STICKY BUSINESS

Last night I made sticky pecan/walnut upside-down mini cupcakes.  I ran out of vanilla batter, but still had plenty of brown sugar syrup left...sooo, I quickly made a batch of chocolate batter. Oh boy are these good and sticky!  I can't tell which I like best, the chocolate or the vanilla.



THE KIDS

As promised, here are my kids.

Lucien sniffing away, he thinks it's cat grass (that boy loves anything green),

and sweet Sasha just waiting for mommy to be done in the kitchen.

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

These cupcakes were a challenge because the original recipe called for sprinkling two layers of a brown sugar mixture.  Well, because I make mini-cupcakes I could only put one layer.  They turned out great, and were another big hit with folks I sent them off to.  I thought maybe next time I'd go for two layers, but that might just be too much.  The whole point of my mini-cupcakes is to have a bite of delicious and simple--just enough to wow and want more.  So if you look carefully you'll see a layer of the delicious brown sugar mix in the cupcake on the left.  These were topped with a gentle vanilla creamcheese frosting, nothing overwhelming to offset the cupcake taste.

Devil's Food Mini-Cupcakes

I stumbled on a Devil's Food recipe some people online raved about, so I decided to try my hand at converting it into gluten-free.  It had many ingredients and many steps to take (at least for me) -- but the results were spectacular!  People I passed my extras on to (I couldn't possibly eat them all) just loved them.  I topped them off with an almond creamcheese frosting.  This cupcake will surely go into my list of cupcakes to make when I open my bakery.  I'm still working on a name for my bakery, but I'm sure I'll know it when inspiration strikes.

Hello To All Out There...

I am so pleased to have a place where I can share my experiences with baking: the best and the mishaps.  Please visit again as I will be posting pics of my recent mini-cupcakes.  And, as another way of introducing myself, I might throw in a pic or two of my sweet kids.

I love the creative feeling I get from baking (otherwise known as being in the flow).  The process and the end product of baking is always exciting.  I write poems, non-fiction, am a novice photographer, enjoy discovering old houses and antiques, make collages and vision boards, and am teaching myself to play an acoustic guitar and harmonica.  But baking?  Now that takes my creativity to levels I would have never guessed.  And, I love the challenge of creating baked goods you'd never guess were gluten-free.