Pay it Forward Giveaway: Hello, Cupcake!

Hello Cupcake book

Happy Easter! In honor of the One who paid it all for me, I’m giving away an advance reading copy of Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack, a cooking teacher and food stylist for Gourmet, Parents, Woman’s Day, and several other publications. In this book, she’ll show you how to make an animal farm, “The Starry Night,” and even “spaghetti and meatballs” out of cupcakes.

The book doesn’t come out until April 24, but you can win a copy (a softcover with black-and-white images and almost-finalized text) here if you promise to do a charitable act. To enter, tell me what’s the most creative thing you’ve done with food in the comments section by 12:00 AM EST, Friday, March 28. A winner will be chosen randomly.

cupcake pizza
Photo: Alan Richardson

Can’t wait that long? Get started with Karen’s City Skyline Cupcake and Cupcake Pizza.

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14 Comments

  1. Cindy said,

    The most creative thing I’ve done with food is hard because we make some creative birthday cakes! The two that stand out as the strangest are my son’s adopted day cake the year he was into green army men. I made a battlefield out of frosting, chocolate and green, and placed the army guys on two different sides, in battle, with red frosting all over some of them. He thought it was great. The other one was for my daughter. We made the beach out of “sand” and blue jello for the ocean, of course gummy fish and candy rocks were involved in the beach.

    March 24, 2008 at 11:25 am

  2. Isa said,

    How cute!
    Uhmm… the most creative stuff I’ve done with food will probably sound very not creative, but I guess is icing cookies in a creative ways. I usually spend like four hours icing my Christmas (or any other holiday) cookies. I separate from the other colors spinkles, blue sprinkles for the eyes, red sprinkles for the lips and on…
    And the Pay it Foward Giveaway thing is a great idea! Thanks for the chance of participating!

    March 24, 2008 at 5:17 pm

  3. Annalise said,

    Pizza with grilled peaches, pecans, and prosciutto

    March 24, 2008 at 10:20 pm

  4. Nick said,

    The most creative thing I’ve done with food isn’t quite as impressive as the cover of that book. I randomly thought of it one day while dining at one of my favorite sushi restaurants. By combining my love of peanut butter with my love for sushi, I came up with a Peanut Butter Maki Roll. No fish mind you, but I thought it was pretty unique. Enjoy =)

    The Peanut Butter Boy

    March 24, 2008 at 10:30 pm

  5. candy said,

    hello from the Philippines 🙂 the most creative things i’ve done are probably these cupcakes http://cayndzz.multiply.com/photos/album/53/What_a_girl_wants…_Arlene_Sweet_16#2
    and these http://cayndzz.multiply.com/photos/album/48/Surprise_cuppies_fro_Ms._Faith_of_Justclayingaround_from_Ms._Maicca_Aquino#1
    … these are a far cry from the cupcake geniuses on flickr but i worked really hard on them 🙂 God bless 🙂

    March 25, 2008 at 7:37 pm

  6. Amanda said,

    I’m not very creative with food – that’s why I need the book! About the most creative thing I’ve done is pancakes with brandy soaked dried cherries. I soak the cherries over night to help them plump up and absorb the flavor, then just toss them in the pancakes. Yum!

    March 26, 2008 at 10:56 am

  7. Jessica said,

    I love to do creative things with food. I made my little sister a farm/bug cake with gummy worms and gummy fish in a pond made with blue icing that I made and swirled with green. I was only 12 years old!
    Recently, I made a breakfast for my little cousin. I created a girl out of orange halfs, peach halfs, raisins, strips of cheese for hair, and various other treats (cottage cheese, french toast, strawberrries). It was adorable, and she ate it all, even though she normally doesn’t eat breakfast food, or fruit that isn’t in syrup!

    March 26, 2008 at 8:00 pm

  8. Julie said,

    I’m entering on behalf of my mom because it would be a spectacular surprise for her.

    She’s always doing creative things with food, but the one that has left the greatest impression on me was for my ninth birthday: my mom cut and molded three cakes together to make a huge green dragon. Then she molded three bricks of ice cream together and made it into a castle. She cut chocolate bars to make the windows and used upside down ice cream cones as the triangular tops.

    Even though that was almost 20 years ago, I still remember it as the best birthday ever!

    March 27, 2008 at 11:20 am

  9. Amanda Lee said,

    Most creative thins I’ve done with food is using warm glutinous rice (aka sticky rice) as heat pads to express milk for babies. When you are breastfeeding, “warming” up the breasts helps with expressing milk (eg, if you are pumping). I didn’t have heat pads on hand at work but had glutinous rice for lunch so used some warmed up glutinous rice, wrapped in towel. Worked great!

    March 27, 2008 at 5:57 pm

  10. bleeding espresso said,

    I like to think I’m creative with food nearly every day–trying to find things that go together in new and interesting ways b/c I’m hungry and in southern Italy there’s no such thing as delivery!

    That said, I’m rather fond of my blood orange frosting on chocolate cake concoction 🙂

    March 28, 2008 at 10:02 am

  11. niko said,

    These are awesome! I forgot to tell you that on your advice I bought (for a song) some peeps at CVS and toasted them – the purple ones really looked cool as I burned a few by toasting too long. It reminded me that marshmallows are pretty good!
    Anwway, I love the pups in the cupcake feature.

    As far as being creative with food, I made baked alaska when I was 9 (parents supervision) and have since made it about 20 different ways using various cakes and things on the inside inbetween the merengue and ice cream

    April 3, 2008 at 12:12 pm

  12. Jessica said,

    YAY! I truly cannot wait for this book! You are awesome!

    April 4, 2008 at 4:20 pm

  13. DoughGirl said,

    Hmm…I’m a pretty traditional baker so probably the most creative thing I have done with food is my petit fours….a paper thin layer of citrus sponge cake, a layer of lemon curd, another paper thin layer of sponge cake, a layer of raspberry butter cream, a layer of marzipan, raspberry jam and then one more paper thin layer of sponge. Then I cover them with tinted poured fondant and decorate with royal icing daisies, lady bugs and bumblebees. They take forever to make but are so worth it!

    April 5, 2008 at 5:01 pm

  14. Shirley Wong said,

    I made a mash cone…

    Mash potatoes, sausages and peas in an ice cream cone.

    It was yum!

    April 11, 2008 at 6:52 pm