This cupcake meets your mouth with a rich chocolate cherry cake on the bottom, silky almond frosting on the top, and a gooey chocolate almond filling in the middle. Finely diced maraschino cherries are heartily dotted throughout the chocolate cake, which is flavored with almond extract and maraschino cherry juice.

There was much trial and error involved in getting the cherry to come through and brighten the flavor profile, a necessary element against a filling made of almond paste and chocolate. I wanted more of a lava cake effect than a slug of fudge with the filling, which resulted in the first few batches treating the filling as more of an infusion, soaking completely into the cake. Thanks a lot, osmosis. 

The desired consistency was eventually achieved, although the infusion versions were also lovely and fudgey and no one was sad about them.  For the frosting, I used a whipped buttercream, my recipe for which created out of necessity on Hobbit Day (Frodo & Bilbo’s birthday) when I wanted to make a smooth, glossy frosting yet found my house bereft of the ever crucial confectioner’s sugar.

I found myself poring over baking blogs and recipe cards and then unexpectedly at the stove making a thick paste of flour and milk to fluff up my creamed butter and granulated sugar. The result is a smooth, poofy frosting that isn’t cloyingly sweet nor grainy and can still hold a shape.

And although it would have been easier and faster to just go to the store and buy confectioner’s sugar, this benefited me greatly in that:  1) I learned something; 2) I created my new favorite frosting and; 3) I didn’t have to put on pants. A win-win-win.

 So my new favorite frosting adorns my new favorite cupcake, a moist, fruity, nutty, fudgey cylinder of somehow-not-too-sweet heaven that fits in the palm of your hand. Unable to eat any more myself, however, I delivered mini batches to a dozen or so friends and family members for notes and votes (against another flavor which shall not be named nor discussed), after which I made this final batch, which I present for judgment.  I truly wish you could taste them!

—By Stacia Humby

There are two things in the world that I’m very allergic to: kiwis and dogs. Ironically, I happen to have a dog named Kiwi. She’s my absolute best friend. Throughout high school, I battled lots of mental health challenges, barely leaving my bed for most of my senior year. Kiwi was the one that saved me. No matter how overwhelmed I was feeling, she was always there: jumping around excited to see me. She motivated me to keep going, no matter how tough things got. I feel like I owe her the world for it. Now that I’ve moved out for college, it’s very hard for me to be away from her. Therefore, I chose to honor her through these cupcakes.

Most of the cupcakes look like her, but then one has a kiwi fruit on it to represent the importance (and irony) of her name in my life, and another one has her paw prints on it because of what they represent to me: any time she sees me, she starts jumping over a foot in the air. Her excitement never fails to put a smile on her face. Her two little paws jumping around waiting for me to come in and play with her are symbolic of the emotional support she provides, and so I had to reference them here.

I used many different techniques for these cupcakes. The first frosting batch was done using a Wilton 1M tip to make the frosting look like hair while still having a definite shape so that the fondant features would be noticeable on top of it. I then transferred the leftover frosting into a new piping bag with a Wilton 233 tip, to add more hair-like details around the nose. Before frosting them, I brought my model to the kitchen so I could frost the cupcakes in a way that would look as similar to her as possible.

Even though it was very hard to make her sit still, I wanted her to be part of the cupcake-making process, as after all, she is the whole theme of my cupcakes. I thought that getting her to not move would be the most difficult part—turns out I was very wrong. After (finally) finishing all the fondant features, I turned around to put something away, not noticing Kiwi getting ready to jump onto the table from her chair. Before I knew it, Kiwi got ahold of all the eyes, ears, noses, and tongues I spent almost an hour working on. She stepped all over them, tried to eat them, and ended up combining them all into a huge mess. While this wasn’t ideal, it was definitely the highlight of my cupcake making experience. She just wanted to help out with decorating the cupcakes! I laughed it off and remade the decorations, knowing the cupcakes were now Kiwi-approved.

—By May Cayzer

I am now in 8th grade but when I was in elementary school I attended an after school program right at my school. Many of the toys were donated and not in the best shape but we still managed to have fun. We found out a little imagination goes a long way. A good friend and I would play the game Candy Land. Well, we didn’t really play it according to the official rules.

Since a lot of the pieces were lost, we would just make up our own stories with the characters on the board. We would pretend we were Mr. Mint or Princess Lolly, and make up stories about our adventures crossing the Gumdrop Mountains or the Lollipop Forest. One story we would tell is when we were living in our favorite place on the board, the Peppermint Forest. In this story, we were taken by the evil queen and we had to fight back. Once we won the fight, we decided to live in the forest and start a bakery. These are great memories that I treasure.

—By Katy Holloway

Chocolate cupcakes filled with Six Mile Creek Vineyard’s Ithaca Red wine infused ganache and topped with a mixed berry whipped icing. I was inspired to create this cupcake because I wanted to make it local and nothing is more local than our vast variety of wines in the area! Chocolate is always a welcomed pairing to wine, so I created this indulgent cupcake.

—By Heather Williams

I adapted a pumpkin spiced latte cake from Martha Stewart into a cupcake. I thought it would be even more delicious if I added a cinnamon whip cream filling to the center. I then frosted them with a buttercream and decorated them like jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. The special challenge I overcame was using the piping bag to create the faces for the jack-o-lanterns.  I really enjoy baking with my parents and have even started my own baking business.  

—By Henry Bowes