Sweet Bakings--A Few Re-peerings

Last month, I blogged about sweet bakings, recipe undertakings spread over 13 years of blogging. Recipes I spotted on the web inspired me to experiment, not merely replicate. i came up with 28 cooky recipes and 19 cake and cake-ish recipes. For cakes, I started out mostly blogging about cupcakes and occasional mini-muffins. For cookies, I varied baking cake mix cookies but also baked scratch cookies.

Maybe surprisingly, I'd done several of the recipes seldom since blogging about them. A few never-agains are because a particular ingredient, usually a cake mix, is either no longer available, formulation is different, or weight is different (mostly less).

Specific to cake mix powder, I'd made cakes AND cake mix cookies over years to remember the standard size weighed 18.25 ounces. Manufacturers reduced the amount to 16.25 for a few years. Now it's 15.25. It's irritating about companies screwing around with powder amounts that, worse than result in smaller finished good(s), make an inferior item. Some recipes WERE perfect with 18.25 ounces of powder.

Cooky Monsterous

With "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch" (#018), I combined Red Velvet cake mix (especially seasonal for Valentine's Day) and strawberry flavor cake mix. I'd made several batches for a few years for sharing in the workplace. Haven't made them for well over a decade.

I must have been really ambitious or patient when I did Krusteaz Choco Caramel Squares" (#139). Or I might have used a compelling coupon. Anyway, Seems that Krusteaz no longer carries my main recipe ingredient, Krusteaz Molten Deep Dish Chocolate Cookie with Caramel Center.

I noticed that I had omitted "Baking Cookies with Trader Joe Cake MIx" from my cooky recipe list. I can only guess that my results weren't great. In any case, TJ's 28-ounce Golden Yellow cake mix is no longer available. Instead, TJ sells Yellow Cake & Baking Mix, $2.99 for 16 oz. Price is double what I'd consider for name-brands Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker, or Pillsbury. BTW, I often buy my supermarket brand, comparable in quality to the name brands, and a smidge more powder (16.5 oz).

Cakes and Cupcakes and Muffins, Oh, My!

In June 2012, my first cakey recipe was "Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes" (#070). Not much of a stretch for deviating from a set recipe, but it was a start.

"Square Mini and Whoopie Muffin Experiment" (#88) was an experiment for using up two half-boxes of cake mix (Red Velvet, Strawberry) to try making muffins, and trying out two different pans. Let's just say the experiment was a been-there-done-that experience.

"Mini-cupcake Offload: Pan Type & Prep, Batter Amt" (#118) is another recipe that I made while in muffin mode, specifically mini-muffins. I might be inclined to try layer-caking it at another time. The ingredients sound tasty! The amount of cherry filling, however, sounds maybe more than necessary,. With a few cake experiments under my belt, I might be able to gauge actual amounts to use. Google can also help guide.

In 2016, I moseyed over to something bigger, to be eaten with a fork, then zebra layer cakes. It was another four years before making and documenting a layer. Did another couple more this year. Cakes are a bit more labor intensive than cookies.

I haven't baked muffins or cupcakes in a long while is because of a shifting preference for layer cakes. The longer baking times for such cakes seem to result in more moistness retention. (Cupcakes and muffins have more surface area per batch than two layers of cake.)

I have had an eye on a springform pan cake recipe "Cake in 5 minutes! You will make this cake every day. Few people cook cakes like this!". Thinking that chocolate pudding or blueberry jam in place of the orange filling might be interesting.

Serving Sizes SNit

Related to cake mix manufacturers' weight reduction is supposed number of servings. I distinctly recall that nutrition tables used to state that number of servings was 12. Now it's 10. Imho, it's a lot easier to cut a cake into 12 wedges than 10.

Meandering to barely-related topic--pizza portions. I won't name names, but one big-name pizza manufacturer states that the number of servings is 5. How easy is it to cut a pizza, whether round or square, into FIVE pieces?

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Related:
Pt 1 Sweet Bakings--Cookies, Mostly
Pt 2 Sweet Bakings--Cakes, Cupcakes, and Mini-muffins

Mini-cupcake Offload: Pan Type & Prep, Batter Amt

In case the blog article title seems oddly abbreviated, my intent is to minimize the number of characters but still convey the topic, related to my previous article about offloading fudge. For that experiment, I contrasted spray oil vs. spray oil and powdered sugar for offloading fudge, using mini-cupcake silicone and aluminum pans. That dessert requires no baking, thus, use of powdered sugar for prepping some of the pan cavities.

Initially, my experimentation idea this time was using liner papers for mini-cupcakes after baking them. The first time I tried a mini-cupcake recipe and used a silicone pan, I poured the batter into paper-lined cavities. The paper boundaries, nearly vertical, were more challenging for avoiding spills at edges. The baked cakes were instantly and easily removable. Unfortunately, some cake tend to stick to the papers, lessening the edible amount.

So, this time around, was going to only contrast spray oil vs. spray oil and flour in baking Choco Cherry Choco Chip mini-cupcakes. But then, I also wanted to see how well mini-cupcake paper liners fit the baked cakes if I varied the amount of batter—underfill (level tablespoonful) and common fill (rounded tablespoonful).

I had intended on using only silicone pans, After prepping and one of them and putting it in the oven, it occurred to me that the baking process was going to take a lot longer if I switch out several pans' worth. So, I pulled out the aluminum pans and prepped and filled them also. The second oven batch took aa bit of arranging and rearranging, with the second silicone pan and three aluminum pans. I balanced one metal pan on an oven rack ledge and another pan's edge.

The original recipe I modified for the mini-cupcakes is Cherry Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cake. Lucky Leaf pushed its canned pie filling.

A more elaborate recipe that uses chocolate cake mix is Chocolate Cherry Cake, but the baker uses the chocolate chips for the frosting and none in the cake itself.

An extremely elaborate recipe is from SugarWinzy—Cherry Chocolate Chip Layer Cake. Her one-off recipe for cupcakes is Chocolate Chip Cherry Cupcakes. My eyes glazed over from the number of ingredients and artistry.

The simplest recipe would have been using only one flavor of cake mix, but I wanted my batch to be more like milk chocolate cake. Ingredients from the Lucky Leaf recipe and my deviations:

1 16.25-ounce box white cake mix (I used 1/2 box *each* of chocolate and white cake mixes.)
3 eggs
1 21-ounce can LUCKY LEAF Regular or Premium Cherry Pie Filling (I used a different brand.)
1 cup mini chocolate chips (I used regular size chips.)

Instead of using either a bundt cake or oblong pan, I used the silicone and aluminum mini-cupcake pans, baking at 350 for only about 16 minutes each batch. I also skipped the icing part of the recipe. I considered the cakes (yield of 84) to be sweet enough naked, with less work, fewer ingredients, fewer calories.

The spray-oil only method of prepping the pans resulted in fewer instances of cakes sticking to pans than using both spray oil and flour. Originally, I wondered if the papers might be undersized with the bigger post-baked cakes. I was happy to see that the papers hugged well. Maybe the pleats of the sides help accommodate mini-cupcakes for perimeter and volume. The baking session yielded 84 mini-cupcakes.

Try the "Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes" recipe. Besides putting in a pixstrip for step-by-step instructions, I also talked about muffin vs. cupcake. Also visit Square Mini and Whoopie Muffin Experiment, the recipe where I contrast square mini-muffins and whoopie muffins for shape.