Salted Beer Caramels

 

As good as it sounds. I imagine this is how the butter beer in Harry Potter actually tastes. Super creamy, a nice beer taste, and the salt really puts it over. Be generous so that each bit will have a little bit of salt on it. 

Ingredients

2 cups brown sugar

2 sticks butter

1 cup corn syrup

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 bottle of Ale (I used Anchor Steam's Brown Ale)

Sea Salt

Directions

Line a 9x13 pan lined with parchment paper.

Melt butter and brown sugar together in medium saucepan over medium heat.

Slowly add beer, syrup then milk while stirring constantly.

Cook caramels to 240°F. Do not stop stirring once milk is added or caramels will scorch.

Once you reach 240°F, take mixture off of heat and stir in vanilla extract.

Pour mixture into pan.

Sprinkle sea salt on top of hot caramels. Let caramels set for a few hours until firm enough to cut.

Wrap in wax paper or caramel wraps. 

They will keep for a couple weeks at least. They would probably work well with something like Guinness or another kind of stout. St. Patrick's Day is coming!

Homemade Snickers Bars

Happy day after Halloween!

I'm so negligent. This will be my second post all year and it's officially November. I have so many things I could share, but I've landed on the urge to post this snickers bar recipe in honor of Halloween. I have a pretty serious soft spot for snickers. While I'm not your avid peanut butter + chocolate consumer, there is something satisfying about the combo, and sometimes it just gets me through the afternoon to snack on a few bite size snickers.

I'm constantly desiring to make things from "scratch" as much as possible, mostly for the challenge, but also partially to play the "then I know what all goes into it" card.

So what makes a snickers? Nougat with peanuts, chewy caramel, and chocolate coating. The recipes I found online for these snickers "bars" were following the same formula of creating the bars in these layers, though the one I replicated did incorporate peanut butter into the chocolate layer, making it too soft to count as a coating (hence the bar). My thoughts on the outcome are that these were very tasty (who is going to complain about chocolate, peanut butter and caramel though really?) but they were not quite snickers. Perhaps there is something special about the taste of partially hydrogenated soybean oil that homemade just can't compete with. Or perhaps I just need to experiment more.

I took the recipe from Brown Eyed Baker and added 2 extra homemade steps to it: homemade marshmallow fluff and caramel sauce.

Chocolate layers:
2 ½ cups chocolate chips
½ c creamy peanut butter

Make your own marshmallow fluff:
1 ½ envelopes gelatin
¼ c cold water
1 c sugar
¼ c water
¼ corn syrup
dash salt
½ tsp vanilla

Nougat layer:
4 tbs butter
1 c sugar
¼ c evaporated milk
1½ c marshmallow fluff
¼ c creamy peanut butter
1½ c salted peanuts, roughly chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract

Caramel Sauce*:
½ c sugar
3 tbs butter
¼ cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp salt

1. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan. Line with parchment paper, then grease the parchment paper; set aside.

2. Make caramel sauce: *So, in this recipe I just made a pretty standard salted caramel sauce, kind of like what you'd pour over ice cream or decorate cupcakes with. It's a bit runny, and I think a caramel chew would be better served in this recipe. Nobody complained about the flavor, but leaving these bars out at room temperature led to a lot of caramel leakage. I've made chewy caramels before, so not sure why I didn't think through to make it for this recipe instead of the sauce. If you make these, I recommend this recipe. The major difference in making chews versus sauce is a) you use corn syrup and b) once you've incorporated your fat (butter and cream) you bring it back up to a soft ball temperature. If you like your caramel soft, then by all means follow these tried and true instructions for making caramel sauce (but add a dash of salt in at the end). Let it cool while you continue on to the other steps.

3. Make the Chocolate Layer: Melt together the chocolate chips and peanut butter in the microwave on until completely smooth and melted, stirring every 20-30 seconds (or do it over a double boiler). Pour about half of it into the prepared baking dish and smooth into an even layer. Refrigerate until cool and hard, about 30 minutes. Set aside the remaining chocolate for last step.

