I have a love hate relationship with cookbooks. The pictures show such promise but you never know if the recipes will really work. That's why most of the time, I do my recipe shopping online because you can read reviews.One of my favorite things to do is shop the book sections in TJ Maxx and those kinds of stores and while in HomeGoods last week, I found a cupcake book by a former baking editor of Martha Stewart and it was LOVE. Simply called cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski, the simple recipes and gorgeous pictures suggested ooey gooey cupcakes, the kinds we all remember from childhood - so I thought, YUMMY and bought.
Cupcakes might be the most perfect little treat you can eat. Even done up in the most elegant of styles, they are still cute and accessible - there's nothing arrogant about a cupcake in the way some giant confection covered in chocolate and surrounded by a sugar cage might intimidate. I've done them a few times for weddings, but my favorite presentation is in combination with a cake for a small event - usually for a mixed group of adults and children so I get to decorate a cute cake and cupcakes. But most often I make cupcakes as gifts for people - so I can give all the special people in the my life a little bit of sweetness for their day.
I've now tried three of the recipes in the book and they're pretty good: the banana caramel cupcakes, easter nests and strawberry. I've had to make some modifications for altitude but other than that they are delish! And making the banana cupcakes got me to make caramel, which I've always been afraid to try - liquids boil at a lower point at altitude and all I could picture was a steaming, sticky sugar mess but it WORKED! Spurred on by my success, I'm going to keep trying the recipes -what I really like about the book is there is enough variety to come up with some of my own combinations - Chocolate covered banana cupcakes, anyone?
