Cookistry

The Cookies for Kids' Cancer campaign sponsored by OXO is one of my favorite feel-good things every year. Bloggers who participate get a few free products from OXO, but the money goes to charity. How awesome is that?

Maybe you've heard of Wacky Cake. I have a vague memory of bringing home a copy of the recipe and making it at home, which must have been a huge event since my mom never baked anything.

The major selling point that must have convinced my mom to let me make the cake was that it didn't require eggs, a mixing bowl, or a blender. The recipe was mixed by hand and baked in the same pan.

The problem with that recipe was that it was hard to mix the ingredients evenly in a cake pan, without scraping off the butter or shortening that was greasing the pan.

I've seen a lot of wacky cake recipes since then, but I hadn't given it much thought until I ran into yet another recipe in a community cookbook. And then I thought ... hmmm ... I wonder if this would work as cupcakes.

While I was thinking, I also decided to cut the recipe in half, and I made a few other little adjustments as well. Because, what the heck. Might as well have some fun, right?

Wacky cake is normally left unfrosted - maybe just dusted with powdered sugar. But I decided the cupcakes needed frosting, so I made a simple chocolate ganache and used the cool decorating tool that OXO provided to swirl the ganache on top of the cupcakes.

So pretty! So easy! Not messy!

They also sent me a really nice 12-cup muffin pan - looks pretty with a gold-colored finish, right? And they sent silicone baking cups as well. The muffin cups are pure genius, since they have little "ears" on two sides that makes it really easy to get the cupcakes out of the pan.

Wacky Cupcakes
Adapted from Favorite Recipes from Quilters by Louise Stoltzfus

See the "ears" on the muffin cups? Really handy!

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 ounces vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup cold water

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and place cupcake liners in 12 wells of a muffin pan.

Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat with a hand mixer at high speed until well blended, about two or three minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the cups - they should be about 3/4 full.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 18-20 minutes, or until the top of the cupcakes spring back when touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove the pan from the oven and remove transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting. Here's where those little ears on the cupcake cups really came in handy!

When the cupcakes are fully cooled, frost as desired. Or, if you want to stay true to the original wacky recipe, just dust them with a little powdered sugar.

About the frosting:

For my frosting, I used a basic ganache with 6 ounces of cream, heated to boiling, poured over 6 ounces of semisweet chocolate, broken into chunks.

At this point, you have a ganache that you can pour onto a cake to make a smooth layer of chocolate. But that's not what I wanted.

After the mixture was completely smooth and starting to cool off a bit, I started beating it with my hand mixer until it was thick and fluffy and the color had lightened a bit.

I piped the frosting on the cupcakes. YUM.

NOTE: after seeing someone else post a vegan chocolate dessert recipe, I realized that the cake part of this recipe is vegan. Not that it's trying to be, it just is. It was thought to have been first developed during WWII, when dairy and eggs were rationed. That's why it uses oil. And it works really, really well.

The frosting I made included dairy, so that's not vegan, but that's easy to swap for something else, like a faux-buttercream made with either vegetable oil or a non-dairy butter substitute. Or ganache made using a non-dairy cream (although I've never tried that). Or whatever vegan frosting or icing you like.

OXO sent along some info about the products they sent. Here's what they had to say:

Muffin Pan
The Non-Stick Pro Muffin Pan features a unique micro-textured pattern that ensures even baking and adds structural rigidity. It's made with a ceramic-reinforced, two-layer, commercial-grade coating that provides ultimate non-stick release and is scratch-, stain-, corrosion- and abrasion-resistant.

Baking Cups
https://www.oxo.com/products/cooking-baking/baking-tools/silicone-baking-cups-12-pack
The BPA-free Baking Cups have handy tabs to help remove them from muffin tins without making a thumbprint, and the inside of each Cup is smooth and non-stick to release your treat easily. With a fill line, your cupcakes will be consistent every time.

