We haven't had a chance to personally test out the recipes in Martha Stewart's Cupcakes (see marthastewart.com for daily cupcake recipes from the book) but have been ogling the beautiful photos. Contest to win the book coming very soon, sorry for the delay.
Thankfully, Slashfood tested out one recipe, and here's what they said:
We tested: Maple Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream.
According to Jennifer Aaronson, Martha Stewart Living's food and entertaining editorial director, there were many, many favorites among the book's recipe testers -- trying to pick just one cupcake to test proved an enviable challenge.
However, Aaronson's description of the Maple Cupcakes -- "if you eat them straight out of the oven, they're like the best pancakes you've ever eaten" -- was too tempting to pass up. And she was right: The cupcakes did indeed taste like pancakes that had been soaked in syrup, and that was before the addition of the maple buttercream, which was basically maple-flavored whipped butter. But in a good and wildly addictive way.
Since they were sweetened only with maple syrup, the cupcakes lacked the wild highs and crashing lows that accompany most desserts, making them, somewhat ironically, an acceptable breakfast food falling somewhere between muffin and pancake. If you ever need an excuse to eat cupcakes for breakfast, look no further.
Worth the investment: If you're a cupcake lover, absolutely. If you're not as easily seduced by cupcake charms but are looking for ideas for fun and relatively easy desserts for parties, picnics or just about any other occasion, this is still worth the money. And if you don't bake but love to fall asleep looking at pretty pictures of sweet things that other people bake, then this may be the book for you.
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--Tania