It takes a really active, often bizarre imagination to make extraordinary cupcakes and Karen Tack and Alan Richardson have taken it to a new level.
Imagine a dozen cupcakes decorated to look like sunflowers, sleeping babies or chocolate panda bears. That's just a sample of what you get in their book "Hello Cupcake!" (Houghton Mifflin).
Tack, a chef and food stylist for such august American magazines as Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Good Housekeeping and Family Circle, to name a few, has been working with Richardson, a noted food photographer, for 17 years.
Together, they have tackled such creative tasks as "doing a layer cake that was made to look like a farm with a tractor pulling a slice out of the cake," says Richardson in an interview.
At the time, he recalls, any decorating or photography the pair did for magazines was with cookies and cakes.
"About nine years ago we started suggesting to the editors they should do cupcakes because they are funny, small and are more playful than cakes," he says. "As well, they were becoming trendy with cupcake shops opening up all over the place."
In Canada, cupcake shops are in vogue as well. Check online to locate them in your area.
In addition, he adds, cupcakes "suit all ages, are easy to plan because you know how many portions you have and they are not an insurmountable task."
Tack and Richardson are obviously so creative together that "we got into a competition with one another to see who could come up with the more ridiculous and original cupcake."
"Hello Cupcake" shows its readers how to decorate in fun and easy ways using candies and other ingredients from the grocery store.
"You don't have to have baking skills or fancy pastry equipment," says Richardson.
The decorated cupcakes can be funny, scary or sophisticated masterpieces using a self-sealing plastic bag, a can of frosting, purchased cupcake batter and common candies and snack items.
Here are several suggestions found in the book.
-Plant candy vegetables on cupcakes with "earth" made from crumbled Oreo cookies for a garden party.
-Pastel petits fours are so pretty they can be a centrepiece at a baby or bridal shower or wedding anniversary.
-For Christmas the book features cupcake wreaths, snowmen and nutcrackers.
Tack and Richardson have no intention of taking their talents for creating cupcakes into the retail world.
"We just love working out the ideas and keeping it at a creative level," he says.
To learn more about this colourful and entertaining book, visit www.hellocupcakebook.com.
