Recently, I made an enormous amount of cupcakes in my kitchen for my future cousin-in-law’s wedding. My Sous-chef and I planned on about 150 (equal amounts of vanilla, chocolate and red velvet) and an 8-inch red velvet cake for traditional cake-cutting. The record in my smiley kitchen was about 100. When planning out what will bake when, I decided to research some box mix recipes for faster production.

During my research, I learned that many bakers will use a mix and add things to it like buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt or maybe an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract. The mix is often known as “cake base.” And if the internet says it’s true – it must be! I decided to keep the red velvet as a ‘from scratch’ recipe. That red velvet is a show stopper every time I make it and did not want to swap it out for a box mix.

And so the testing began! (My friends and co-workers LOVED me in January!)

Chocolate Cake Test 1:

1 box Devil’s Food Cake Mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon

All I could taste and smell was the 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and although some may appreciate an extra “kick” – I couldn’t take it. Every single person who tried these cupcakes loved them except me. So… moving on to test 2!

Chocolate Cake Test 2:

1 box Devil’s Food Cake Mix
1 package (4 oz) chocolate instant pudding mix
1 container (8 oz) sour cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips

This recipe is called “Triple-Chocolate Cupcakes” in a cupcake recipe book I was given at Christmas. The result was a very decadent and rich chocolate cupcake! I brought some of these to work and I received MANY compliments on these. I only had a small amount of chocolate chips and a larger amount of mini chocolate chips in my pantry. People loved biting into the cupcakes and getting surprise bites of chocolate inside.

Vanilla Cake Test 1:

1 box white cake mix
1/3 cup oil
4 egg whites
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

You may have noticed that the vanilla cake is actually a white cake mix. But after you add the 2 tsp of vanilla extract, I’d say it’s now a light and fluffy vanilla. I am a chocolate lover at heart, but these cupcakes were my favorite. The consistency is just so smooth and the taste is was delicious without being too sweet. No more testing was needed on the vanilla front.

I ended up with this simple chocolate cake recipe since it was similar to the successful vanilla cake. I didn’t even do a test a run and went live with it on the big baking day. Although the “Triple-Chocolate Cupcakes” were big crowd-pleasers, it’s easier not to have to deal with pudding mix and chocolate chips.

Chocolate Cake Test 3:

1 box Devil’s Food Cake Mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

This one actually called for a cup of yogurt but I used sour cream instead. I hate yogurt and although you probably can’t taste yogurt in the final product, I couldn’t even bring myself to buy it. Plus, since my vanilla cake recipe called for sour cream, it’s easier to just buy giant sour cream containers instead of thinking about an extra ingredient. This cake was moist and delicious. A definite keeper.

So there you have it – a few box mix recipes with “enhancements.” I think the enhancements help to dilute the sweetness of a box mix cake. And with the chocolate tasting less chocolate-y with the addition of buttermilk, sour cream and vanilla, I do believe it tastes more like a scratch recipe.

My Sous-chef and I baked 4 boxes white, 4 boxes chocolate and 4 recipes of red velvet over 2 days and it resulted in over 200 cupcakes. (!)  A new record for my smiley kitchen! We frosted the chocolate and vanilla with vanilla frosting and decorated with white sprinkles, white sparkles and white non-pareils to give a glistening winter wedding look.

We chose the best 180 and transported them to the wedding with pride and relief!

It will be Oct. 26 this year when we will become husband and wife! I will be a 36-year old bride and after so many years being unlucky in love, it still feels unreal. My groom is an artist and totally into the creative brainstorming process. As with my cake decorating, it’s fun to bounce my ideas off of him and see what we come up with. We want a fairly small wedding (80) that has a fall feel with pumpkins, leaves and such with only hints of Halloween here and there. Oh and PURPLE. I love my purple and not only will my MOH and BMs be wearing it but I thought it would be fun to have “purple attire is requested” on invitations. Everyone wears purple! My gown was purchased in December and it’s a huge relief. I wanted something with some sort of antique/Victorian feel to it (but still modern) so I can embellish myself with all sorts of vintage jewelry. I think we found a good one. It’s going to be great! I was born a project manager and this brain is full of timelines and actions of things I’d like to do. I’ve been putting my poor groom to work on all the “marketing collateral” and he’s done a brilliant job thus far. It’s going to be so great to see it all put together… sort of like an art project.