Baker's Decorating Tool
Our easy-to-use, easy-to-fill Tool is designed to give you complete control while decorating. The unique trigger provides a smooth stream of icing for clean lines, and the comfortable handles ensure a steady grip and protect icing from warm hands.

Mmmmm. Cupcakes.

I love when I plan comes together. I had a banana that was past its eating best, and I had a new hand mixer I wanted to test. The mixer came from OXO, along with a decorating tool that's like a cookie press married to a pastry bag.

Oooooh. I love new toys!

This month is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and OXO usually sponsors Cookies for Kids Cancer events on blogs. I missed out on this year's official events, but I shoehorned my way in, got some gear, and decided that cupcakes are sort of like cookies.

Because that's how I am.

The Cookies for Kids Cancer is one of the blogger events I really like. Bloggers don't get anything except product, but OXO donates to charity. Plus, they donate for people who hold bake sales. All the details, straight from OXO, are at the end of this post.

Meanwhile, cupcakes and gadgets.

I had been curious about the kitchen electrics from OXO since they first announced them. My favorite OXO tool is probably my vegetable peeler, but I like a whole lot of other things, too, like their containers, and their mango splitter and their cherry pitter and their cookie press. What I like best about the cookie press is the extra plates you can buy for it. I think I have them all ... but I'm a little afraid to look!

Oh, and I totally LOVE the cold brew coffee maker (reviewed here; buy it on Amazon here). I use that coffee maker pretty exclusively for my everyday coffee.

But those particular gadgets aren't electric. I was curious if the OXOness of the electrics would match the thoughtful way they design their other products.

When the OXO hand mixer arrived, there were a number of things liked about it right off the bat. It stands up very steadily with no threat of tipping. It comes with both normal beaters and swirly beaters that are designed for heavy batters. And it has a headlight.

I wondered if the light was necessary. I mean, I've had plenty of hand beaters, and none of them lit up. It's not like I make cake in the dark, right?

But here's the thing.

I was really able to see what was going on in the bowl. I could see when things were fully mixed without stopping the mixer to look inside the bowl without the mixer casting a shado.

Is it essential? Well, obviously not, because we've lived without lighted mixers for a long time. But it really does make sense. I like it. A lot.

As far as the OXO decorating tool, I was a little confused by it until I put frosting into it and started using it. Then it made perfect sense. And nice cupcakes. I don't think I'd use the tool if I wanted to make one super-long unbroken line of frosting. But that's not something I see myself doing any time soon.

The tool comes with several tips, but the good news is that standard-sized tips fit, so if you've already got a collection of them, you can use them with this tool. Both the small and large tips fit, which is even better. And the whole thing can go in the dishwasher to be cleaned. After you disassemble it, obviously.

These banana cupcakes aren't similar in to a pound cake in consistency. Not as fluffy as a sponge cake, but not as dense as banana bread.

Banana Cupcakes with Plum Jam Frosting

To make the cupcakes:
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1 mashed ripe banana

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line one 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt

In another medium mixing bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and brown sugar together. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Beat in the mashed banana

Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternately with two additions of the milk, beating until incorporated after each addition.

Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full (these don't rise spectacularly, so they're fine at 3/4 full, even at high altitude). Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking until the tops are firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean – about 18-20 minutes.

To make the frosting:
4 ounces cream cheese*
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons plum jam** (or to taste)
Powdered sugar, as needed (about a pound, depending on the thickness you're looking for)

Beat the cream cheese and butter until it's smooth, then add the vanilla extract and salt beat until incorporated.

Beat in the plum jam until it's incorporated.

Add the powdered sugar in increments until the consistency is what you're looking for. You can leave it softer if you're spreading the frosting on, but you'll need it firmer if you want piped designs to hold their shape. If you somehow manage to get it too thick, and more milk or jam.

*The cream cheese you choose does make a difference. I've tried making frosting with fat-free cream cheese, and I thought it tasted terrible. If you like it, go for it. BUT! The brand and type of cream cheese will affect the consistency of the frosting. You might need more or less sugar to get to a nice frosting-like consistency.

