Page 148 Chocolate Salted-Caramel Mini Cupcakes

"Salted caramels, including chocolate varieties, have become quite popular in recent years; a touch of salt draws out caramels buttery taste and highlights the sweetness. This cupcake, created with the candy's popularity in mind, serves as an excellent incentive to try your hand at making caramel at home. The soft caramel centers hide under a piped peak of satiny chocolate frosting. Fleur de sel, a type of sea salt prized for its distinctive flavor, is avaliable at specialty stores; if you can't find it, you may substitute another sea salt, such as maldon." - Martha

The recipe was easy enough to make for the cupcakes. At first the batter didn't look like it was going to make 56 mini cupcakes, but upon filling the paper liners, there was plenty. It actually made 64. I didn't have any buttermilk; you remember I only bought a bit for that one special recipe so I used a mix of heavy whipping cream and 1% milk. It was just fine. OK, so who has the time to go and search out Fleur de sel Sea Salt? I don't. I did have sea salt at home, but it wasn't that or Maldon. It was simple sea salt and did the job nicely.

I made the caramel suggested "Salted Caramel Filling" on page 322, but what a disaster! Even though I do make home-made caramel on a regular basis, this was a completely different way to make it. I paid extreme attention to the recipe and something went WAY wrong! When I boiled the mixture until it reached 360 degrees, then removed it from the heat and added the cream, the whole thing just globbed up on my spoon and left a bit of liquid-not-quite-caramel in the bowl that wouldn't have anything to do with becoming a good product. Certainly, it was not of the picture perfect quality that shows in Martha's photo. This recipe is very transluscent and the caramels I make are opaque. So I trashed that bowl's concoction and made my own successful caramel for the center of my cupcakes. As my photo shows, the caramel is very creamy and tasty indeed.

Page 228 Creepcakes

"For Halloween, create silly and scary-looking faces with buttercream, candy, marshmallows, and, of course, cupcakes. Decorating the cakes is a great activity for kids and parents to do together. Set out cupcakes and bowls of colored frostings and assorted candies and leet everyone create his or her own aliens, monsters, and beasts." - Martha

These treats were fun for everyone to make; I baked some Devil's Food Cupcakes for these funny friends. It seemed appropriate. I wish I would have found some string licorice in the grocery store but I guess I was shopping too fast and too late. I used some Mike and Ikes', Good 'n Plentys, Candy Corn, Red Hots, a Fruit Roll-up, mini marshamllows, and buttercream frosting and melted chocolate in decorating parchment triangles. It was easy to do and quite challenging too; once you made one monster, it wouldn't be right to make another with the same look! Happy halloweenie!

Page 152 One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes with Gumdrops

"Piped buttercream starbursts and chewy gumdrops make playful toppings for these ever-popular chocolate cupcakes. As the name of the recipe implies, all the ingredients come together in one bowl. Using vegetable oil instead of butter makes an exceptionally moist cake; good quality cocoa powder, such as Valrhona, produces a deep, dark color and the best flavor. White icing and clear gumdrops combine to make this elegant monochromatic motif; use multi-colored gumdrops for a more whimsical effect. You can customize the cake flavor by using a different extract in place of the vanilla; for example, anise would compliment the clear gumdrops used here (increase the amount of extract to 1 1/2 teaspoons.)" - Martha

The funny, possibly, ironic thing here is, that for the most part all along I have been making these recipes in one bowl. Normally, Martha's recipes go something like this: Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl together; in another bowl, cream together the butter (oil) and sugars then adding to it the eggs and vanilla while mixing; when fluffy, add the flour mixture to the butter and mix until combined. So there are always at least two bowls used in every recipe. Some recipes, however, there are many more bowls used...and pots...and pans. This recipe starts out with the flour sifting as usual, but then simply has the baker add the eggs and oil, etc. to the flour and mix. Easy-schmezy.

I folowed the recipe as is, but I didn't have enough cocoa powder. (I haven't used this much cocoa powder as in the past three months as I have used my ENTIRE life!) So, to compensate, I added a more flour and after I had the batter in the baking tins, I added some mini semi-sweet chocolate chips ontop of each cupcake. Martha taught me that if you coat the chips in flour prior to adding them to batter, that the chips would not sink to the bottom of the cupcake. They would float on top or in the center. I chose not to add more flour to this cupcake (since I had already over-dosed the recipe with it) instead I used a portion of an opened box of a white cake mix a coated my chips in that instead. I knew it would add tastiness but would still "do the trick." The cupcake batter was very thin, which it doesn't say anything about that in the recipe book, a I was concerned about it. But they baked up just fine...moist and delicious.

I didn't have any gumdrops, but since Halloween is around the corner, I dressed these with jellybeans and chocolate icing instead. The licorice and chocolate compliment each other so nicely!