In between researching, planning and purchasing ‘all things wedding’ online… there was the holidays. For Halloween, we were Jack & Rose from the Titanic. This forced a wedding break so we could buy and create things like frosty wigs and a life preserver made out of foam and men’s white t-shirts. And by the way, we won the “Best Couple” contest at the party we attended! Boo-ya! (Get it? “Boo” ya!) Since I do own the Wilton Skull Cake Pan, there aren’t many opportunities to use it other than Halloween. The previous October, I made a cute skull cake for my coworker as a graduation present. This year, I went with a mummy cake with strips of cut fondant for its wrappings and balls of fondant for eyes. I brought it into work and it was a hit!

The skull cake pan takes about 1 and 2/3rds cake mixes. The remaining mix was re-purposed for cupcakes! The Hersey’s cocoa frosting was delicious as always for the inside of Skull and the tops of cupcakes.

Speaking of coworkers… I have a coworker who was recently married and we had a little cake and presents for her. Her collateral was themed around the ampersand she designed. I tried to replicate using upside down white chocolate chips… not my best work:

For Thanksgiving, I tried my hand at a turkey cake tutorial in Cake Boss’ book that I received for Christmas 2011:

How cute is this guy? Instead of a giant dollop of white frosting for the head, my groom carved out this head/neck for me to decorate.

Turkey Cake Tutorial by Cake Boss

For Christmas, I made my same yule logs as last year, but did not do the traditional sugar cookies. Instead, I tried making fudge for the first time. I first used the Carnation Evaporated Milk recipe for fudge. My first batch was cooked too much and cooled into solid rock fudge that was immediately placed into the trash. The second batch was better and I handed out to coworkers. The third batch was done the following week with the recipe on the Fluff container (aptly named “Never Fail Fudge”) and Ghirardelli chocolate chips – THAT was a keeper. Delish! I also found a new recipe for these adorable mini chocolate cheesecakes on Pinterest. I even bought the candy cane kisses to place on top. These were for my friend’s holiday party and I was shocked at how fast they went!

Mini Dark Chocolate Candy Cane Kiss Cheesecakes

I stole this photo from the blog from where the recipe came, but you will see that the pans she used are not mini cupcake pans… however, that’s what I used and they came out fine! The shape was just slightly more angled, but no big deal. I used mini cupcake papers for the party I was going to just be more sanitary and that was fine too.

This month, I’ll be making about 150 cupcakes and a small 8 in. cake for my soon-to-be cousin’s wedding! I’ve made 100 cupcakes before but 150 will be a challenge. I think I’m up for it, though! It really all goes back to weddings, doesn’t it? Or maybe just in my world right now. :)  I will follow up on how everything went next month!

What’s strange is that around five years ago my oldest brother, C, had cancer in a similar location on the left side of his neck/jaw too. The news hit us hard because we have seen what C had to endure. Back when C was diagnosed, we were unaware of the suffering, the risks and the care that is needed. My mother made the decision to move in with my brother, A, during treatment and recovery. Treatment began in February and ended in April. He looks better since treatment ended and the lump has shrunk – but it’s still there. He’ll need a scan and a decision made in the upcoming weeks regarding surgery.

