Ridiculously Good Caramel Cupcakes

Celia,

Hi there again! Just a friendly reminder that you have tons of delicious chocolate things to post about! Ok, so, for that party I mentioned in the last post, I also decided to try an ambitious baked-good recipe. The whole point of the party, after all, was to get to cook and bake things. I like feeding people. I settled on this cupcake recipe, and Holy Moses. I can't really take credit for how amazing these are, because it was someone else's recipe, but I am so pleased with these. They are going in my inventory for things to make again and again. The recipe is from a blog called Une Gamine dans la Cuisine, and I am so amazed by this blogger.


I'm not going to copy her recipe and re-post it here, since that feels a little like stealing. Especially since I didn't adapt anything - I followed it exactly as written. I do strongly suggest you check it out though!

Some high points of the recipe: this was the first time I had made caramel, and I made it with success twice - once for the filling and once for the frosting. I might have overcooked the filling a slight amount, since it came out fairly chewy, but it was still very tasty. I also made liberal use of my fleur de sel, because salt is wonderful with caramel.


These guys are also topped with spun sugar, which was SO MUCH FUN to do. Unfortunately, we took these pictures after the sugar had started to melt, so it's hard to see how nice they looked at first. It was also approximately 14,000 degrees in my kitchen at the time, so I think that contributed to the sugar-droop that happened. Either way, I will be doing this again.

Much love!

Amanda

Cheese is Good

Celia,

We seem to have had an accidental hiatus from this lovely blog, which is not good. Part of it was because of the Sister Visit - yay! - but part is just because we are lazy! I know we both have tasty things to post about. I'll work on getting my backload taken care of, but first I wanted to show you my excellent cheese plate.

A few weeks ago, I talked the boyfriend into throwing a little party so I could cook for people. One of the things I really wanted to have was a cheese plate on a piece of slate. I have no idea where I first saw such a thing, but I thought it was great - the slate keeps the cheese cool, you can cut the cheese on it, and use chalk to write the names of the cheeses right there!

Thus began the Semi-Great Slate Quest. If it had been full-on great I would have actually gone to a tile store and asked for some sample slate tiles. I did not. I did, however, try to unearth a piece of slate the boyfriend said was living by the side of the house. When I saw that the slate was bigger than out countertop (mild exaggeration) I ditched that idea and just bought a slate tray. That one was crooked though, so I returned it and bought another one, which is the one you see here. Everyone thought the idea was good, and I thought it looked lovely!

I chose four cheeses from Spain, because I had one in mind that was Spanish and I wanted to keep a theme. I tried to choose a variety of intensities, although I hadn't tasted most of these so I had to go based on the Wegman's cheese department descriptions. The cheeses are:

Drunken Goat: This was the one I had tried before, and really liked. It's a Spanish goat cheese cured in red wine, and is medium-soft and tasty.
Miti Cana de Oveja: This is a sheep cheese that was supposedly like brie but with three different textures per slice, but I thought it tasted like Crayola crayons smell and couldn't get that out of my head after I first thought it.
Campo de Montalban: This one was a harder cheese, like a Manchego, and was quite tasty.
Torta la Serena: And this one tasted like death. It was softer and also smelled bitter and strong. One party-goer diplomatically described it as "brawny." I sent it home with a cheese-lover who said she would like to try to appreciate it.

I know this post wasn't about baked goods, but we both like cheese, so it's close enough. I am currently roasting beets for some red velvet cupcakes. Expect those soon!

Amanda