Strawberry Cake Batter Ice Cream. Photo: erincooks, Flickr.

We dare you to look at this playful picture from Flickr user erincooks and not think good thoughts. Impossible, right?

A pink twist on beloved cake-batter ice cream, this homemade version is strawberry flavored. When topped off with jumbo pastel sprinkles (our affinity for sprinkles has already been well documented), it's like a smile in a cup.

Who knew happiness was best served ice cold?

[Via Flickr]

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Chocolate cupcake. Photo: The Feisty Foodie.

Whoever conceived the idea to bake individual cakes in muffin tins is a culinary genius -- not only for giving the world the perfect sugary serving size, but also for allowing bakers at every level to mix and match flavors, colors and the most fun part of any sweet treat, sprinkles.

This chocolate-frosted chocolate cupcake was one of a delightfully diverse dozen captured by The Feisty Foodie after she received a box from New York City's Billy's Bakery. Just looking at the chocolate triple whammy -- chocolate frosting on a chocolate cupcake with chocolate sprinkles on top -- is enough to get us through a midweek slump (though a taste would be even better).

[Via The Feisty Foodie]

Sprinkles. Photo: Mighty Sweet

Few things in life make our eyes light up like good old-fashioned sprinkles.

Maybe it's a lingering six-year-old mentality, but whether on cupcakes, cookies or a Mister Softee cone, like this one that Jason from Mighty Sweet/Me So Hungry captured, we can't help but feel happy when we look at the tiny rainbow-colored candies. They're like culinary fairy dust. And we're more than willing to be taken under their spell, especially when a cherry-dipped vanilla cone is involved.

[Via Mighty Sweet/Me So Hungry]

Ah, Friday. At long last. This calls for a celebration, and, of course, a celebration isn't a celebration without a cake. Preferably one that looks like this one, which was baked, frosted, sprinkled with lovely colors and then photographed by rachel is coconut&lime. Plucked from the Flickr Slashfood pool, it's the kind of cake that makes you feel like throwing a birthday party, even if your birthday isn't until next May. It's got that luscious, thick chocolate icing that's synonymous with the optimism of childhood, while the sprinkles could make even a full ashtray look appealing. It's a cake that could inspire even a non-baker to bake (or at least open a box of cake mix). It's a cake that could cure seasonal affects disorder. It's a cake, in other words, that's worthy of a celebration of its own, regardless of the day of the week.

[Via Flickr]

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When I start to run low on inspiration for this post, or the choices become overwhelming in their deliciousness, I nearly always default to featuring a picture of a dessert. I don't know why exactly that it, although I do know that when all other fail to tempt my appetite, I can always be stirred by the presence of a nice piece of cake or a perfectly baked cookie.

These particular cookies called out to me in all their imprecise, frosted and sprinkled glory. I can imagine that eating one of these would never fail to brighten your spirits, if even just a little. Thanks to Caryn74 for adding them to our Flickr Pool.

I grew up in New England, and I'm not sure what other families did, but we never called the nighttime meal "dinner." We always called it "supper." Now I always call it dinner. I don't know when it changed, but somewhere along the line it did.

AOL Food has a fun poll where they ask you what you called certain food things in your region. Did you call it dinner or supper (there's also an "other" option, though I'm not sure what that would be). Sprinkles or Jimmies or 100s and 1000s? Sub, Hero, or Hoagie? Soda, Pop, or Tonic?

The way I am coming across cupcakes around the internet these days, you'd never think that the cupcake craze was on its wane. In fact, while I know that cupcakes started in the home kitchen, they gained popularity as little luxuries in bakeries, but now, I believe the fad has nutated back into the home kitchen.

Not content to losing business to amateur bakers, Sprinkles Cupcakes has come out with a cupcake mix. It's expensive at $14, but for a dozen cupcakes, that's still cheaper than buying 12 cupcakes from Sprinkles' case.

Food blogger Triple Creme bought a canister as gift, and reports that the canister contains the mix, the retro/modern decorations (little dots), and a recipe for frosting (which she posts). Bree tried making the frosting first and says that it was good, then later tried making the cupcakes. She says, "They were very good, and easy to make," but were "not any better than other chocolate cake recipes I have tried."