In the meantime, a good friend of his approached us about having a benefit for A. The benefit was held last Saturday and it was a really great turnout. My family and many of A’s friends all came together and donated raffles and food. The organizer had a talented singer/guitar player friend who donated his time and rocked the place with great classic tunes. If cancer could be beat with love and support, it wouldn’t have a chance. I made a new cupcake recipe for the benefit that involves forcing my boyfriend/sous chef to zest 3 lemons and puree a package of blueberries. It was found on Pinterest and from this blog. I’ve made it twice and received lots of compliments. It’s a keeper so I wanted to share on the ol’ bloggo:

Lemon Cupcakes
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
Grated zest of 3 lemons
2 Tbsp of fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in zest and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk and lemon juice, and beating until just combined after each.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

Blueberry Buttercream Frosting
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup blueberry puree
2-3 tbsp blueberry juice (from puree)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. lemon zest
pinch of salt
5-6 cups confectioner’s sugar (don’t skimp on the sugar – especially on humid days – this frosting was almost melting off the cupcake!)

1. With a mixer, cream the butter on medium speed until smooth.

2. The puree are the actual berries blended together until broken down into a sauce form. To get just the juice, my boyfriend/sous chef poured the puree into a strainer over a bowl, then used a spoon to push down on the puree to extract just the juice. Now you have juice in the bowl, puree in the strainer.

3. Add blueberry puree, blueberry juice, vanilla, lemon zest and salt, all into the mixer and mix on medium-low speed until well-combined.

4. Gradually add in the powdered sugar, beating on low speed until combined. Then beat for 3-5 minutes on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.

Above is a sampling of the cupcakes I brought to the benefit. The natural juices of the blueberries really give this frosting a beautiful pinkish purple hue. Make sure to save out some blueberries for garnish at the end! It was a very hot and humid day so the cupcakes were all a bit on the shiny/melty side. This lemon/blueberry cupcake is a light and lovely dessert for spring and summer and was a big hit at the benefit AND with my coworkers!

Here we are… a month after all the holiday hoop-la. I, for one, am very glad the holidays are over. Per usual, there was lots of gift buying, entertaining and baking to do and very little time to do it all! I’ve done very little baking in January as a reprieve to my oven (and my calendar). I always worry that my gifts aren’t enough, but when you are a baker, homemade baked goods are wonderful additions to gifts! Christmas is a great time to be very decorative and fun with cookies and cupcakes. I enjoyed planning and crafting these baked goods and loved seeing the jolly faces who enjoyed eating them too!

I want to start with my favorite and featured photo above – Christmas tree cupcakes! Once completed, they were SO adorable all lined up together! I made these for HEKD’s holiday party. I used half and half Crisco and unsalted butter instead of a full cup of either. The consistency was so perfect for these tall swirls (and so delicious)! I had bought some Wilton color mist in a shimmery gold color and thought I’d use it somehow during the season. It worked well for the stars on top of the tree. I rolled and cut out stars out of fondant and put them on a paper plate. I sprayed the stars on both sides, which was messy, but realized later that the back didn’t need to be sprayed as they were pressed into the frosting (noted for next year). I had edible gold balls and some red writing frosting for “ornaments” but I will use royal icing balls or fondant next time. They would be tastier and not hard on the teeth like the gold balls and don’t run like the red frosting. This frosting was so delicious, especially refrigerated.

My annual holiday girl dinner was a nice catchup for the ladies. I made this santa cake out of a 10 inch round chocolate cake (recipe from magazine I can’t find), pink and red fondant and lots and lots of white frosting beard. I was very proud of this guy when he was done… especially the hat.

This year, I baked traditional sugar cookies from scratch and a couple of other kinds (not really from scratch) as Christmas gifts for family. The sugar cookies were so yummy.  I used this recipe from thekitchn.com. I may have been a little extra zesty with my lemon zest, but I love, love, loved the hint of lemon in these cookies.

I baked some of the cookies on my new pampered chef stoneware. Check out the difference in how the stone browned the bottoms of the cookies more thoroughly! However, I had to watch these closely as the stoneware takes longer for the cookies to bake and I was nervous I’d burn them.

