Electric Mixer

Celebrate commencement day with a diploma of a different sort: tiny replicas made of airy tuile cookies that are curled around a skewer and neatly tied with strips of sour candy. To make the template for the tuile scroll, use the lid of a plastic storage container.

All the features of a traditional coffee cake—tender cake base, crumbly streusel top, and simple milk-and-sugar glaze—are packed into portable, single-size portions. Try serving them for brunch, or as an after-school snack.

Some say the hummingbird cake, a Southern specialty replete with pineapple chunks, bananas, coconut, and walnuts, earned its name because each otherworldly bite makes you hum with delight. Others hold that the cake is as sweet as the sugared water used to attract the tiny birds. Adorned with dried-pineapple “flowers,” the cupcake variation makes a beautiful presentation for Mother’s Day. To give the flowers a cupped shape (shown opposite), cool them in muffin tins as described on page 323 (instead of on a wire rack, shown below).

There’s no need to perfect your piping skills to create beautiful flower-topped cupcakes. Instead, adorn them with a few fresh, edible flowers. Some of the best-tasting varieties include nasturtiums, pansies, hibiscus, snapdragons, violets, and marigolds (pictured). Use only flowers grown without pesticides, either from your own organic garden or from specialty suppliers. When making the little pound cakes, remember to cream the butter and sugar thoroughly to produce the right texture.

Pound-cake batters bake into especially rich and dense cupcakes, and the traditional recipe can be adapted in many ways to vary the flavor and texture. In this version, brown sugar replaces granulated for a hint of caramel flavor, while buttermilk makes for a more tender crumb than when made with regular milk. Nutty brown-butter icing pairs especially well with these cupcakes, but many other toppings would also work, including brown-sugar cream-cheese frosting (page 310) or whipped cream (page 316).

During Passover, the proscription of any sort of leavening (including wheat flour) can greatly limit a baker’s possibilities. Yet these cupcakes, inspired by Eastern European tortes, rely on egg whites for leavening and use ground walnuts in place of regular flour, making them a wonderful option for a seder or other gathering. They are also a good choice any time of year for those with gluten intolerance.

Inspiration for new cupcakes can come from anywhere, even a popular childhood sandwich. The creamy peanut butter frosting may be crowned with any jelly or jam flavor; strawberry is pictured, but grape or raspberry would also be delicious. For the best flavor, use natural-style peanut butter in the cupcake batter.

Be prepared for guests to buzz with delight at the sight of miniature marzipan bees alighting atop piped buttercream dahlias. Honey (of course!) flavors the cakes. Serve them at a garden reception, shower, or child’s birthday party, on their own or with the sunflower cupcakes on page 273.

Applesauce in the batter makes these cupcakes incomparably moist. Pecans add a bit of texture, but they can be omitted. The cream-cheese frosting gets a twist with the addition of brown sugar.

Share the luck of the Irish with cupcakes coated in frosting flavored with Baileys Irish Cream—a liqueur made from a blend of cream, cocoa, and Irish whiskey—and decorated with a sprig or two of real three-leaf clovers. The clovers should be removed before eating (be sure to use only pesticide-free clovers from a reliable source or your garden). You could also decorate the tops with a shamrock stencil, available at craft-supply stores (see Sources, page 342), and green sanding sugar.

You might want to throw a woodland-themed celebration just to have an excuse to make cupcakes topped with chocolate faux-bois rounds. Faux bois, or imitation woodgrain, is a favorite Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia motif; it can be applied to chocolate using a wood-graining rocker, found at paint-supply stores (see Sources, page 342, for the tool and for acetate sheets). Made with ground almonds and hazelnuts and covered with dark chocolate frosting, the cupcakes are also worth serving on their own, without any other embellishments.

Just like the Latin American cake on which they are based, these cupcakes are doused with a mixture of three milks (“tres leches”). Don’t worry: The cupcakes will absorb the liquid without becoming soggy, but you will need to use paper-lined foil liners (plain ones will not hold up after soaking). Airy whipped cream dusted with ground cinnamon is a finishing touch.

Smaller adaptations of favorite desserts, such as raspberry-swirled cheesecake, are always appealing. Everyone gets his or her own, with plenty of buttery graham-cracker crust in each bite. Drops of fresh raspberry puree are pulled through cream-cheese batter to give the cakes a marbleized look. Baking the cupcakes in a hot-water bath produces the creamiest results and prevents the batter from sinking in the oven.

For those who like their baked goods chunky and nutty, these cupcakes, inspired by the popular bar cookies, are nearly bursting with cashews, butterscotch chips, and toffee bits. If you can’t find toffee bits, chop a small chocolate-covered toffee bar, such as Skor or Heath, to use instead.

This oh-so-cute caterpillar, made by arranging fondant-covered cupcakes in a curved line, makes a memorable arrangement for a baby’s first birthday party. Here, one jumbo cupcake is used for the head and a dozen standard cupcakes make up the body; the remaining standard cupcakes can be frosted for serving alongside or decorated as instructed below and added to the caterpillar to accommodate more guests. Or you can make two caterpillars by baking the batter in two jumbo and 26 standard cups.

These single-serving delights are a staff favorite—not only because they are delectable, but also since they are easy to prepare. Instead of a cookie-crumb crust, a whole sandwich cookie serves as the base for each cheesecake. In addition, chopped cookies are mixed into the filling.

This recipe was developed as a more healthy option to serve at a baby’s or young child’s birthday party. Sweetened only with a combination of maple syrup and molasses, the moist carrot cupcakes are sure to entice children and adults alike (which is helpful, since parents and other older guests often outnumber little ones at early birthday celebrations). Paired with a tangy, mildly sweet frosting—just cream cheese and maple syrup—the cupcakes are also a better choice than most for anyone watching his or her refined sugar intake. Mini cupcakes get only a dab of frosting and a candied carrot chip, while standard cupcakes are dotted with a generous amount of frosting.

With their crackly, sunken tops, these chocolate cupcakes seem tailor-made for cradling scoops of ice cream. In place of flour and leaveners, whipped egg whites produce cakes with a light-as-air texture.

Anyone allergic to nuts, eggs, or dairy shouldn’t miss out on all the fun. Whether someone in your family has dietary restrictions or you’re making treats for a whole classroom of kids, these chocolate cupcakes should suit most needs. Divvies Bakery, which specializes in allergen-free sweets, kindly shared this recipe on The Martha Stewart Show.

Boston cream pie—which, of course, is not a pie at all—originated at the Parker House Hotel in Boston in the 1850s. When home cooks replicated the dessert, they baked the soft yellow sponge cake in pie tins (hence the name), which were more readily available than cake pans. This petite variation is at once familiar and novel.