Page Martha's Meyer Lemon Cupcakes

"The mild and sweet flavor of Meyer lemon is one of Martha's favorites; these zest-flecked cupcakes are filled with Meyer lemon curd, which peeks out from the tops. The fruit, which is actually a lemon-orange hybrid, is generally available at specialty stores in winter and early spring. If you can't find Meyer lemons, use regular lemons instead. The recipe yields a lot of cupckes, so you may want to consider these for a bake sale or large gathering, such as a shower or specialty birthday celebration." - Martha

My picture doesn't do justice to these flavorful cupcakes. Although, even though there were Meyer lemons in my grocery store, I opted against using them. I have already made a couple of lemon cupcake recipes from this book and one of the things missing from this book is the taste of lime. Key Lime. To me, Key limes are the flavor-equivalent to Meyer lemons; so why not experiment for the sake of another cupcake that wouldn't be duplicated. (There is a recipe upcoming that is titled "Citrus Cupcakes", but it's not the same as a Key Lime cupcake by itself.

So what you see peeking out of the top of this cupcake is Key lime curd, and if you have ever had Key lime pie and have found it to be a pure green color; it most likely wasn't really Key lime. It was lime flavoring with some green color added. Key lime is actually less green than one would think, but more delicious than imaginable. Granted, my Key lime cupcakes aren't as deadly as the pie served in "Dexter, season 3", but it is what he was searching for without a doubt!

Page 118 Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

"An abundance of creamy peanut-butter filling renders these cupcakes extra-rich and irresistible. The batter and filling -- each whisked together by hand -- are layered, then swirled to create the marbelized pattern on top." - Martha

Holy cow! These were too much trouble too make! You needed two bowls, one for the chocolate batter and one for the peanut butter batter, a pan for simmering water and a pan for heating the butters and chocolate together, and then if you desire, a bowl into which you'd sift your flour mixture. After I began these cupcakes, I realized the mess was beginning. But I did everything right (sort of, we'll get to that later) and the batters both tasted pretty good, but OMG! These are horrible! I couldn't eat a whole one! I didn't mind the chocolate part so much, it tasted like a brownie...kind of. But the peanut butter filling/swirl was ransid tasting. Perhaps my peanut butter was ransid, but you couldn't tell by the taste of it plain nor when it was in the batter. Maybe, as it cooked, the terrible taste was accentuated, I don'tknow, but I had to throw them all out. (Except, before I got a chance to taste them, I gave some to my neighbor...I hope I didn't make anyone sick in their house.)

So my substitutions were as follows: I only had a 1/4 cup of smooth peanut butter in the pantry so I used that PLUS another peanut butter called PB2 which is a dry powder peanut butter that you add water to make it moist again. This is a fat free product. Also, I didn't have any unsweetened chocolate squares so I used the standard substitution of 3T of dutch cocoa powder with 1 T of shortening to make 1 oz. of unsweetened chocolate. I needed 2 ounces of it. Otherwise everything was great, and like I said, the batter was good, just not the finished product.

Page 72 Apricot-Glazed Black & White Cheesecakes

"With their cookie-crumb crust, creamy filling, and fruity topping, individual cheesecakes are a delightful spin on the full-sized dessert. Glossy apricot jam gives the desserts a golden glow, while store-bought chocolate wafers provide a crisp, quick-to-assemble base." - Martha

These cheesecakes were easy to make and they baked up nicely. I don't know if you have read my entire blog or not, but WAY BACK a couple of months ago, I made some raspberry swirled cheesecakes and they never baked right; they never ended up setting up even after days in the frig! These however, baked beautifully, set up nice and creamy but firm, and everyone that tasted them said they were heavenly.

The recipe calls for crumbled chocolate wafer cookies as a base for the crust, the cheesecake mixture and then heated and strained apricot jam for the topping. Sounded good and looked even better. But I was running out of time this particular day; I wanted to serve them for dessert to my family for our irregular "Everyone Come Back Home for Sunday Night Dinner" dinner. The recipe says to refrigerate them for 4 hours or overnight. I didn't have overnight and I didn't even have 4 hours! So my shortcut was to use Oreo cookies (whole) as the crust rather than crumbling cookies and mixing them with sugar and butter over the heat then to press some into each cupcake tin, etc. Way too much time involved when you are in a hurry! The cookies were a dream and a hit! I did use the jam though, but I know my family, and jam wouldn't have been enough to entice them to eat these dreamcakes. So I added a dollop of hot fudge to the top of the jam...how can you resist a chocolate-dipped apricot? 'Cause that's what these tasted like only with a cheeesecake attached.

I made the entire recipe of 18 cheesecakes; there aren't any left. I will be making these again someday soon. They would be cute for Halloween if you decorate them with mini chocolate chips on top of the jam in the design of a jack-o-lantern's face!

Page 68 Iced Pistachio Cupcakes

"These cupcakes are made with a triple dose of pistachio. Some nuts are ground to a paste and mixed into the batter, others are chopped and folded in at the end for added texture. Even more nuts are sprinkled on top as a colorful garnish. Slivered pistachios are available at specialty markets and baking-supply stores, if you can't find them, use chopped pistachios instead." - Martha

I really wasn't too sure about how this particular cupcake would taste. I like eating pistachios; I like eating them right out of the shell as well as roasted and salted. But neither of those translated to my brain as a good cupcake. I was sceptical, but how could I doubt Martha?

Let me tell you, these are so fresh and sweet and delicious! With or without the icing, they are so moist and tasty. I even used fat free cream cheese and margarine instead of butter during the course of making them. I was sort of trying to reduce the caloric value but mainly because it's what I had available.