I made these cupcakes about a month ago for Simeen’s birthday and I’ve been waiting for the right time to blog about them. As I’m on an SATC high, I figured it’s a good a time as any to debut these Couture Cupcakes.

These were inspired by the celebrant’s favorite flavor–chocolate–and her distinctive, fashionable sense of style. I thought it would be great to make sophisticated cupcakes, and nothing spells that out better than the elegance of chocolate.

These baked in no time because I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe, one I know by heart and can do in my sleep. But the decorating–craaazy! These 24 cupcakes took me till about 1:30 am (I started at 10 pm). And it’s all my fault. I wanted to try and decorate each cupcake as individual mini cakes (I ended up duplicating some I really liked) by making small, purposeful designs on the canvas of smooth chocolate ganache on top of each cupcake.

I used anything and everything in the fridge and pantry: fresh fruit (cherries, strawberries and mangoes) cut in interesting ways, chocolate tasting squares, thin English biscuits drizzled with melted chocolate, mint leaves, crushed graham crackers, nuts and all manner of chocolate candy bars that I shaved, slivered and sliced–you name it, I did it. And even if it took me that long to complete all 24 cupcakes, I must say I didn’t feel tired at all. Once I started, I just took off on a creative frenzy and rode that decorating wave till the wee hours of the morning. I guess it’s true: Time flies when you’re having fun.

The idea behind bringing all these small “cakes” together into what was hopefully an impressive spread was to translate that often-said saying in the cooking world: “We feast first with our eyes.” And since you can’t actually have a piece of these with me, I hope the pictures have you “munching” happily away.

My latest guilty obsession is visiting the Hermes website.

There are tons of interactive, crafty things to do on the site–watch a glove maker cutting his materials, look at swatches, play with tangrams and even download a yummy-sounding recipe for Mango Curry!

With all that web fun, my favorite feature is a quick paper project that allows you to download mini versions of the Hermes Kelly purse and cut them out to play with however you want. The designs are so pretty. My top pick’s the one below.

Whether you’re a craftster who wants a fun project to do, a designer looking to be inspired or a web troller crawling the net for interesting things to see on your daily surf, the Hermes home is one you should definitely visit.

I actually liked the bird in her hair.