Let the Count Down Begin

With Cupcake Day fast approaching, this past weekend I worked my butt off to gather together those necessary items that I mentioned in my last post. Yes, it is true; I am now the proud owner of not one, but two cupcake pans. And boy oh boy, were they a treat to find. Everywhere I looked, the only thing I could find were perfectly nice muffin pans. Had my mother not been there, I would not have known that there was a big difference between muffin and cupcakes pans. Well, big might be stretching it. The difference is really only 3mm but thats not the point. The point is, why were there so many muffin pans and almost no cupcake pans! I kinda wonder if perhaps the bakeware companies were almost ashamed to produce and label something as a cupcake pan. Why? Perhaps they think that muffin sounds healthier and people would rather buy something that produces healthy food instead of something that creates the muffin's alleged fattening cousin? Its not cupcakes fault that they that have the unfair connotation of being fattening. If anything, it all really depends on the ingredients used to create them. Even after I inquired if whether one of the stores had any cupcake pans in stock, they seriously asked me, "What's wrong with the other pan? Aren't cupcake just muffins with frosting?" To be honest, the probably would have been nothing wrong with using muffin pans. Sure, the cupcakes would have been slightly bigger, but who would really complain about that? And for the record, here are some differences between muffins and cupcakes. Note that these differences can vary depending on the recipes being used. Speical thanks for www.cakespy.com for compiling the list.

Oven temperature and baking times: The cupcakes were baked at 350 for 30 minutes, and the muffins were baked at 375 for 25 minutes.

But f

Mixing: With the muffins, our recipe said to mix until the dry ingredients were mixed with the wet, but not until smooth; with the cupcakes, we creamed the butter and mixed longer, until there were no lumps.

Flour: There is significantly more flour in the muffin recipe.

It took a few tries, but eventually, I did it. I found the perfect set of pans. How do I know that they are perfect? 1. They actually said cupcake on the packaging and won my mother's approval. 2. and most importantly, they are from the highly regarded cookware/bakeware brand Calphalon. Of course, until the moment of purchase, I had never heard of them. Not once. Never. Mom was quite shocked by this. Indeed, it seems my ignorance knows no bounds. She just couldn't believe that I had never heard of  Calphalon, let alone an array of other bakeware producers. This naturally set off her rant about my lack of bakeware knowledge. She does have a point; how am I supposed to do this if the only thing I know about bakeware is that the company, Kitchenaid has come out with a hot pink mixer that only a Barbie doll would want. This brings me back to what I said in my last post. Hopefully by the end of this adventure, I will have become a better baker and cook. This includes obtaining a decent knowledge about the equipment needed in the kitchen. Though to be honest, I don't know where I would be without my mom. Last week I checked a bake book out of the library because it held a recipe for a delicious cake called Battenberg. On the recipe page it said that I needed a specific sized pan. The problem was, I didn't know where to find said pan. What did my mom do? She flipped to the back of the book and found a list of websites and stores that the author suggested for baking. One thing led to another and a few days later, she led me into William-Sonoma.

I felt like Alice walking into a Wonderland of cook and bakeware. Though I had walked by this store countless of times, I had never actually been in it before. How can I properly describe it? Cute. That's really all I can say. The whole store was just absolutely cute. The layout, the products, even the help were just so cute. One of the ladies who assisted me had an adorable southern accent and just thought my cupcake thing was the darnest thing she had ever heard. After that, she kindly took me over to the bakeware section and presented me with a box. What was in said you may wonder? My first ever pastry bag! And for those who don't know what that is, I referred to it in my last post as that thing you use to put frosting on cupcakes and stuff. Let me just say, I have been waiting for one these things since I first saw one used on Cake Boss. I cannot wait to test it out. And speaking of testing it out, who wants to know which cupcake recipe I'm gonna do first? Cookies n' Cream. Simple, sweet, and my close friend's favorite. I told her before she left the country and her mouth watered. At least there is one person out there who is excited for my cupcakes. I just hope Clark University will be excited too. A friend at school agrees that my official nickname should be the Crazy Cupcake Clarkie. Who knows, maybe it'll catch on.