There's some crucial information you need to know about me before hearing about the cupcakes I baked yesterday:
First of all, I love "fake" food. Love probably does not even begin to describe how much I enjoy it. The one food I could eat for every meal, every single day, for the rest of my life is Kraft macaroni & cheese. Kraft probably would have sponsored me as a young child if they knew how much mac & cheese I would go on to consume. Despite this, when I bake, I use only "real" ingredients and the highest quality of them I can find.
Second, in line with my first point, maraschino cherries are my favorite fruit. In fact, there was a time in my life where they were the only "fruit" I would eat. Probably one of the things that made me most sad about growing up was losing the ability to order Shirley Temples at restaurants without looking ridiculous. Not that that's stopped me from doing so; I usually just blush the color of the drink when ordering them.
Third, illustrations of cupcakes with cherries are a personal pet peeve of mine. When I was commissioning my logo, one of my few criteria was that the image of the cupcake did not have a cherry on it. Realistically, how often do you see cupcakes with a cherry on them?