**You can use any any jam you like, or leave it out and make a vanilla frosting.

From OXO about Cookies for Kids Cancer:

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and it's a very important time for us here at OXO. Childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in the U.S. The reason, sadly, is simple: lack of funding for research specific to children. Even though pediatric cancer claims the lives of more children annually than any other disease, it receives less than 4 percent of the National Cancer Institute's budget.

In 2007, Liam Witt, the son of longtime OXOnians Gretchen and Larry Witt, was diagnosed cancer at the age of 2. OXOnians regard each other as family, and news of Liam's diagnosis hit all of
us hard. Motivated to help, Gretchen and Larry had the "crazy" idea to host a larger-than-life cookie
sale, gathering more than 250 volunteers (many of whom were fellow OXOnians,) to bake and sell
96,000 cookies. The larger-than-life cookie project raised more than $420,000 to fund childhood
cancer research.

Nine months later, Gretchen and Larry launched Cookies for Kids' Cancer as a national non-profit organization, inspiring grassroots bake sales and other events with the ultimate goal of funding research for new, improved, and less toxic treatments for children. Since then, the organization has granted more than $10 million, funding 80 research projects, 32 of which are therapies that children have access to today.

Everyone at OXO was profoundly impacted when Liam lost his 4-year battle. For years, Liam was a fixture in our office. He would visit frequently, riding his orange scooter, providing unsolicited (but always helpful) product feedback and sharing his vivacious energy with everyone. From a very young age he had a clear vision of what he wanted to do when he grew up: Become a chef and run OXO. We have no doubt he would have achieved both of his goals.


Through the years, OXOnians have devoted their personal time, energy and money to support Cookies, but the company wanted to play a larger role. In 2011, the year Liam lost his battle, OXO formalized its partnership with the organization, pledging to donate up to $100,000 per year through bake sale matches and other activities. Since then, we've helped inspire other "good cookies" to raise over $1 million and host more than 1,600 events in over 170 cities globally.

Awareness is one of the most important ways to create change, and we hope you'll support us in raising awareness around this very important cause. For more information and other ways to contribute - including hosting a bake sale of your own - visit Cookies For Kids' Cancer. If you register your bake sale and select "OXO" in the drop-down menu marked "How did you hear about Cookies for Kids' Cancer?", we'll match your proceeds for events held, before December 31st, 2016.

You want to make these cupcakes. Trust me, you do!

For more information about Rose Levy Berembaum's new cookbook The Baking Bible, see THIS POST.

When I got the book Chloe's Kitchen as part of the round-robin cookbook trade that's the essence of the Cook My Book group I belong to, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of another vegan book.

I have nothing against vegans in general, or with vegetarian or vegan meals. But sometimes the adaptations to recipes can be ... not really my taste.

For example, it's pretty common to substitute coconut oil for butter in baked goods. And I'm not a fan of coconut.

But as I browsed through the book, I started bookmarking a whole lot of recipes that were naturally vegan - they could have been found in any other cookbook, without raising eyebrows or using coconut.

Sure, there were some recipes tofu and seitan, or that used vegan margarine, but there were also recipes that used pasta, vegetables and olive oil in creative ways that looked really good - even to a meat eater. I booked marked two pasta recipes, one polenta recipe, one tomato bisque, and a couple vegetable side dishes.

That's a lot of recipes.

When I got to the recipe for a Hostess cupcake clone, I figured it was worth a try. I didn't make the filling or ganache - just the cupcakes.

I have to say that these chocolate cupcakes weren't really a clone of the commercial version. The texture was quite different.

But ... those commercial cupcakes tend to be a little dry and not really that great. These cupcakes were the opposite. Really moist. Really good.

I'm going to make these again. And again and again.

Maybe I'll go crazy and substitute some almond milk for the coffee, or *gasp* maybe milk. Or buttermilk. Or ... water. Because that would be fine, too.

The one interesting thing about these cupcakes was that sometimes cupcakes tend to stick to cupcake papers, which is annoying. These cupcakes wanted to separate from the papers, which made it easier to peel the papers and get to the cupcakes.