4. To make the fluff, in the bowl of a stand mixer (set with whisk attachment), pour in ¼ cup cold water and sprinkle with gelatin and let sit for at least 5 minutes while you prepare the syrup. Meanwhile, in a small sauce pan, heat sugar, remaining ¼ cup water, salt and corn syrup on medium heat stirring until dissolved. Once it starts boiling, stop stirring and bring it to 240˚. Turn stand mixer on low and carefully pour hot syrup down the side of the bowl. Once all syrup is in the bowl, turn speed all the way up and let it go for for 5-8 minutes until fluffy. Whisk in vanilla until incorporated and then set aside (or better yet, pour mixture into a lightly greased bowl so it's easier to get out when you're ready to use it in the next step).

5. Make the Nougat: Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar and evaporated milk, stirring until dissolved, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Milk on the bottom of the pan will start to brown slightly, so be sure to not let it get too dark. Remove the pan from heat and add the marshmallow fluff, peanut butter, and vanilla extract, stirring until completely smooth. Fold in the peanuts, then pour over the bottom chocolate layer. Refrigerate this layer until cool, about 30 minutes.

6. Once your nougat is set, pour the caramel sauce (or chewy caramel) over it and let it set about 30 minutes.

7. Once the caramel layer is cool, you'll put the final layer of chocolate peanut butter on and let it set up in the fridge for at least an hour before serving. If you chocolate mixture seized up in all this time between making it in step 3, just pop back in the microwave 10 seconds at a time, stirring between to get it back to a spreadable consistency.

Brown eyed baker says that the consistency is great at room temperature, but if your house is a little warm, the chocolate gets melty, so might have to store in the fridge. Since I used the runny caramel sauce, I've just been keeping them in the fridge until ready to serve.

Happy baking!

Some festive cupcakes I made for Halloween this year: Pumpkin cupcakes with a honey flavored cream cheese frosting decorated like candy corn. 

Summer Basket + Caramel Corn-on-the-Cob

Welcome to Summer! I made another seasonal basket for the occasion. It was filled with orange 'n' cream cake pops, watermelon shaped sugar cookies, and my favorite: caramel corn-on-the-cob baggies.

Once you've made the caramel popcorn (recipe to follow), to package them, I had some small narrow bags that I filled a little bit of popcorn into, then twist-tied off at the top. I then took a strip of yellow tissue paper and another, larger strip of green tissue paper and wrapped them around the baggies, covering the backs, but leaving the fronts exposed, and twisting them at the top to look like little ears of corn. I tied them off with a little bow, but there might be a more elegant solution to keep the corn look about them. 

Caramel Popcorn with Sea Salt

Taken from Martha Stewart

- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

- 1/3 cup popcorn kernels

- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

- 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar

- 1/2 cup light corn syrup

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 teaspoon vanilla

- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

- Vegetable-oil cooking spray

- 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

Coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add popcorn, and cover. Cook, shaking pot frequently, until corn has finished popping. Transfer to a large bowl. (Or use a whirly pop. Amazing!)

Heat butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved and butter has melted. Clip a candy thermometer to side of pan, and cook until mixture reaches 290˚. Remove from heat, and stir in vanilla and baking soda.

Drizzle syrup evenly over popcorn, and toss to coat (this is harder than it sounds as you have to race the clock before the candy hardens. I found it was great to have a friend help me - I poured and she tossed with 2 large spoons. Be careful not to touch the molten liquid candy, too). Spread popcorn on prepared baking sheet, and sprinkle with sea salt. Let cool completely, then separate popcorn into pieces. Popcorn can be stored in airtight containers for up to 3 days (how could it even last 3 days? The stuff is so addicting!).

Salted Caramel Macarons

So my friend Carol and I have had 2 macaron bake dates in the last month or so. We both have been experimenting with them on our own, and were getting pretty confident that we had them mastered. So we decided to put our baking caps on and work together on a couple flavors. 

Well nothing did work out quite right that first evening. Every batch we made was gooey, and stuck to the bottom of our pans. Even our fillings were failing that night. We were both really sad after that, thinking we might have to revert back to the unscientific macaron wives' tales to have success. After a few days, Carol figured out that it was actually her oven that was off by about 50˚.  What a relief! Maybe we weren't failures after all! 

But we had to be sure, so we set up another bake date to try again. We definitely did better that time, after Carol got a thermometer for in her oven to make sure it was at the right setting. We made chocolate macarons sprinkled with smoked sea salt and filled with salted caramel buttercream. Those came out great. We also made chai spiced ones, but apparently the addition of the chai powder to the macaron shells was a bad combo, as they did not rise or bake well (we suspect the non dairy creamer in the powder might have been the culprit, as just adding the spices of chai would have probably been fine). 

