Well, at least my little brother and my family! My brother and sister-in-law are Cherry Coke addicts, as am I! So when I found this recipe I knew I had to make it for his birthday.

I tweaked it some, though, feeling that it needed to be more cherry-ish. I used Cherry Coke instead of regular Coke – I mean, they are Cherry Coke cupcakes! – and upped the maraschino cherry juice to a couple teaspoons instead of just 1/4 teaspoon. For the cocoa powder I used a combination of regular and dark chocolate. The cake – and maybe this is from the Coke? – was really moist and chocolatey. But I confess it didn’t really taste like Coke. The cherry flavor was noticeable, though. Each cupcake is supposed to get four to five maraschino cherries stuffed into it, but I limited that to two apiece. Four to five just seemed like too many. Next time (and there will definitely be a next time!) I might do three …

The frosting is simply whipped cream, so these are almost like Cherry Coke float cupcakes! I added a couple teaspoons of maraschino cherry juice to the whipping cream as well. It turned a lovely shade of pink, perhaps not terribly manly but nice for spring. And it tasted really good. The bowl and beaters were licked clean! Once frosted, each cake gets a cherry on top, and for extra birthday flair, I sprinkled them with red edible glitter. YUM!

My father-in-law celebrated his birthday (in 2008) at the Mariner’s game with a group of family and friends. The stadium allows outside food, so I offered to make mini-cupcakes for the event.

I couldn’t choose between coconut and lemon (can you tell I’m a fan of lemon??!), so I made both …

These are lemon cakes with lemon frosting. And they had a surprise inside: a tiny squirt of raspberry jam!

The coconut version was ALL coconut: cake, frosting, and topped with more coconut.

They were all gone by the 7th inning stretch!

Is it an ice cream cone? Nope! Turns out you can actually bake cake batter in a flat-bottomed ice cream cone. These cupcakes are a standard yellow cake with a tasty orange buttercream and were made for a summer barbecue at a friend’s house.

It’s fun to pile the buttercream high and decorate with colorful sprinkles so they look just like real ice cream cones!

You can make these fun treats with any of your favorite cake recipes. Just fill the ice cream cone approximately halfway up the “cup” part of the cone. Then use your favorite buttercream, colored a bright ice cream color!

Transportation is tricky business, though! I cut holes in cardboard, layered it over a mini-muffin tin, inserted the cones, and carried them VERY carefully!