"Chlostess" Chocolate Cupcakes
Adapted from the recipe "Chlostess" Creme-Filled Cupcakes
from Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold coffee or water
1/2 cup canola oil (I used an olive oil blend instead)
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two cupcake pans with about 14 liners.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Whisk or stir well to combine.

In a separate bowl, combine the coffee, oil, cider vinegar, and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine, then add this to the dry ingredients. Stir until well combined and there are no dry bits of flour, but don't overmix.

Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full of batter - you should have enough for 14 cupcakes.|

Bake for 16-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Let cool completely before frosting.

I'm probably not the average shopper. Okay, I'm not normal. But we knew that.

Normal folks stock up on bargain wrapping paper, Christmas cards, and maybe some deals on lights, ornaments, candles, and decorative stuff.

Me, I go to the grocery store and see what deals I can score. And sometimes the items that go on sale aren't all that seasonal. Like chocolate chips. Seriously. Chocolate chips.

I also picked up some extra cupcake liners. Gee, the red ones will be great for Valentine's day and the green ones will be perfect for St. Patrick's day.

I eat quite a few vegetarian meals. Some are probably vegan as well, although butter and dairy products are pretty common around here. But it's not that I purposely decide to make a vegetarian or vegan meal. It's just that sometimes there's no meat or meat-products included.

I have a few vegetarian cookbooks already - way backing the stone age, I bought some of the Moosewood books, and there's another really old one with a green cover. But I don't seek out vegetarian books these days. If I want a meatless meal, I know how to do it. But somehow I ended up with not one, not two, but THREE vegetarian/vegan books. And one of them is also targeted towards people with allergies.

So here they are:

Sweet Organic Treats

First we have Sweet Debbie's Organic Treats by Debbie Adler. This is the one that also pays attention to allergens. This is an awesome book if you need to avoid gluten, soy, sugar, nuts, dairy, eggs, and/or sugar. Which is not me. But I know people who do need to avoid some, all, or most of these common allergens.

I paged though the book looking for something to make. Glorious photos. Pretty baked goods. But all the ones that looked good on first glance included things like coconut - one of the very few foods I don't like. And since these are gluten-free recipes, making substitutions would probably be a bad idea - I don't know enough about gluten-free sweets for me to be confident about making substitutions.

Recipes aren't all sweet - there are herb and (vegan) cheese muffins - with cauliflower as a surprise ingredient, and bread, and "pizza wheels" along with the sweets like espresso muffins, dark chocolate cupcakes, and brownies.

If you've got allergy issues or need to cook for someone who has them, this book should give you plenty of options.

Chocolate! Chocolate!

Vegan Chocolate by Fran Costigan is much closer to my wheelhouse. Since it's not confined to allergy-free ingredients, almond milk and soy milk play a part in many of these recipes. There are recipes that include coconut, but there are plenty that don't include it. And since it's not a gluten-free book, I can make a good majority of the recipes in this book with ingredients I already have or that I normally buy.

While the Organic Treats book is winging its way to a friend with multiple allergies, I'm going to be hanging on to this book. There are quite a number of recipes I want to try right now, and one that I'll be making as soon as I pick up a few ingredients I don't have, just because it seems soooo worth making.

Check out this description of the No-Mallow Rice Crispy Treats: "This recipe is my answer to those who love Rice Krispie Treats, but want a less sugary alternative. And you don't need to find sometimes-elusive vegan marshmallows or mallow cream. Actually, it is my second answer, since the recipe is a chewier, more chocolaty update to the recipe in my last book."

I'm sold. I used to like Rice Krispy Treats, but these days I can imagine how sugary they'd be. I love the idea of something that's not as sweet.

Meanwhile, there are recipes here that would be perfectly at home in a non-vegan book. A chocolate cake recipe becomes vegan with the use of olive oil instead of butter - but there are certainly plenty of recipes for olive oil cakes that don't happen to mention that they're vegan.