What's even better is that Carol posted the recipe online already, so all I need to do is link to it! Wee. She took an awesome photo too. As well, we tried to simply whip the caramel so it had more body and could stand alone as the macaron filling, but it was still too thin, so decided to do buttercream instead. Can't go wrong with macarons with buttercream, really. Looked pretty when we were whipping the caramel though. 

As well, she found a site that actually detailed more scientific reasoning for all of the wacky wives' tale rumors we'd been reading up on, so were relieved that some of the tricks actually had good reasons behind them. If you're into macaron baking, I recommend checking it out just so you know the why's of how to do things. 

Banana Caramel Cake in Phyllo Cups

In January this year, I was challenged to make a cupcake combining the 3 flavors of banana, caramel and phyllo dough. Certainly not a bad combo of flavors to be coerced into working with. The reason for the delay being the challenger of this flavor combo is not someone I see often, so am only now getting the opportunity to accept the request.

On another side note of importance, I have succumbed to the pressures of the many food bloggers out there, all with their pretty food pictures, and finally invested in a DSLR. And if the absolute joy in I felt in taking this evening's pictures is evidence, I think it may have been a good decision. If you're keeping tabs, it is a Canon Rebel T2i. I'd take a picture of it, but that would not only be tricky, requiring mirrors or something, but also a little "chicken or the egg" for me.

Anyway, back to cupcakes. Aside from them looking rather dashing, I wasn't wrong about the flavor combo being delectable. I tried a new banana cupcake batter this time (which, oh by the way has rum in it - yum), and whipped up some homemade caramel sauce for the occasion. Which if I haven't mentioned before, is pretty freaking easy and completely delicious, so why would you ever bother buying it?

Caramel Sauce
I've tried many variations of this before, and think I've landed on my favorite. Taken mostly from Simply Recipes (frankly, you might as well check out her instructions because she goes into way more detail and includes safety tips - I just leave you to your own devices!):

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 tbs butter, but into pieces
• 1/2 cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

First off, do have all your ingredients ready to go before you start. In a heavy 2-3 quart pot, melt sugar over low to medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Once sugar has melted, it will be begin to darken into an amber color. This is where you get to choose how rich you want your sauce. Be careful to not let it burn though. Once it reaches the optimal caramel color, removed from heat and add in butter. It will foam up a bit. Whisk until smoother, then add in cream. This will really bubble up, and seize. Just work through it and keep whisking until it comes together. Let cool for a bit, then transfer to a glass jar or container to continue cooling.

Phyllo Cups
Melt 1/2 cup of butter in a small dish. Unroll one log of phyllo dough, placing one sheet upon a work surface (cutting board or cookie sheet will do), and brushing it all over with some of the melted butter. Add another sheet on top, and repeat the process so that you have about 5-6 layers of phyllo. Cut dough into squares that are roughly 2-3 inches wider than the cavities of a muffin tin. Or bigger, or smaller, or wider, or longer - whatever you think will look good. mold each square patch of phyllo into the cavities of every other hole of the muffin tin. Mine was overlapping a bit, so I didn't want to have issues with the phyllo getting stuck in cake batter or something like that, so just kept the spacing between them to be safe. I did have to repeat with another batch of 6 sheets of phyllo, but didn't end up using the entire log of dough.

Once the tins are prepped (I made 3 tins based on the amount of batter and layout mentioned above), make cupcake batter.

Banana Cupcakes
Stolen almost completely from Baking Obsession
2 cups flour

¾ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups banana puree (about 3 large bananas)
½ cup sour cream (I forgot to buy some, so used milk with a 1/2 tsp of white vinegar mixed in)
2 tbsp dark rum
1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
½ cup butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350˚

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, soda, powder and salt and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together sour cream (or milk), rum and vanilla and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter until smooth. Add in both sugars and beat until creamy, scraping down sides of the bowl at least once. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated.

In batches, mix in 1/3 flour mixture, then 1/2 liquid, flour, then liquid then flour until incorporated. Fold in banana puree.

Using a 1/4 cup measure, fill phyllo cups with dough and bake for 20 minutes. Phyllo should get nice a crispy in that time. Rotate pans halfway through if one side is getting browner than the other.

