutique bakery specializing in "beautiful bespoke" cupcakes, cakes and cookies. This particular batch is for a woman celebrating her 60th birthday, and features some of the books that have shaped her life, including soccer star Christiano Ronaldo's autobiography and Chicken Licken.

Turn the page for more lovely samples. Please Victoria, can you toss some across the Pond? Please? We're really sorry about George Washington!

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The gourmet cupcake bubble should have burst -- long ago. For some reason, it hasn't. New bakeries claiming they specialize in cupcakes seem to pop up every month. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? How do you know which bakeries are selling desiccated supermarket cupcakes at inflated prices and which are selling rich, moist, freshly made wonders? Read on.

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Nanette Gonzales

Competitors in the 2012 L.A. Cupcake Challenge

[Update, 1:56 p.m.: The winners of the fifth annual LA Cupcake Challenge are My Delight (1st place), Cake Mamas (2nd place), Sweet Red Peach (3rd place).]

We've got no real excuse for this photo gallery except that it's Monday, and we love us some sweet food porn. Saturday afternoon, the L.A. Cupcake Challenge took over the Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood, where nearly three dozen local bakeries competed for top honors. The pictures (full photo gallery here) speak for themselves: It was a day of frosted combat, visual delights and sugar comas.

Magnolia Bakery

The NBA began its abbreviated season with more of a whimper than a bang, at least if you're a Lakers fan. (Note to David Stern: Maybe vetoing trades is a bad idea.) To console the hometown crowd -- who says sorrows cannot be managed by buttercream frosting -- Magnolia Bakery began fashioning Lakers cupcakes, available on game days.

But since the Lakers are not the only game in town anymore, the bakery has broadened the scope of their pastry kitchen's allegiances to include the Clippers. Because if you had a choice between watching Kobe try and dribble and shoot around the large Lamar Odom-shaped hole on the floor of the Staples Center, and watching the now nearly patented alley-oops between Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, what would you do? Okay, you don't have to answer that. At least not out loud.

Either way, you can now buy cupcakes for each team. Imagine how much buttercream frosting you'll get to eat when the Lakers and Clippers play each other. (Saturday, Jan. 14, 7:30 p.m.)

Guzzle & Nosh

Frosted death: Could these cupcakes have explosive frosting?

What happens in Vegas really does stay in Vegas, at least for one Massachusetts woman. Rebecca Hains tells WCVB-TV that a TSA agent in Las Vegas confiscated her frosted cupcake because he thought the icing on it could be explosive. Hains says she was told the frosting was "gel-like" enough to constitute a security risk. If MI6 can turn bombs into cupcakes, why wouldn't terrorists try to turn cupcakes into bombs?

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Magnolia Bakery

Lakers cupcakes

Lakers fans have had a tough time of it lately, between losing Lamar Odom to the Mavericks and Chris Paul to the Clippers and Kobe Bryant to the divorce court. About the only people who've been enjoying this are the folks at TMZ, who at least get to take the Khloe Kardashian show on the road. Things may get better before the season opens on Christmas Day, but if we don't all get a big Dwight Howard-sized present under (well, beside) the tree, we can at least drown our sorrows in buttercream frosting.

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R.E.~/Flickr

Cupcakes were one of the most Googled terms of 2011

Much to our chagrin, the cupcake is a trend that just won't die: according to Google's 2011 Year-End Zeitgeist, cupcakes were one of the most popular Food and Drink search terms of the year. Other fascinating revelations about our food-related search engine habits: everyone in the world was constantly on the hunt for pizza, and Canadians sure do love making pork tenderloins.

As it has done every year since 2001, Google analyzed the billions of the terms that we users typed into its search box in 2011, filtered out spam and constructed "lists that best reflects the spirit of the times." Most of the search terms are ranked by popularity, though a few lists reflect the "fastest rising" searches - that is, the most popular queries in a particular category are compared to their popularity last year, then ranked based on their increase in search volume.

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