So Pretty

Yes. More cupcakes. What's really surprising is that I lost weight this week, even with these and pound cake. Anyhoo. These were for a coworker's birthday.

I am an official cupcake convert. I love them for portion control and decorating ease. I've taken the Wilton cake decorating classes (with some degree of success); I just am not the type of person to sculpt something with fondant. I prefer the simple elegance of cupcakes. Many of the more popular bakeries have a standard way of applying the icing, not matter the cupcake variety. Perhaps the most famous is Sprinkles, in LA. I like that standardization.

Anyway, I'm a swirl kinda girl, although I'm still trying to get mine to look like these from Blue Cupcake. In hindsight, think it's a large rosette. Mine are like ice cream cone swirls.

So, I decided to make a cupcake version of the strawberry cream cake by Cook's Illustrated. From previous miserable experiences, I knew better than to mess with an egg-foam cake. I turned to the All Occasion Downy Butter Cake by baker extraordinaire Rose Levy Beranbaum. You know I've had a jones for sweet potato and caramel brought together as a dessert, so I decided to go for that too.

Before we get started, let me just say how thankful I was for two KitchenAid stand mixer bowls. I'm thinking about purchasing a second paddle and whisk too. I didn't take any cake-in-progress pics for the cupcake part of the strawberry cream cake, but you know the drill, don't you? While your cupcakes bake, move on to the strawberries.

Quarter them and toss with sugar. Let them sit for an hour. Stir periodically. You should end up with this:

Drain and reserve the liquid. Give the berries a good mash. CI suggests a food processor. I didn't want to dirty another appliance. Pour the strawberry juices into a small saucepan. Add some Kirsch and reduce until it becomes a syrup. Add this to the mashed berries.

Now grab some strawberries and slice them thin. Place these on the outer edges of the cupcake like a border. Spoon a little bit of the mashed berry mixture into the center.

Now let's move to the topping. Whip room temperature cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Don't try to cheat and use cold cream cheese. You will have lumps. And lumps aren't cute are they? Nope. Add cold heavy cream and vanilla. Whip until fluffy.

No fancy piping needed for decoration. In this case, the unfussy dollop of the cream really underscored the real strawberries, real cream cheese and real whipped cream. Natural is good.

Add a strawberry slice to the center and you're done!

Now let's get to the sweet potato caramel. These would have been perfect if there were one less stick of butter in the icing. That's just my preference. Everybody else loved them. Let's keep it moving. The base recipe is CI's Yellow Cupcakes. I took leap of faith and tried to strike a balance between the sour cream and mashed sweet potato.

Roast your sweet potato. I'll take roasting over boiling any day. I think some of the flavor boils right out into the water.

Mash while hot or you will have strings. Strings are not a good thing.

Sorry, no pics of me making the cake. I was going for speed. So pretend I listed all of the steps and took pics. Here's what you end up with: orange-colored goodness.

Now for the frosting -- caramel Italian meringue buttercream. Very ambitious. Especially first thing in the morning. I got up to make it and the cream topping at midnight. I realized that I was in no shape to do anything that required precision, so I went back to bed until 4. That didn't help much because I burned the first batch of caramel!

What's so cool about this icing is that it's like a song with four movements: crème anglaise,

caramel (yes this eventually turned into caramel),

meringue,

and butter (and lots of it).

Here's the result. Beranbaum's recipe called for four sticks of butter. I found that while the icing was unbelievably silky and light, I tasted more butter than caramel. I'm going to try it with three sticks next time.

Grab a piping bag and tip and have at it.

Now my ultimate flavor combo is sweet potato, caramel and pecan. I chopped a few nuts for the folks to sprinkle on their own. I didn't want hurt anyone with severe nut allergies. Um, yeah. I had to try one. 'Twas great!

All packed up and ready to go!

Tools of the trade:

• KitchenAid Stand Mixer
• All-Clad 1-Qt Saucepan
• Shun Santoku
• Totally Bamboo Butcher Block
• Wilton Disposable Decorating Bag
• Wilton 4B Tip

Wishing for Summer

Well okay, my NordicWare shortcake pan isn't new, I got it for Christmas. I used it for the first time last week when a friend came over for dinner. I apologized because I used a boxed cake mix as a base for dessert. I do keep boxed cake mix in the house for emergencies like this and for cake decorating practice. It's not even the kind of mix that uses butter! (If I had time to soften butter for cake mix, I could make a cake from scratch.)

Anyway, now it's time to give my shortcake pan it's due. I decided to use the recipe that came with the pan. I have also purchased a second shortcake pan because I want to be able to use a regular cake recipe for this (one pan holds about three cups of batter.) You can freeze the extra cakes and your dining emergencies won't really be emergencies.

Let's knock out the batter. The directions suggested that I dump everything into a bowl and mix. I decided to take a more traditional approach. I creamed the butter and sugar first. Since I was working with a small amount of batter, I used my hand mixer, Sparkle.

I added the egg and alternately added the flour and milk (I used buttermilk.)

Fill the cups 3/4 full and bake. Here's the deal. I followed the recipe (with the exception of substituting buttermilk for milk) and I portioned the batter out properly (or so I thought). Why then do I have these misshapen cakes?

I pulled the excess from the cakes while they were in the pan. I tried to slice the bottoms off some. Pulling the extra off worked much better.

The scraps made an excellent snack!

My last complaint is that I can't get good browning in this pan. This is my second attempt, and the cakes are very light, yet done according to the toothpick test. When you look at the cakes on the packaging, they are perfectly browned and you can see the decoration from the pan. I promise I will cook until they are brown the next time. I think a pound cake batter might work better too.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Pop the cakes out and cool on a wire rack.

Here's the fun part: fill and eat! I scored some blueberries, blackberries and Trader Joe's lemon curd. I already had the whipped cream. To assemble, add a couple of tablespoons of lemon curd to each cake and nestle the berries in the curd. Top with whipped cream.

Isn't it cute? And yes, it tastes as good as it looks. It's 37 degrees right now. This is as close as I can get to sitting out on the balcony in the warm sun with a good book and a big glass of sweet tea! June needs to get here quickly.

Tools of the trade:

• KitchenAid Hand Mixer
• NordicWare Shortcake Baskets Pan