This book isn't going to convert me to vegan baking, and I might cheat on it a bit by using some non-vegan substitutes, like non-vegan chocolate chips.

I'm going to say this book would be great for vegans, but also great for anyone who loves chocolate.

Teen Cooking

I'm pretty far from being a teen, but Teen Cuisine New Vegetarian isn't strictly for teens - I think it would be handy for anyone who is new to vegetarian cooking.

I've had this book for quite some time, but for some reason I never got around to cooking anything from it until recently. A lot of the recipes seemed appealing, but every time I picked it up, I there weren't any recipes I could make right away. Which is kind of crazy, because I have a pretty well-stocked kitchen.

It's not like any of the recipes required anything weird - it was more like I didn't happen to have all the ingredients all at once when I was in the mood to try a new recipe. Sure, I could have gone shopping specifically to make on the book's recipes, but I just never got around to it.

But then I turned to the baking section and decided to make the chocolate cupcake recipe. I had to make one substitution - using almond milk instead of the coconut milk - but the recipe worked just fine.

And ... I didn't actually make cupcakes. I had a spiffy new ornament pan from Good Cook that I wanted to try, and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity. The cupcake recipe in the book was supposed to make 12 cupcakes. It was almost the prefect amount to fill the four wells in the ornament pan with a little extra left over.

Chocolate Ornament Cakes
Adapted from Teen Cuisine New Vegetarian by Michael Locricchio

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda (I used 1/2 teaspoon for high altitude)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder (I measured it just a little short)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark chocolate almond milk
1 teaspoon white vinegar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray the ornament pan with baking spray.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder (I used mostly regular cocoa powder and a little bit of Black Onyx powder, which is a very, very dark-colored cocoa powder. It goes by other names as well.), baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. (I used a batter bowl for easy pouring later.) Whisk to combine and to make sure there aren't any lumps of anything. You could sift, as well.

Put the almond milk and vinegar in a blender. The instructions said that after a few minutes of sitting, the surface would foam. I didn't notice that happening, so maybe that would only happen if I used the original coconut milk rather than the almond milk.

Add the brown sugar, vegetable oil, an vanilla and blend on high speed for 30 seconds.

Pour half of the liquid from the blender into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the remaining liquid and mix again. You're not looking to beat it - just mix with a spoon or spatula, or mix gently with a whisk.

Fill the wells of the ornament pan - the bottom part - all the way to the top of each well. Put the top on the pan and bake at 375 degrees until a toothpick inserted in one of the top holes in the pan comes out clean - about 25 minutes. It's better to bake slightly longer to get a bit of a "crust" on the outside of the little cakes than to bake for less time and have the cakes too tender.

Remove the top of the pan and let the little cakes cool for a few minutes - this helps the cakes firm up a bit - then flip them over onto a cooling rack.

The bottoms of my cakes (the tops as they baked) got a little misshapen from the wires of the cooling rack, but no big deal - these things would be served sitting on a plate anyway, so only one side would be decorated and would need to look pretty.

A different, denser cake recipe might hold up better and not get dented from the wires, but no big deal. And this one tasted really good, which is really the important part.

Let the cakes cool completely before decorating. Or just dust with powdered sugar and call it a day. I thought the bright white sugar looked great against the dark cakes.

Disclosure: I received these books from their respective publishers. I received the pan from Good Cook as part of their Kitchen Experts program.

I have bats in my buttercream! Chocolate bat recipe here.

Yes, I've been on a cupcake binge.

Busted.

This time around, it wasn't about the cupcakes. Or the decorating. This time it was because I just got some really cute mini cake molds, and I needed to do something else with all the rest of the batter. I only had two of the little molds. and I didn't want to bake a whole lot of batches, so I used the rest of the batter for cupcakes. It was the logical thing to do.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

This time, I chose a recipe from Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart. It's a hefty book, stuffed with southern recipes.

Some of those recipes were familiar to me, but some were new. Which is great. I always love seeing new recipes, particularly if they're regional specialties.

