Book excerpt: A uniquely idiosyncratic New York establishment, The Cupcake Cafe is a cozy mecca for lovers of all kinds of delicious homemade baked goods, including muffins, scones, coffee cakes, waffles, pies, sticky buns, and doughnuts. But it is best known for its fanciful cakes and cupcakes, elaborately decorated with homemade butter cream frosting. From many-tiered wedding cakes to tiny cupcakes covered in fresh fields of flowers, to sheet cakes embellished in vivid colors with virtually any scene you can describe or imagine, The Cupcake Cafe's baked goods are renowned for tasting even better than they look. In "The Cupcake Cafe Cookbook, Ann Warren shares all her secrets, teaching the home cook not only how to bake all of the Cafe's ambrosial products, but also how to decorate with butter cream in her own wildly fanciful style. Photographs in color and black-and-white, as well as detailed instructions for mixing colors, shaping flowers, and creating balance, bring even the most elaborate decorating techniques well within the ability of any home baker. Writing not only with incomparable expertise, but also with the irreverence and wit that characterize everything she does, Ann Warren has re-created the entire unique Cupcake Cafe experience in book form.