I loved these chocolate-chocolate version of the tradition peanut butter kisses cookies. Really easy to make and so delicious. The chocolate mint pinwheels were Betty’s. This was my cookie assembly table:

Cookie packaging assembled for gift-giving, and yule logs made for Christmas Eve party and Christmas Day party!

For New Year’s, I made mini-cupcakes using red velvet and cream cheese frosting. This time, instead of using 1 1/2 cup of oil, I used 1 cup of crisco shortening. I think this added to the “velvety-ness” of the red velvet. It also lightened up the color of red. As you can see, I busted out the gold color mist again and very lightly sprayed the cupcakes with it. Each cupcake was topped with a bit of edible silver stars (by Wilton of course). So fancy!

The recipe of red velvet cake I have makes a lot of mini cupcakes… 4 pans… 24 cups per pan… 96 cupcakes. But I had one New Year’s Eve party to go to and two New Year’s Day parties so I had plenty to go around, plus some to keep at home for ourselves. How adorable are mini cupcakes?! My friend AD said they were “a little bite of heaven” – I am a modest baker, but I would have to agree. I now feel red velvet is best enjoyed in mini cupcakes!

Hope everyone had a happy holiday season!

I first want to mention this egg separator. I purchased one of these for my mom a really long time ago when baking was a rare occurrence for me and only something Mum did. She raved about this gift for many years. Last Christmas, when it became clear that I had become interested in the baking game, she found one for me and placed in my stocking. So thoughtful! It’s such a handy tool for quickly separating egg yolks and whites flawlessly. And since this cake calls for 6 eggs, separated… you better believe this baby was put to work!

Before making the cake, you’ll need to create your chocolate mousse or other chocolate whipped cream filling so that it has time to set in the fridge while you make your cake.This Yule Log cake recipe was taken from this listing found on allrecipes.com. Between the mousse, the cake and the ganache, there are lots of steps to making a yule log so you’ll need to set aside a full day on this.

Buche de Noel (Yule Log)
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 egg whites
1/4 cup white sugar
confectioners’ sugar for dusting

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a 10×15 inch jellyroll pan with parchment paper. To make your life easier, grab some butter and rub it all over the parchment paper to ensure cake doesn’t stick.

2) Beat egg yolks in your stand mixer with 1/2 cup sugar until thick and pale. Blend in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, and salt. Set aside.

3) I happen to have a glass bowl for my mixer that has a pour spout on it. This worked lovely for me to start on the egg whites. Using the whisk attachment, whip egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually add 1/4 cup sugar, and beat until whites form stiff peaks. Immediately fold the yolk mixture into the whites.

4) Now that everything is mixed together in the glass bowl with the spout, you can pour and spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the cake springs back when lightly touched. Dust a clean dishtowel with confectioners’ sugar. Run a knife around the edge of the pan, and turn the warm cake out onto the towel. Remove and discard parchment paper. Starting at the short edge of the cake, roll the cake up with the towel. Cool for 30 minutes.

5) Unroll the cake (it will resemble a shar pei dog), and spread the filling to within 1 inch of the edge. Roll the cake up with the filling inside. Place seam side down onto a serving plate, and refrigerate while you create your chocolate ganache.

6) Quick Chocolate Ganache: Put a 9 oz package of Bittersweet Chocolate bits in a bowl while putting 1 cup of heavy cream on the stove until edges of cream start to bubble. Pour cream on top of chocolate and stir. After fully mixed, you may need to let it cool for a bit so it thickens up enough to easily spread on the log like a frosting. Once covered, put cake in the fridge for 10-15 min to firm up enough for the fork carvings.

My first cake stuck to the parchment paper but I was able to salvage half of it and created these smaller branches. But a simple log is totally fine for this cake. I just hated to waste the first attempt. Once the ganache is sitting thick on your log, take out a fork and carve the chocolate to look like actual tree bark.  Have fun with swirls and knots if you like.