But this time I was after a cake that I could turn into cupcakes. I settled on a recipe for orange cake that sounded pretty good. The cake ingredients weren't surprising, but the mixing instructions were a little different.

I cut the recipe in half to make a dozen cupcakes, plus my two Cake Creatures. Luckily, all the ingredients were easy to divide.

Here's how I did it:

Orange Cupcakes
Adapted from the recipe for Orange Cake in Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (I used 1 teaspoon, since I'm at high altitude)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup orange juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line the cups of a 12-cup cupcake pan with cupcake papers. (Sheesh, how many times did I just say "cup"?)

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until it is fluffy. dd the sugar a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat until it's fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine.

Add 1/3 of the flour along with 1/2 of the orange juice to the stand mixer. Beat to incorporate it. Add another 1/3 of the flour and half of the orange juice. Beat again. Add the remaining flour and beat until all the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth.

Divide the batter into the cupcake papers. At lower altitude, it should be fine to divide into 12 cupcakes. Up here, 14 cupcakes was a much better idea.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cupcakes are lightly browned, they bounce back when touched lightly in the center, and a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Remove the cupcakes from the pan and let them cool completely on a rack before frosting.

The recipe for the brown sugar buttercream (and how to make your own powdered brown sugar) is right here.

There's a joke in my house that if my husband comes home and I'm not there, if the KitchenAid stand mixer is still on the kitchen counter, it means I'm coming back.

It's a joke, but ... yeah, if I was running away with the circus, that stand mixer would be dressed up in a clown costume with me.

And let me tell you a secret. I'm cheap frugal (sigh) cheap. When I need to buy something, I always shop around. I want the best thing for the best price. And then I shop some more. Can I buy it locally? How much is shipping? Are the coupons? Rebates? Color choices? Bargains???

But the KitchenAid stand mixer is probably the only countertop appliance that I would immediately buy a replacement for, without shopping around. I'd have the new one unboxed and ready to go before the old one gasped its last breath.

Because I use it every single day. Sometimes for multiple projects.

Okay, yes, I'm writing a bread book so I use it for kneading a lot of bread. But I also use it for other things. Whipping cream, beating eggs, mixing batter, making pasta, grinding meat, making ice cream, stuffing sausages ...

Yes, I have pretty much every attachment for it. So it gets a lot of use. And even more use, because of the book.

So when I got an opportunity to do a little promotion for KitchenAid, I figured it would be a no-brainer. When I found out that it was for a sweet deal on KitchenAid appliances, it was even better. I mean, I love bargains, and with the KitchenAid #SavorTheSavings event, you can get a prepaid $1000 gift card when you buy selected appliances. You could buy a couple of stand mixers with that.

Here's the blurb that was provided. It makes me want pumpkin ... so there's a recipe to follow. Because I know that's what you come here for.

With fall comes cooler weather, changing leaves and some crave-worthy pumpkin recipes. If you’re like the majority of us, you crave these pumpkin spice delights all year round. Whether it’s in the form of spice lattes, seeds, pie or a muffin, most of us could eat these treats for every meal. This year, fall is bringing a new treat to savor. It’s sweet, crave worthy and doesn’t involve calories. Can you guess what it is? It’s the KitchenAid® Savor the Savings Event. You’ll get up to a $1000 prepaid card via mail when you purchase select KitchenAid® major appliances. This savory deal couldn’t come at a better time. Just before the holidays and the season for pumpkin desserts, your kitchen is going to need an upgrade. The sweetest part is that you’ll earn up to $1000 to spend on your grocery list, more kitchen gadgets or your holiday gift list! Shop KitchenAid®: http://bit.ly/1bk0aqp 

Okay, I didn't really have to post all that, but it was amusing, in a pumpkin-like way. And I wanted to drool over the idea of remaking my kitchen to look like that.

Speaking of pumpkin ... one of my favorite flavor combinations is banana and pumpkin. This time I decided to up the ante by adding some orange as well. All those flavors remind me of fall and winter.

