emmalish

I posted this in Daily Sweets as well, but then figured they really should be in this thread as it's what got me thinking about making cupcakes in the first place. I can't remember the last time I made them. I usually make muffins or full cakes, but you guys inspired me. I had to go out and buy papers and a mini cupcake pan (which is another story). I also really wanted to top them with fondant flowers. I've never made them before so had to buy the cutters and fondant too, but had a lot of fun doing this! I just used some pre-made Wilton's rolled fondant for these... For the cupcakes, I was going to make the chocolate cupcakes from Elinor Klivans' Cupcakes!, but didn't have any sour cream and was too lazy to go buy some. So I did some googling and found the Magnolia recipe which calls for buttermilk – which I also didn't have, but I do have lemons and milk. The recipe makes 2 dozen. I halved that, but I still got a full 2 dozen minis and 10 full-size cupcakes from that. Because it was so hot this weekend, the butter was too soft and this mixed up really light and fluffy. They baked beautifully with a lovely dome... and then fell. Oh well. Serves me right for baking when it's so hot. I just made a butter & sugar buttercream. I would have rather done an Italian buttercream, but it was too hot and I didn't want to use the stove any more.

Those are gorgeous. I love Rosle, but I can really only afford a few smaller pieces (love my $80 can opener!)

I made Kerry's caramels (again! I swear I'm addicted). I added fleur de sel to make them salted, and topped them with a bit more. Again, it was way too hot this weekend to be doing this, but... yum. I'd also decided to make some cupcakes, and I really wanted to top them with fondant flowers. I've never made them before, but had a lot of fun doing this! I just used some pre-made Wilton's rolled fondant for these... For the cupcakes, I was going to make the chocolate cupcakes from Elinor Klivans' Cupcakes!, but didn't have any sour cream and was too lazy to go buy some. So I did some googling and found the Magnolia recipe which calls for buttermilk – which I also didn't have, but I do have lemons and milk. The recipe makes 2 dozen. I halved that, but I still got a full 2 dozen minis and 10 full-size cupcakes from that. Again, because it's so warm right now, the butter was too soft and this mixed up really light and fluffy. They baked beautifully with a lovely dome... and then fell. Oh well. Serves me right for baking when it's so hot. I just made a butter & sugar buttercream. I would have rather done an Italian buttercream, but I'd had enough of cooking things.

I've been getting some inspiration online and have decided I need to bake some cupcakes this weekend. I really want to make minis, but didn't have a mini muffin pan. So after work today I hit a couple of my favourite cook shops. At the first stop, the only ones they had were super cheap light-weight no-name things. Pass. So off to the second store. They had three options. Chicago Metallic, DoughMakers, and Cuisinart. I have a few pieces of each of these lines and am happy with the results from all of them. My dilemma, however, is that no two were alike. The Chicago Metallic appears to be the same diameter as a standard muffin, but much shallower. The Cuisinart is about the same size as a Two-Bite Brownie (everyone know those?), and the DoughMakers is about twice that size. Yet they were all labelled "Mini". From what I've seen, all of the standard tins are the same size, and the jumbos look the same too. Why the confusion with minis? What size do you guys consider to be mini? (for anyone curious, I bought both the Cuisinart and the DoughMakers, so I'd have variety)

That's good to know, thank you! I love the caramely-ness of this recipe, but I'd like to try some flavoured ones as well.

I drove by there a few days ago and it looks like it's pretty close to opening. I live between the two, but closer to this new one. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Hee! Yeah, I'm an occasional perfectionist too. Oh, and I hope my "Really?" didn't come across as mocking your "Really?" It didn't even occur to me until I just re-read the post. Whoops. It was an honest "Really?"

Really? Trust me, I'm no expert, but every reference I've found that has mentioned heat, has specified a low temperature. This is from the eGCI Confectionary 101...

I signed up for Smart Flix and ordered all three of these DVDs. I just got and watched the 3rd in the series "Brittle & More". It's great for a newbie like me to see someone demonstrating the techniques I've read about, but based on this DVD I wouldn't recommend this series in lieu of reference books. They seem to assume that people watching the videos already have some knowledge of the subject. For example, when they demonstrated caramel making, there was no mention made of whether to use low or high heat, or what affect that would have on the final product – so one would already need to know that caramel needs to heat slowly. There's also no mention of how long different steps should take. The syrup he was heating to make a peanut brittle appeared to reach thread stage in a matter of seconds. It's basically a demonstration with very little explanation of what's happening or how long it takes. A great companion piece to a good reference book, but not a substitute. Oh, and also, while the CIA site says the DVD is over 2hrs long, it's a half hour at most. Maybe it's 2 hours for the entire set of 3?

Hi Kerry (and anyone else) – I just watched the CIA dvd Brittles & More. Among other things, Peter Greweling makes a caramel. Rather than heating the sugars first, as you instruct, and then adding the fats and re-heating, he adds everything at once (except the butter which is added at 110°C) and heats to about 118°C. His caramel didn't appear to have nearly the same richness of colour as yours, and according to the dvd, sets up in just 20 minutes. I've only ever tried your recipe, but I have to say that in most of the other recipes I've seen, online and in books, everything goes in the pot at once as Greweling does. What's your opinion of this method compared to yours? Has anyone else tried both?