Once carved, place cake in the fridge for a while longer until ganache is hard. (I know, this is a lot of in and out of the fridge.) Take a sharp, large knife and cleanly cut the ends of your log so everyone can see the beautiful cake/filling swirls. Clean the knife between each cut.

A week before, I used Martha’s Meringue Mushroom recipe to make these fun mushroom tops and bottoms. Leftover ganache was used to glue the tops and bottoms together and also to stick them onto the cake and serving platter. I found the poinsettias at a local cake supply store and thought it would make it more festive. As a final touch, I sprinkled some confectioners’ sugar on everything to emulate snow. I wanted it to look like a log you would come upon out in a snowy forest!

I made the above cake for my work holiday party and everyone enjoyed it so much that I made two more for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations (two different family groups). This might just become a tradition for me! Maybe for you too?

Decadent Chocolate Mousse
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups (buy a 1 pint carton) package of heavy cream and make sure it’s COLD
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1) In a medium saucepan, combine the confectioners’ sugar and 1/2 cup heavy cream then stir over low heat. Add the semisweet chocolate chips, stirring frequently as they melt and the mixture becomes well blended. Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla and set this mixture aside.

2) In the KitchenAid mixer with whisk attachment, whisk the remaining 1 1/2 cup heavy cream on medium speed and gradually add the granulated sugar. When all the sugar has been incorporated, beat the mixture on high speed until stiff peaks form.

3) Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. It will look a bit soupy, but don’t worry. Refrigerate for at least one hour before using on your cake. If you want to serve in fancy glasses, pour into said fancy glasses before placing in the fridge. The longer it’s in the fridge the better.

First, you will need buy lots of chocolate. He gets the chocolate pieces at our local cake supply stores. 2 bags of 16 oz of dark chocolate and also a bag of white chocolate pieces to melt and use for drizzling (melting white chocolate in the microwave for 30 sec intervals until fully melted will do you right).

He also buys a couple of bags of pretzels, walnuts and a few containers of peanuts. These things are spread out on a cookie sheet as shown below. Cookie sheets are lined with parchment paper.

His method of melting chocolate is very clever. He takes one of those fry pan/electric skillets and fills halfway with water. Chocolate is put in a glass Pyrex pouring cup and set in the hot water on the counter. This keeps the chocolate from hardening and is pour-ready all night long. Once poured on top of the pretzels and peanuts, he drizzles the white chocolate along the top and then puts the cookie sheet into the freezer to quicken the hardening process.

Once hard, he takes it out of the freezer and breaks it up to put into large zip bags for storage. By using all the 2 16 oz bags of chocolate, he makes 5 of these bags. Of course, when he distributes as gifts, they are put in snazzy boxes or tins. A very nice tradition!

I decided to make a simple devil’s food cake package mix (after all those Thanksgiving desserts, I deserved to cheat!) and divided between my two new 9×9 square pans.

I filled the cake with my chocolate fudge frosting, chopped snickers bars and caramel.

I had seen a cake online recently where the sides were white and the top was chocolate and thought it looked really nice – classy almost. I purchased mini snickers and cut them all in half. The top halves were put along the cake’s bottom border as decoration, but the bottoms were chopped up for the cake filling.

Then I thought I’d practice my roses and reverse shell border. I never do cursive writing on a cake, but figured I’d better start practicing that too.

Crushed peanuts were delicious and also a great decoration along the sides. His family ate this cake for a little over a week until it was gone! :)

I had been searching for an apple cake recipe that would be good for cupcakes, that was not an applesauce cake and had some sort of caramel aspect to it. I wanted apple pie in a cupcake form. I found an apple cake recipe I liked and then went searching for caramel. As part of an old English Christmas tradition, my mother has always taken a can of sweetened condensed milk, boiled it and served the resulting caramel with red and green jello (crazy English). But that caramel is not ooey gooey the way I pictured my future apple pie caramel cupcakes to be. And then I came upon this recipe below. I wish I could find that site again so I could give them the credit!