Well, banana isn't really a seasonal fruit in today's world, but I buy more bananas in late fall and winter than other times of the year. When there's local fruit, I buy that and ignore bananas. But when there's nothing local, the bananas make their appearance in my shopping cart.

Pumpkin-Banana Orange Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 stick (8 tablespoons, 1/4 pound) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 large over-ripe banana, mashed
Plus enough canned pumpkin to equal 1 cup
3/4 cup orange juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two 12-cup cupcake pans with cupcake papers.

Combine the flour and baking powder and whisk to combine. Set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until light and fluffy. You'd normally start with room temperature butter, but if you're using a stand mixer you can start with cool butter and just beat the heck out of it until it's fluffy.

Add the salt and sugar and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until incorporated. Add the banana and pumpkin and continue beating until combined. It might look a little curdled at this point - that's because of the water content in the banana and pumpkin. Don't worry about it.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and beat well - give it a minute. Add 1/2 of the orange juice and beat until combined. Add another 1/3 of the flour, followed by the rest of the orange juice, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the bowl, as needed. Add the final third of the flour and beat until combined.

Fill the cupcake papers 2/3 to 3/4 full. You might not have enough for all 24 cupcakes - I baked 12 cupcakes plus a few other items, so I'm not sure exactly how many you'll get. I'd guess it's 16-18, total.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cupcakes are lightly browned, they bounce back when lightly touched on the top, and a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Remove from the pans and let them cool completely before frosting.

The brown sugar frosting I used is right here.

Note: These have only been tested at high altitude. At sea level, consider using 1 3/4 to 2 teaspoons of baking powder and/or add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. If you try this, let me know how they work out.

Presented by Mami Innovative Media, this is a sponsored post on behalf of Sears and KitchenAid. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Why, yes, I am on a cupcake binge. Thanks for noticing.

This time, the cupcakes are an adaptation from the book Endangered Recipes by Lari Robling. Her recipe was for a gingerbread cake, but I figured it would be fine for cupcakes. I mean, why not?

I made a few adjustments for altitude, but I'm giving the book's measurements here. To adjust for altitude, I measured the sugar and leavening a little light and added just a touch more water. Easy peasy. the cupcakes came out perfectly.

Gingerbread Cupcakes

Adapted from Endangered Recipes by Lari Robling
Makes about 20 cupcakes

All dressed up for Halloween - with a cream cheese frosting.

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt (my addition to the recipe)
3/4 cup boiling water
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, cut in small pieces
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light molasses*
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put cupcake papers into the cups of two 12-cup cupcake pans.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, cloves, and salt. Whisk to combine.

Put the butter pieces in another bowl and pour the boiling water over the butter. Stir. The butter should melt, or at least soften. Add the sugar, molasses and eggs. Beat well.

Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix well.

Portion the batter into the cupcake pans - filling them a tad more than 1/2 full, I got about 20 cupcakes If you fill them a little more full, you'll have fewer cupcakes.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cupcakes spring back when touched lightly in the center and a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean - about 25 minutes.

Let the cupcakes cool in the pan until you can remove them without burning your fingers. Let them cool completely on a rack before frosting.

I thought this brown sugar frosting worked particularly well with the cupcakes.

*I don't think I've ever noticed light molasses at the store, but I happened to have a bottle of molasses labeled "Golden Molasses." It seemed to me to be about the same as regular molasses, but maybe there's a difference.

Sometimes I think I'm smarter than I am.

Case in point. I found a cake recipe in the cookbook 101 Classic Cookbooks, and I decided I could simultaneously cut the recipe in half, make cupcakes instead of cake, and tweak for high altitude. Without a calculator.

Yeah, that didn't work at all.

I think I've adjusted pretty well to high altitude cooking. I still think in sea level and I tend to make adjustments on the fly. For cakes and quick bread and muffin-like creatures, measure the sugar and leavening a little light and measure the liquid a little heavy.

It works most of the time and I don't have to break out the 1/8 teaspoons or measure 1 cup of sugar minus one tablespoon. And some recipes work just fine without any adjustment.

