My niece is 10 next month and loves cupcakes and brownies. Her family are a total no bake no cook family (get take sandwiches from local caterer for family get togethers) . I want to get her a cupcake starter kit.

My questions are
1. Do you know a simple tasty recipie a 10yr old could do without help from a bsaker. Or recomend a cupcake book

2. What would you put in the kit.
I am thinking
- Cupcake tin
- Cupcake liners
- Cup cake recipe
- frosting recipie
- ice crean scoop (to measure batter)
- Piping bag with a few tips
- Icing colors
- small pallet knive
- spatula

If anyone has ideas what would be essential for a beginers kit I would love to hear.

I really like this idea! Your kit sounds just about right for beginners, except that you might want to include an instruction booklet - I'd check on Amazon to see whether maybe Wilton makes a beginning cupcake book. As far as a recipe, you might want to include the basic WASC (white almond sour cream) recipe. It's a doctored cake mix which is very easy to make, comes out right every time, is delicious and has about a thousand possible variations. And then I'd add a very basic American buttercream recipe (the kind that uses powdered sugar and requires no heating). I can't tell you how much I would have loved something like this when I was a kid, even though my family wasn't kitchen-challenged!

That sounds like a great idea! I would just suggest possibly sprinkles or something to put on top of the frosting?
One thing I thought of while starting to reply... if they are very 'cooking challenged' will there be bowls and spoons for mixing and oven gloves, cups/weighing scales? If not you might need to add those!

Obviously you could add the ingredients to get her started if you wanted - cakemix/flour, chocolate chips, etc

If you live fairly close could you add a "voucher" for some lessons from you to get her started?

Wilton makes a cupcake decorating kit (local craft stores should have it). It is about $8, includes 1M tip (swirl), tip 12 (round), tip 22 (star) bismark (filling), some disposable bags and basic instruction booklet.

Thanks for all the ideas. I had forgot about bowls and spoons! Altough I had considered a cheap electric hand wisk.

Can anyone recomend an good WASC mix. I am affraid I have never used a mix or doctored mix. (I am ex-english so I grew up wityh scratch - no really many mixes there)

This is from a kid's cookbook:

Simple Vanilla Cupcake
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 24 muffin pans with cupcake paper liners. In a large bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder.

In another bowl cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add beaten eggs, vanilla and milk. Mix well.

Fill cupcake liners. Bake approximately 20 minutes or until baked through.

I did this for my daughter last year and instead of having her go scratch or doctored I just got her a cake mix and told her to follow the instructions on the box. I thought it would be easier for her to get a grasp on baking before she started playing around with everything. I also included the wilton cupcake starter kit, and being that she is my daughter, I cleared a space in my cake closet for her and labeled it. Being that this is your niece that really won't work for you, but it sounds like you have a great start and something you can continue to add to every year! This year she has informed me that she is ready to branch out and has a list of stuff she wants...I have created a monster as her list includes some of my wants!!!!

HTH and have fun with it!