"I didn't know how babies were made until I was pregnant with my fourth child."
The week before birthday week this year, I arrived home from the office to a box on the counter for something I knew I hadn't ordered. Yes, the box was addressed to me. It had shipped from Lenexa, Kansas via someone, something, or someplace called "The Grommet."
Indeed, inside was a gift from a colleague who shares a monthly mail-watch for the Cambria Cove catalog. Although this gift is now available in lots of places in several colors, my box held the original baby pink electric appliance known as "Babycakes" that we both first observed therein. This discovery came a few months after we had elected to eat dessert first on a business trip to Overland Park, Kansas; when the bistro we'd targeted for dinner was closed for a special event, we just went across the street to a cupcake shop, sampled four of their creations, and downed the whole thing with ice-cold milk. Since then, we've had a unique internal radar for cupcake imagery, if not the real thing.
Anyway, the Babycakes is basically like a waffle iron for two-inch cupcakes and anything else I might want to concoct, so long as it's acceptable to form it into a two-inch something.
The inside has eight cups, and the whole surface is non-stick. Inside the box, I also found a small bag with a pastry bag and a couple of tips. I don't need it, since I have an entire set of bags and tips already; but, I don't throw anything away in this department - ever. I stored it in the bottom cabinet drawer where all the baking supplies live in our kitchen. It would be a good thing for a novice baker to use for "practice" some day. She knows who she is....
Another bag held a couple of rings. The people who created this appliance had the good sense to flute the edges of the baking cups and calculate the precise sized circle of pastry dough that would fit; then, also provide the cutter to do that. Not stopping there, the other ring can be used to press the precisely-sized dough circle into the cup and onto the flutes. Genius. Perfect for any miniature pie of any sort - pumpkin for Thanksgiving, pecan for Christmas, quiche for whenever, and so forth.
The instructions said to put about two tablespoons of batter in each cup, which I wasn't too disciplined about. However, with the first batch, I was remembering what happens when a waffle iron is over-filled and anticipated that I might have created a mess for myself. I had already read the directions when the box first arrived, but forgot to reread them before pre-heating the unit. The battle popped and sizzled as it hit the fully pre-heated unit; I thought I had invited another disaster. But, no! The directions said that it was OK to put the batter in the pre-heated unit - that it wouldn't affect the results. How could that be?
The first batch was perfect after five minutes, just as predicted. I unplugged Babycakes and began to gently prod around the edges with a dull knife to see if the nonstick surface had performed. All eight cupcakes were baked and popped right out. Too good to be true?
I put the second batch in the unplugged, cooling unit; then, closed the lid and plugged it back into the socket. Five minutes later, the cakes were done again. But, I found that this batch was sticking. They didn't really tear, but they weren't as perfect as batch #1. Since I don't have to be told twice, I decided that the best results came from putting the batter in the preheated unit because the bottom began baking before the rest of the cake. I don't know if that's true. But, it's my story and I'm "sticking" to it, since all the remaining cakes popped out after having been started this way. CRD Science 101.
The yield was predicted to be somewhere between 44 and 48 of these little babies. But, since I was profligate and imprecise with the batter, I only got 37 Babycakes. I haven't decided how I will finish them, but I'm almost equally a Frosting vs. Cake Girl. So, there will be frosting.
Observing how uniform and "perfect" this batch of cakes looked compared to anything miniature I've tried to bake in Colorado, I began to fret that they wouldn't taste or "feel" like cake. That they would be more like a chocolate muffin. But, again, no worries there. In fact, the process of baking the cake in the enclosed unit prevented the ungainly rising and resulted in a denser, more from-scratch like texture. Like all cakes, they will be even better tomorrow.
What a discovery! Dr. Jayhawk is moving in on the deal, already suggesting that his favorite blueberry muffins would be more perfect in the Babycakes. I can see all kinds of advantages to this thing, especially during hot weather. Fortunately, we don't have that much of it. But, no one - with me first in that line - wants to turn on the "big" oven when it's hot, any time of year. It's also possible to make just enough batter for as few as eight cakes. Portion control emerges in the form of recipe control, which has always been there for the taking in cupcake tins also; but, for which none of us has probably taken the time to figure it out.
The latest issue of the Cambria Cove catalog suggests that the manufacturer is doing quite well, as we can now order a whoopie pie maker and a cake ball maker from them, too. Probably for unit integrity issues, but maybe for other not-as-smart reasons, they may have overplayed their hand. I don't have time, inclination, or space for any more "cake" makers. Dr. Jayhawk asked why they didn't make the unit with interchangable plates, too. It's so obvious, an attorney could see it.
Oh well, here's to American Ingenuity, Capitalism, and cupcake goodness. In any size.
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