Muffins and cakes usually aren't a problem for me. Cupcakes on the other hand ... well, when they go wrong, the over-rise while they're still too soft, then they spread out on the pan and then they flatten. So they become a flat, mushroom-like thing.

 Cupcakes baked in the lower part of the oven (like when I'm trying to bake 2 dozen at a time) tend to fare worse than those baked in the middle or higher.

And I shouldn't ever try to fill the cupcakes more than 2/3 full. Half-full is sometimes perfect. 3/4 full sometimes works, but it depends on the recipe.

I know all of that. Sometimes I don't do what I know I should do. And I sometimes end up with very sad cupcakes.

The adjustments I made to the recipe in 101 Classic Cookbooks to cut the recipe in half might have worked at sea level. Here, not so much. The cupcakes rose way too much and then spread across the top of the pan, forming a giant flat surface.

Not so good.

So I took one more stab at it, this time making some more adjustments. The new recipe is pretty far from the original. Same ingredients, but I really messed with the quantities. And the method. Just because.

So, if you're curious about the book, it includes recipes from - you got it - 101 different cookbooks spanning a huge range of time, beginning in 1896. The front part of the book has photos from the original books and it goes in chronological order. The second part of the book has recipes listed in more common groupings, so you can browse appetizers, soups, or whatever strikes your fancy.

This would be a GREAT Christmas present for anyone you know who likes to cook. Or who wants to like to cook. Or who collects cookbooks. Or someone who only wants a few books on the shelf It's like a huge library in one tome. No need to buy 101 books ... or, it could help someone decide which of those 101 books to buy. Either way, it's a pretty cool book to have.

And now, onto the cupcakes.

What I liked about this particular recipe was that it included volume, weight, and metric measures. I also included the conversions to weight/metric as found in the book. Ounces are weight measures, unless it says fluid ounces)

The ingredients in the All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum (and found in 101 Classic Cookbooks) were:

6 large egg yolks (3.5 fluid ounces, 4 ounces, 112 grams)
1 cup milk (8.5 ounces, 242 grams)
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla (9 grams)
3 cups sifted cake flour (10.5 ounces, 300 grams)
1 1/2 cups sugar (10.5 ounces, 300 grams)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder (19.5 grams)
3/4 teaspoon salt (5 grams)
12 teaspoons butter (6 ounces, 170 grams)

The instructions are a little different than a typical cake recipe, starting with blending the dry ingredients with the butter and part of the milk, then adding the mixed egg, vanilla and the remaining milk in several additions. Not radically different from normal cake instructions, but a little different.

The recipe was intended for two 9-inch round cakes for a layer cake, baked for 25-30 minutes. But I wanted cupcake, and not a big batch.

So, after my first little disaster, this is where I ended up:

Yellow Cupcakes
Inspired by101 Classic Cookbooks
Makes 1 dozen cupcakes at high altitude

2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 1/4 ounces all purpose flour (this is about 1 1/8 cups if you assume that all purpose flour weighs 4 1/2 ounces per cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar less about 1 tablespoon
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a 12-cup cupcake pan with paper cupcake liners.

Combine the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract in a bowl - or do it the easy way - measure the milk in a measuring cup and add the eggs and vanilla extract. Beat with a fork just to break up the yolks. Set aside.

Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine. Set aside.

In a large bowl (or in your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment) combine the butter and sugar. Beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture, 1/3 at a time, alternating with two additions of the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, beating well after each addition, so it's well combined. Scrape down the bowl as needed.

You get what that means, right? 1/3 of the flour, half of the milk mixture, another 1/3 of the flour, the last of the milk, and the last of the flour - beating well after each addition. You don't have to be accurate about the 1/3 or the 1/2 - just eyeball it.

Divide the batter into the 12 cupcake cups. Bake at 350 degrees until the cupcakes bounce back when lightly touched on the top and a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean - about 25 minutes.

Remove the cupcakes from the pan and let them cool completely on a rack before frosting.

Here's the frosting I used.