Though less devastating than banana-cream pies, cupcakes still provide effective suppressive fire during fancy dinner-party food fights attended by Larry, Curly, and/or Moe. Today's Groupon lets you lock and load with this smile-inducing ammunition: for $8, you get a half-dozen cupcakes at Little Cakes Cupcake Kitchen in Vista ($16.95 value). This family-owned bakery rolls out fresh batches of icing-crowned cupcakes daily for the satisfaction of sweet-toothed whims and wiles. Pint-sized pastries are constructed from fresh, high-quality ingredients and dressed in a vogue Italian buttercream, a lighter, silkier alternative to outdated toppers such as felt or tongue-prickling burlap. Chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet varieties are available every day, while rotating feature flavors are announced each morning on their Facebook page. Frequent confectionary guest stars include the coconut and chocolate-marbled norman or the maple-infused pancakes and bacon, which pushes past the sweet event horizon into an unchartered dimension of breakfast space-time.

Reviews

Yelpers give Little Cakes Cupcake Kitchen a near-perfect 4.5-star average, and Little Cakes has more than 525 Facebook fans:

• You can tell when a shop uses real ingredients (chunks of real apple, really high quality chocolate, and real ginger). All four were delicious! The cake was moist, the frosting complemented the cake and wasn't overpowering. In fact, I can't even pick a favorite out of the four, they were all so good in their own way. – Gabrielle G., Yelp
• Tasty little cakes they've got. What is it that they do to their icing that makes it so soft, melty, and lickable?! God, it rules so much. – Cindy K., Yelp