Recent Posts

Sunday, September 20, 2009

SHOWSTOPPERS!




If I were a man, I wouldn't wear anything else but the creations of British Fashion Designer, Sir Paul Smith. His designs encompass the classic and the quirky, all beautiful pieces that afford a fashionably confident guy a sense of fun, without sacrificing a sense of style.

See below the Paul Smith Men's Multi-Stripe sock that inspired the cupcakes for Sir Paul Smith's namesake in Toronto: Paul Edward Smith who celebrated his birthday with friends on September 19th.




Underneath the beautiful exterior are rich flavours: Double Decadence (Chocolate Cake + Dark Chocolate Ganache) and what we fondly call Maddie (Madagascar: Vanilla Nectar Cake + Dark Chocolate Ganache). As we were featuring our organic fair trade chocolate in this particular project, we didn't top Maddie with her partner,Vanilla Bean Frosting.

Don't even ask how long it took to fashion these couture cupcakes from design concept to execution to placing them at the party venue to be oohed and aahhed over. It hurts me to remember! But seriously, lots of planning and time went into making these babies, as well as labour and most of all, L-O-V-E.

Cupcaketionery Cupcake Stylists rock!!!

Wouldn't you love to have these cupcakes on your birthday?

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Fair Trade Series




Many of the historical and current trading relationships between producers in the global South and consumers in the global North (the First World, or industrialized countries) have been and continue to be characterized by exploitation of Southern producers. According to David Ransom writing in the New Internationalist magazine, Ever since industrial trading empires began, in the seventeenth century, natural resources and wealth have been extracted from the South and built up in the North. There’s nothing very different about globalization today—except that the empires are run not by nations but by corporations. They fix rules so that ‘free trade’ is a game only they can play on what they call a “level playing field”—which in reality slopes ever-more steeply in their favour. Fair Traders, North and South, are trying to turn the process around.

To take cocoa as an example, 43% of the world’s cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast region of West Africa. There have been ongoing reports of child slavery on cocoa plantations in this region. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of West African children (between the ages of 9 and 12) work in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms. Many of these children work because the price paid for conventional, non-Fair Trade Certified cocoa is so low that farmers cannot afford to send their children to school. Cocoa farmers live in such poverty compared to Canadians that many have never even tasted the finished product of their labour – chocolate.

Many other consumer goods that we in the global North take for granted—for instance, coffee, sugar, tea, bananas, rice, flowers, wine, sports balls and cotton—involve similar stories of exploitation, poverty, and hardship experienced by Southern farmers and labourers. As a result of many factors, which range from historical trade inequities and the influence of international economic institutions like the World Bank and the IMF to global fluctuations in prices for commodities like coffee and cocoa beans, farmers and workers in the global South experience poverty and hardship.

Stay tuned for Part II...


(Excerpt from "What In the World Is Fair Trade?" from Cocoa Camino: http://www.cocoacamino.com/en/cocoa_educate.php written by Clay McLeod.)

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The Perfect Boob Job

A dozen boob cupcakes packaged in two white window boxes tied with black satin ribbons, and finished with Cupcaketionery gift tags - a perfect presentation for such delectable beauties, folks! You are not imagining twins, I mean, things! These are the boob cupcakes we made especially customized for a client's bachelor party!



Tuesday, September 1, 2009

SPICE GIRLS




We use spice in our cupcakes. They not only make cupcakes taste better, they're actually good for you. They're antioxidants, to say the least. So the next time someone accuses you of pigging out while you're devouring a 6-pack of our Chai Latte Cupcakes, tell them to go away and stop eating factory-farmed animals. You're far too busy boosting your cognitive function, and liberating yourself from dependency on animals and animal products, and healing the environment! In short, you're doing something important, like, changing yourself, and the world, one cupcake at a time! Cupcaketionery- style!


Can Spices Improve Your Brain Power?
By Dr. David Eifrig Jr.

Try these simple spices in your food regularly. Just maybe we can avoid the predicament (memoryloss) altogether.

One spice, Cinnamon powder or sticks, is especially powerful. It affects several physiologic functions of the body. Cinnamon kills bacteria and yeasts that cause stomach ulcers and urinary-tract infections, and even helps the body regulate blood sugar. But for me, the most important benefit of its consumption is increased brainpower. A few years ago, it was discovered that just the smell of cinnamon could improve cognitive function. In that study, it was true that either tasting (technically it was chewing) or smelling cinnamon worked to improve brainpower.

From http://www.morethanalive.com/

Stay tuned for our Spice and Ingredient Benefits Series!