While I enjoy the flavor of a good frosting, I find that it can often overwhelm a cupcake, especially with cupcake bakeries pushing the trend towards really piling it on. Once there is more frosting than cake, it's time to cut back. As a result, I often opt for glazing cupcakes with chocolate or a powdered sugar glaze to make things simpler and maintain a good cake-to-frosting ratio. Another option is to just use a simple dusting of powdered sugar. Sprinkles don't really adhere to this type of cupcake topping, but by using a stencil, cut out of a stiff piece of cardstock or other thick paper, you can easily dress them up.

For this design, I used a simple line design and dusted the cupcakes with a mixture of cocoa powder and cinnamon, but anything that will create a color contrast will work well. If you are going to use a sticker buttercream-type frosting, you can use colored sugars with the stencil to make designs that way, but it's best to keep the frosting level and not pile it on to ensure a clear pattern.

Cakes always look better when they are decorated, even if it is with a simple "happy birthday" messaged piped across the top with some sugar gel. Sprinkles are a good option, introducing color and a sense of festivity, but for a more grown-up look, chocolate shavings are the way to go. For example, the black and white cake made by Anita, from Dessert First, only needed a few shavings to turn into a "wow" dessert. Not only are they beautiful, but the shavings are no more difficult to produce than shaking sprinkles from a little container. To make them, all you have to do is (carefully) run a potato/vegetable peeler over the edge of a chunk of chocolate, allowing the "peel" to fall onto the cake. It helps to use cold chocolate, so it will shave cleanly and not get stuck in the peeler.

Circus Animal cookies were one of my favorite types of cookie when I was in school. Not only were they sweetly addictive, but they were covered in frosting, decorated with sprinkles and shaped like animals. When combined, those traits make up a combination that is irresistible to kids. The fact that the "animals" were next-to-impossible to identify was not an issue, since my primary objective when faced with the cookies was to find the white ones with the most sprinkles and eat them first.

Adults rarely seem to buy these cookies for themselves, which is unfortunate because they're still fun to eat. Instead of going out and buying a bag, try making them at home, as Peabody from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody did. They look just as good as the originals and, since they're homemade, they probably taste even better. They'd be a great thing to take to a party because they're something that no one would expect you to be able to make at home, not to mention that they're just hard to resist in general.

Thanks to The Capital Times, I now know the difference between sprinkles and jimmies. The difference is there is no difference. Both are the little bits of candy-coated chocolate that liven up your ice cream. The real distinction seems to be one of place. As a New Yorker I call them sprinkles. Folks in Philadelphia, Boston, Michigan and Wisconsin call them jimmies.

But where does the word jimmies itself come from? As with many food origins, there's a fanciful story. In the 1930s the Just Born candy company manufactured sprinkles. Seems a guy named Jimmy ran the the company's sprinkle-making machine and the name stuck.

The article also goes on to detail how sprinkles are made as well as foreign variations. It even suggests some really novel uses for sprinkles. All I can say is cream cheese and rainbow sprinkles on a bagel is one combination this New Yorker isn't trying. And nobody's gonna fool me by calling them jimmies either.

Petit fours are classic party treats. True, they are seen more often on a plate of pastries at an elegant hotel then they are at an at-home party, but that shouldn't be the case. They are easy to make. You can see that I left one of mine only half covered in chocolate so that it would be easier to see the components.

Start with a store-bought pound cake or sponge cake. Cut it into one-inch cubes and then cut those in half lengthwise. Spread a thin layer of jam in between the cake slices and stack them back up. Melt down some white chocolate and dip the cake square into it. Place the dipped petit fours onto a sheet of wax or parchment paper to dry, topping them with sprinkles or other small decorations while they are still sticky. This is a great activity for kids because the chocolate can be melted in the microwave and they definitely won't mind getting their fingers sticky in the chocolate!

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

What could be better than a cupcake? It is an individually-sized cake serving that fits into your hand and is topped with a generous amount of gooey, sugary icing. A cupcake is not really complete until it has also been topped with a generous amount of sprinkles, and the Skinny Epicurean did not let that fact escape her when she made a batch of Magnolia Bakery's Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing. Using the recipe from the famous New York bakery's cookbook, she put out a batch of the most beautiful cupcakes I have seen. Maybe it's the lure of those rainbow sprinkles, but I wouldn't mind making a batch myself just to get a taste! She has the full recipe on her blog.