Let cupcakes cool while you make the frosting.

Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting
Can't have Banana cupcakes without some kind of cream cheese frosting.

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 2-1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2-3 tbs caramel sauce

Beat butter until creamy, then add in cream cheese and beat together, scraping down sides of the bowl at least once. Gradually add powdered sugar until mix gets thick and creamy, scraping down sides of the bowl still. Beat in caramel until smooth. Texture will probably be on the softer side, but isn't exactly runny. If you want a firmer frosting, reduce cream cheese quantity and bump up the butter a bit.

Top cupcakes with frosting, then swirl in caramel sauce on top. I attempted to fill a cupcake with caramel too, but it seemed like a bit too much. Maybe I was wrong and it would be insanely delicious. Give it a shot. Surely you could garnish these cupcakes with slices of ripe banana as well. I was too in love with the swirly pattern to let it be obstructed by anything.



I hope I win the challenge!

Samoa™ Cupcakes

I wish I could say that this cupcake flavor was inspired by the recent news of the Girl Scout cookie cut-backs. But alas, even though I think I'm a bit early for Girl Scout cookie season (at least I haven't seen any troops outside the grocery stores yet), but I had those delicious Samoa cookies on my mind. I don't really know why the Samoa's (or "Caramel De-lights") ended up at the top of my favorite GS cookie list considering I don't generally go for coconut goodies, but maybe the marriage with caramel and chocolate is just too much to resist.

I tried the traditional cookie recipe for this last year and absolutely loved it, and figured it could use the cupcake make-over routine. Not that the cookie needs improvement, it's just always fun to play with the flavors in a different form. The cupcake rendition does have an added frosting layer which you won't find in the cookie, but the cupcake doesn't have a crunchy cookie either. In any case, I think it's quite tasty. I chose a chocolate cupcake base to keep the flavors rich (but it might be good with a vanilla cupcake too), topped with a carmel buttercream, toasted coconut flakes, caramel swirl, and then a bittersweet ganache. So far, everyone who tried this one was very enthusiastic about it.

Makes approximately 18 cupcakes.

Preheat oven to 350˚. Line cupcake tins.

Toast 1 cup of sweetened coconut on a sheet pan for approximately 15 minutes, making sure to mix around the coconut every 5 minutes so to get the most even toasting. Set aside to cool.

Make Caramel Sauce (taken from Ina Garten):

This makes about 1-3/4 cups. You really only need about 1/4 cup for the cupcakes, but you can keep the rest refrigerated for a couple months (but I'm sure you could find reasons to use it up before then).

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla 

Mix the water and sugar in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cover and cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and boil uncovered until the sugar turns a medium brown, about 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Watch it carefully at the end, as it will go from caramel to burnt very quickly. Stand back to avoid splattering, and gradually add the cream and the seeds scraped from the vanilla extract. Simmer until the caramel dissolves and the sauce is smooth and thick, about 2 minutes. Serve warm, or add another 1/4 cup of heavy cream and serve room temperature.

Make Chocolate cupcake:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 tbs butter 
• 1/3 c cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup milk

Mix flour, baking soda, powder and salt together in a medium sized bowl. In separate, heat proof bowl, melt butter in microwave (45-60 seconds). Mix in cocoa powder until mixture is paste-like and add in vanilla until smooth. Whisk in sugar, then eggs, one at a time until incorporated.
Mix water and milk together in small bowl. Alternating between flour and water mixtures, add each to the chocolate mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Mix until just incorporated. Fill cupcake tins and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool.

Make Caramel buttercream:

• 1-1/2 sticks butter, room temperature
• 2-1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tsp milk
• 3 tbs caramel sauce

Whip butter until smooth. Slowly add in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Once incorporated, add in milk and caramel sauce until mixture is light and fluffy. Scrape down sides of bowl as necessary.

Make Chocolate Ganache:

• 3 oz heavy cream
• 6 oz bittersweet chocolate (or milk, if that's your preference), chopped uniformly
• 1 tbs butter

In a microwave safe bowl, heat chocolate for approx. 20 seconds and set aside. In another microwave safe bowl, put butter in cream and heat in microwave for 45 seconds, or until it just reaches a boil. Pour hot cream mixture over chocolate and let set for a minute, then whisk together until all the chocolate has melted and is smooth. 

