At first, this colorful cupcake picture seems to contain nine treats. The frosting colors and neat arrangement make the answer look obvious, but there are extra cupcakes tucked into the gaps.
How many cupcakes can you count?
The answer is 12 cupcakes. There are nine prominent cupcakes arranged in three rows, plus three smaller ones partly hidden behind the large treats.
Where are the hidden cupcakes?
Look between the large cupcakes near the top, toward the left side of the middle group, and near the lower middle area. The extra miniature cupcakes can be overlooked when your eyes focus only on the nine full-size ones.
Visual counting puzzles reward a slightly different strategy from ordinary counting. Rather than moving straight from left to right across only the obvious objects, scan the empty spaces and the edges of overlapping objects. That is often where the extras are hiding.
If you found just nine, take a second look. If you spotted all 12 immediately, challenge someone else to do it in ten seconds. The answer is easier to verify once you know what to look for.