Thanks, Mitch!

Me too! I went to a barbeque on the weekend and that would've been perfect! Which is not to say I can't make it this weekend...

weinoo, that looks amazing. The ice cream looks just perfectly creamy. Where did you get the recipe for the sorbet?

Gorgeous, Ted. What kind of fruit & sauce? Apple? Pear? Some sort of red berry?

Thanks Kerry. I swear, you just lurk in this thread waiting to answer any question. You're wearing a superhero cape right now, aren't you?

Lots of nice stuff there too. No online store? Bummer...

Wow, Glenrup-Revere has a lot of nice stuff. Kerry, have you bought from them? Was there any hassle shipping to Canada?

Rob, that's beautiful! I'm not sure I'd like that flavour combination, but with a presentation like that I'd just have to give it a try.

I've only made caramels a few times so far, but they've never lasted beyond 2 weeks, so I don't know what shelf life would be like. I've only used Kerry's recipe so far and love it so much I see no reason to try any other. This isn't so much a trouble-shooting problem as it is a question – what's the best way to infuse flavours in caramel? If I wanted a raspberry caramel, for example, would I add a purée? Or would I be better off adding raspberry flavouring? I'd rather keep it natural if possible. Also, at what point would the flavour be added? I'm assuming flavoured oil would be added at the end in lieu of vanilla, but when would purée be added? With the dairy? And how would it affect the balance of the recipe? Or would the liquid merely evaporate during the cooking process and not throw off the balance at all... okay, maybe this is trouble-shooting... I know I've seen these questions asked before, but I don't recall seeing an answer that made sense to me.

Well, I just "tested" (yum) one of each to see if there was a difference in the thickness of the chocolate, and they're pretty much the same. If anything, I think the caramel might be a wee bit thicker on top. No worry. These are just for me, so I don't mind the way they look. I'll try dipping the pretzels again some day when it's NOT ridiculously hot and see if that makes any difference (I think it was 26° or 27°C in my kitchen this weekend). I'd love to drizzle them with caramel first, and then dip them next time.

tammy, you may be right. The coating on the pretzels may be thicker than on the caramels. They're just store-bought mini-pretzels, not home-made, no nuts or anything. But the holes in the knots are quite small and wanted to hold onto more chocolate. I'll do a better comparison later (on my way to work now). The caramels had been made the day before, so they should have been the same temperature as the pretzels, both of which were sitting out at room temperature (which was quite warm). And yeah, I stirred the chocolate regularly throughout the entire process, and kept an eye on the temperature. I did have to reheat it a few times both while I was dipping the caramels and after I moved on to the pretzels. As far as I could tell, the chocolate stayed in temper the entire time. I'm inclined to blame a lot of it on the heat here this weekend. My apartment was way too warm to be trying this, but I had a craving for those caramels (so really, it's Kerry's fault).

I made Kerry's caramel recipe from eGCI this weekend, and dipped them in dark chocolate today. I used the leftover chocolate to dip some pretzels. I don't know what I was thinking, though. It's SO hot here this weekend, making the caramel almost melted me, and now it's taking forever for the dipped chocolates & pretzels to set up. ...huh... okay, I'm a little confused by the results of my dipped pretzels. It's the first time I've ever tried this, so maybe there's some trick I'm not familiar with? I dipped the caramels, and immediately after I finished those, I started dipping the pretzels. Everything seemed fine, until the chocolate had a chance to set and I could see that all the caramels were coated with a beautiful glossy apparently perfectly tempered chocolate... and all the pretzels are grey with bloom. It's like night and day – when I switched from one to the other, I continued placing them in order on the same silpat sheet, and the difference is drastic. And they're all like that. And then, just to make it a little more interesting, after I finished dipping the pretzels, I poured the excess chocolate onto a piece of parchment to reuse. It set up beautifully. Any ideas?

Lots of great info, thanks! I bought some of the Mycryo a couple months ago, but haven't had a chance to try it yet. I'm sure I'll have it beyond the best before date, so the temperature info is a great help.

I've got another of the banana bundt cakes in the oven right now. I went a little crazy with the recipe this time, adding not only pecans and chocolate chips, but also coconut and frozen cranberries. The extra ingredients boosted the volume enough to make the cake and an additional dozen cupcakes. I just had one of the cupcakes, and the combination works beautifully. And as I was putting the ingredients together, I realized I couldn't remember measuring out the 2nd cup of sugar when I made this recipe last weekend. I'm pretty sure I only used 1c. And it was still a great cake. I took it to work with me and everyone loved it. Which makes me wonder, yet again, why people have such trouble baking, when I can screw up like that and still have a great result.

I just downloaded this. Tell Julia she's brilliant! thank you!