Ooey, Gooey Caramel Recipe (makes 4 cups)
1 cup butter (don’t substitute)
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp. whipping cream
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. salt

In a heavy saucepan, bring butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk to a boil over medium heat, stirring. I know you are drooling over those apple cupcakes in the background, don’t worry, the recipe is here.

Attach a candy thermometer to your pan. Continue to stir until caramel reads 238 degrees or soft ball stage. Remove from heat right when it hits 238 and add vanilla and salt.

I let the caramel hang out in a bowl on the counter to cool off and firm up a bit before putting it in a Wilton decorating bottle for the deliciousness that was my Apple Pie Caramel Cupcakes.

It makes a LOT of caramel, but you wouldn’t want to try and halve a can of sweetened condensed milk. Much easier to just use the whole can and the ingredients above.

I’m thinking of creating some sort of a Snickers cake with this caramel in the near future. My boyfriend loves chocolate and decadent desserts… his birthday is the day after Thanksgiving so stay tuned!

Please note: If you do not keep up with your stirring, the sugar falls to the bottom and burns… and then you have to find the finest filter you have (in my case, a flour sifter) to filter out the black burned pieces. It could’ve also been that my sauce pan was not sturdy or thick enough. However, it STILL tasted FANTASTIC.

Even the local cupcake chain makes a daily “flavor of the day” on their Facebook wall and it’s always pumpkin spice but just with a different frosting on it. You are not fooling anyone, people. Please find your creativity and get back to us. Can we direct our attentions away from the pumpkin please?

There are other fall flavors that (in my opinion) are much more enticing than pumpkin. Pumpkin. Blech. What about apple??? Don’t you just want to take a fistful of this diced goodness and gobble it up?

I have something in store for you. I have been searching high and low for a really good apple cake recipe. Not an applesauce bundt cake, not an apple spice cake… just a simple cinnamon and nutmeg creation where the apples are diced in chunks and not food processed into applesauce. I found it here, doubled it and then complemented this cupcake with homemade caramel and a whipped cream cheese frosting. This cupcake is rather delicious and could very well sway the palettes of those previously mentioned pumpkin-obsessed peoples. (Say THAT 3 times fast!)

Apple Pie Cupcake Recipe (makes 24):
4 Granny Smith apples peeled, cored and diced (4 cups)
2 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
2 tbsp Ground Cinnamon
1 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1 tsp Salt
1 1/2 cups Brown Sugar
2 Whole Eggs
1/2 cup Canola Oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake pan with decorative cupcake papers.

Whisk dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, nutmeg and salt) in a bowl and set aside. In your mixer, use the whisk attachment for brown sugar and egg. Once mixed, add in oil and whisk away some more.

Slowly add dry ingredients into the wet mixture until smooth. Fold in apples until evenly distributed. The batter will be heavy and thick – perfect for scooping into cupcake papers!

Bake for 15-18 minutes. Mine were more on the 17-18 minutes side since the tops weren’t very bouncy at 15. Now for the caramel! I made my own caramel following this recipe, but you can go ahead and melt down any jarred caramel at your grocery store. I put the ooey, gooey caramel deliciousness into a Wilton’s candy decorating bottle and shot a small amount into each cupcake as filling. After making the frosting swirls along the perimeter of each cupcake, I went back and created caramel centers (or “puddles”) inside the frosting. See final photo at the top.

Admittedly, these photos are from the first time I made the cupcakes and made a regular cream cheese frosting instead of the aforementioned whipped cream cheese frosting. I found that a regular frosting is too heavy and too sweet to go along with all that caramel. The whipped version is lighter, but still a tasty complement. (After all, people do put whipped cream on actual pies and not frosting.) Trust me that the whipped cream cheese frosting is still sturdy enough to create the swirls and hold the caramel puddle in its place. Of course, the dinner party I was headed to on this particular evening had no complaints. Sprinkle with cinnamon for added decoration.

And then there’s this photo. What a goob.