Assemble cupcakes. Using a piping gun or bag, frost the cupcakes. No need for making it pretty, since the next step is rolling the frosted cupcakes in the toasted coconut. Then drizzle caramel sauce over the coconut followed by a drizzling of ganache. 

Enjoy.

Holiday Treat Tins Available for Order

I know, it's a little scary: it's already mid-November.

It hurts every fiber in my being to talk about December holidays before it's their turn, but sometimes you just need a couple extra weeks to plan ahead. Specifically, I mean to entice you with some of my holiday offerings, now available to order. You can check out my Holiday Treat tins at www.kathleensconfections.com/tins.html. This year's line up:

Holiday Cookie Collection

A balanced variety of flavors including spiced, chocolatey, fruity, and nutty; great for pleasing a crowd. Flavors include:

• Molasses Chews - Warm spices with a hefty ginger zing are the striking flavors of these chewy cookies.
• Black Forest Biscotti - Rich dark chocolate biscotti studded with chocolate chunks & sweet dried cherries.
• Spritz - A simple, buttery flavor is the hallmark of this classic cookie.
• Buttered Rum Meltaways - Delicate, shortbread cookies flavored with rum that gently melt in your mouth.
• Pignola - A classic Italian cookie made with almond paste and covered in the warm flavor of toasted pine nuts.
• Fig Swirls - A figfilling flavored with orange, honey and spice is elegantly enrobed by a warm butter cookie.
• Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkles - Rich, chewy cookies made with hazelnuts and chocolate, and coated in powdered sugar.
• Raspberry Linzer - A nutty, spicy, crispy cookie sandwiching a tart raspberry jam filling, then sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Toffee & Brittle Tin

Crunchy, sugary bits of brittle, packed with tasty nuts and/or seeds. The toffee is not my own doing, but the mother/daughter team who makes this English Toffee holds their family recipe close, and there really is nothing like it.

• English Toffee (by Mütti's Munchies) - buttery toffee filled with almonds, and topped with milk chocolate and chopped almonds
• Maple, Chipotle, Pecan Brittle
• Pumpkin Seed & Cocoa Nib Brittle
• Vanilla Cashew Brittle

Caramel Popcorn
Enlisting the assistance of Mütti's Munchies once again, I have included this family's special recipe for homemade caramel popcorn into the gift tin options for this year. Sweet and salty, with a buttery crunch, this caramel popcorn is difficult to put down once you've started.

Spiced Nuts

2 unique varieties of nuts fill this tin.

• Spanish Spiced Almonds - very savory, roasted, almost smokey in flavor, these crunchy almonds are a perfect pre-feast snack.
• Chili Lime Cashews - an amazing combo of zesty lime, sweet brown sugar and sea salt completed with a little finishing kick.

And of course, you can order each tin individually, or go all out and get the 3 tier "Treat Tower" which includes the cookies, toffee/brittle, and your choice of the caramel popcorn or the spiced nuts.

Photography for these is by my friend Carol @ www.clickedbycarol.com

Thanks!

Halloween Partay Treats

Ok, this wasn't any official thing, but I made some fun treats for the Halloween get together Jonathan and I hosted last weekend, and wanted to share. No recipes are posted, but I could dig them up if you send me a message to that effect.

So, the non-baking prize of my spread was the cheese graveyard. The week I was coming up with the poached pear cupcakes with brie frosting I was looking at the little triangle of brie and had a revelation that with a few importantly placed cuts, you could transform that lovely brick into the perfect coffin shape. So wahlah: the brie graveyard was born... or..er... well... came to be ...

Anyway, I found a bunch of other fun recipes that were somewhat Halloween themed including cheddar "spiderweb" crisps, "devils on horseback" (prosciutto wrapped dates), deviled eggs (I gave mine little cyclops faces), devil's food cupcakes with little tuilie wafer flames, pumpkin woopie pies (omg), and caramel/pretzel/caramel bars (more like gobs than bars though).

A very tasty evening.

Caramel Spiderweb Chocolate Cupcakes

Happy Halloween!

This week I did a festive chocolate cupcake with caramel buttercream and caramel swirl topping, with a little spiderweb style.

The caramel sauce turned out quite tasty. I followed a food network recipe from the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. It was nice because it didn't require candy thermometers.

Carmel Sauce

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix the water and sugar in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and boil uncovered until the sugar turns a medium brown, about 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Watch it carefully at the end, as it will go from caramel to burnt very quickly. Stand back to avoid splattering, and gradually add the cream and vanilla extract. Simmer until the caramel dissolves and the sauce is smooth and thick, about 2 minutes. Serve warm, or add another 1/4 cup of heavy cream and serve room temperature.

Just a note, don't try and make a smaller batch. I did the other week, and it became an overheated mess of stringy caramel and chunks. Not very appealing. Other than that, the 1/4 cup of cream after it's been removed from the heat is also important for keeping it from crystalizing too much.

Ok, so I took my Devil's food cake recipe and experimented with a couple of the cupcakes by putting a dollop of the caramel sauce in the middle of them before baking. Results varied. Most of the cupcakes reacted by getting a gaping hole in the center/bottom of the cupcake and leaving a crispy sugar crust on the wrapper where it decided to go when baked. From what I heard, it did make those cupcakes extra moist, but am not sure it was worth it due to the fact it left some parts hard to eat or... empty.

So, I just kept the rest of it straight-forward and made an easy caramel buttercream with the sauce.

Caramel Buttercream
1 cup butter, room temperature
approximately 4 cups of powdered sugar
1/4 C + caramel sauce
milk

Beat butter until smooth and add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until frosting is thick and almost crumbly. Add caramel sauce a little bit at time until you reach the desired consistency. I did add a little cream (you could use milk) to help smooth it out a bit too.

Warning, it's very sweet. I'm sure this would go well as a cream cheese frosting too, to cut down on the sugar content a bit.

After I piped the buttercream on the cupcakes, I took a pastry bag with a small round attachment and filled it with the remaining caramel sauce, swirling it on top of the cupcakes. Then with a toothpick, I pulled the frosting and caramel down in little spiderweb like trails from the center of each cupcake, achieving the desired effect.

Yay Halloween!

Flan, Chocolate Tiramisu, Strawberry Shortcake & Almond Cupcakes

For a combination of reasons, a friend came over to have a bake date last Saturday and we made 4 varieties of cupcakes. It was amazing how much quicker it went with the extra help! And the input and feedback was great. We had a couple genius breakthroughs that wouldn't have happened if I were working through it on my own.

I think the highlight of the day was the Flan cupcake. I had been experimenting with custard frosting before, with less than enthusiastic success, so was determined to get it really good this time. I had a recipe I swiped off the interwebs that went something like:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 heaping tbs of flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 tbs p. sugar

It sounded believable. The first time I ever made it, I was trying for a mocha frosting and thought that custard would be a really nice way to richen it up. I should have taken better notes on how thin and runny the result was the first time, but I hadn't figured out the science of why, so blazed on.

The instructions for this custard frosting:
mix sugar and flour, then add egg and milk and mix together with vanilla. Heat until thickened, then cool completely. Then, whip together the butter and powdered sugar, gradually adding this custard to the butter.

STOP.

Don't do it. I don't know why. I almost don't care how. Just DON'T do it.

Separation. If you want your custard look like grits, yes, use butter. If you want your custard to be a runny mess, then yes, powdered sugar is the answer.

Is it because the milk in the custard is JUST too liquidy? Too much for the powdered sugar to compete with that it turns your delightfully firm and gelatinous custard and whips it down into a confectioner's icing instead? Does the liquidy milk fight with the fatty butter?

So after 2 batches of custard were basically wasted, we figured out that just piping cooled custard straight on to our caramel cupcakes was good enough, that's just what we did. And quite a delightful texture it was. In our excitement, we piped up a bunch of cupcakes, mini and regular alike, and set little pools of highly viscous caramel into the custard cup. Merrily we worked until I realized: wait. The custard is breaking! Literally cracking apart under the weight of the caramel. Slowly, all our efforts began to look like remnants of some ancient cupcake culture as they crumbled to their decripit fate.

So now what? Is this project supposed to fail miserably? I want so badly for it to work because the potential is so high. One batch of custard more and we realized that patience was the only ingredient we were missing. Custard, like most milk-based products, once heated develops a sort of protective skin. We simply hadn't waited long enough for that skin to form in order to load the heavy caramel onto it. Once the custard had set, this experiment finally received the seal of deliciousness.