Caramel Cupcakes

When I saw the post asking people in my congregation to donate baked goods to be used as prizes for a bingo event held last night, I thought about making a King Cake.  Then I realized the difficulty to explain to a northern (and really, Yankee) Jewish congregation about such things and remembered the reaction when I'd suggested having a chili cookoff (which some believe is impossible to make kosher, which would be a huge surprise to my old community in Dallas), and decided to make other things.

Because there are always people who want something gluten-free, I offered to make chocolate cookies.  They did not come out as pretty as the recipe promised, but seemed edible.  They probably did not flatten out as much as the recipe said they would because I was a little short of confectioner's sugar and made up for it with cocoa, then used regular-sized chips instead of mini-chips.

Since I am allergic to chocolate I could not test them, and I was glad for an unexpectedly warm day that allowed me to open the windows while they baked.  I ended up with twenty-six so wrapped up two packages of a baker's dozen each.

The cookies used only egg whites so I looked for a recipe to use up the yolks.  I thought of making more cookies, maybe to donate to BiCi Co's Earn-a-Bike crew.  I had planned to use one of my Pampered Chef packets to make a quick Apple Cider cake with cider drizzle, because I have apple cider to use up, or a Caramel Latte loaf.  I thought if I made the Caramel Latte mix into cupcakes, I could add caramel frosting and use some to fill the cookies into pairs.

Then I found a recipe for Golden Cake in one of  my old (1930) cookbooks, and plans changed!

As you can see, the recipe uses only egg yolks - and exactly the number left over from the cookies!

I also had cream left from making biscuits last weekend, and it would be just enough for the cake and frosting.  So I made this, substituting vanilla and imitation black walnut extracts for the orange, because I thought those would work better with the caramel.  I baked the recipe as eight cupcakes, luckily using large decorative papers because it rises nicely.  One cupcake quickly disappeared as quality control.

While the cupcakes baked, I made the caramel frosting, from a 1957 recipe.  I don't have a Mixmaster, I have a Kitchenaid, but I love how this little booklet offered so many ways to use the machine:

The tedious parts were basically no-work, just the occasional stirring as the caramel came to the boil, and waiting for it to cool.  To speed that I poured most of the caramel into the bowl of my Kitchenaid.  I used the whisk attachment.  I worried about the amount of confectioner's sugar (see above - I thought I had more than the new package, but I didn't, and it was just under four cups) so I put a small slick of the caramel on top of the cupcakes, under the frosting.  And quality control got a taste, too.

This was the end result:

I had a bakery package for four cupcakes, so I made six and selected the ones I thought looked best.  They have a huge pile of frosting on top, over a very light cake, with that slick of caramel, and just barely fit.  Hopefully people were attracted and took them as an early prize.  I have the other two cupcakes in my freezer, to doorbell-ditch for a friend, or take to my mother for her birthday.

All the Twos

Of course, this doesn't work if you write the month first, unless you use only the two year numbers and drop the century.  But who's counting?

Is this a good time to talk about Resolutions and Progress and all that?  I did get the ends run in for the mitts finished, and am almost to the end of the thumb gusset of the first Gift Box Mitt.  Dark (in patches) yarn and US#0 needles and having to track a stitch pattern make for less speed than I often accomplish.

I meant to post something over the weekend, but did other things, and then I took most of yesterday off as it was a corporate holiday and my boss said I should.  So I did only meetings that didn't get cancelled because the other person (usually at a customer) didn't have the day off and was working.  We had a surprisingly warm day and it was sunny, so I managed to get out a bit and that felt nice.

Just a few things.

I'd planned to post this weekend - tribute to Abraham Lincoln, his birthday was Saturday, so I wore this shirt:

Sunday was the Super Bowl®, as well as "Superb Owl" Sunday, and while I didn't really have a dog in the hunt, as they say, I wanted the Bengals to win.  The Rams managed to pull it off very well in the last of the fourth quarter, so overall it was a good game, and now football is done until autumn.

I finished the mitts (except for running in ends) and size-wise they fit me adequately, so they might be small for the intended recipient.  If so, she can give them to somebody.

These came out definitely fraternal, almost no matching except in the final rows.  If I'd continued to full mittens they might be closer, but I wasn't sure I have enough yarn, and when giving something away fingerless is easier to do than worrying if the length is correct.

This is the next pair:

They are a Leading Men Fiber Arts KAL from a few months back, and I didn't get them done at that time (obviously), but still want to make them for the intended friend.  She does box office at local theatre shows, including an occasional drag show, and the colours are perfect for her.  I wanted to have their "Drama Queen" colourway as the accept (flip-top mitts require a bit more than the skein at left) but they were out, and I thought "Royalty" is an appropriate substitute.

The finished leaf-yoke sweater

I finished the sweater on Wednesday, having added to the collar because I prefer something higher, not feeling as if it's halfway down my shoulders.  This is unblocked but I wore it to the knitting group Zoom meeting tonight and it fits well:

Closeup of a leaf.

   

This is much closer to the
actual colour.

     

Yarn is Lion Brand Woolspun in "Moss Mix" which I keep thinking of as "Swamp Mix".

The KnitTalk group is doing a very easy challenge during the Olympics:  State that you will do something, and do it.  Unlike some groups, you don't have to try to make something from start to finish during the two-weeks-plus timeperiod (February 4th through 20th), for which I'd end up declaring a hat.  It can be as simple as "five rows of a shawl" or as complicated as "three pairs of socks" or "finishing a UFO" or whatever a person wishes.

I said that I would make some mitts, which have been percolating in my brain and needed to get OTN.  This is the first pair, for which I am working from alternating ends of the cake:

The yarn is from Lithuania and is scratchy in
the ribbing but soft in the stockinette part.

These will definitely be fraternal because you can see that one is more purple and the other more blue.  I pulled the ball in half and flipped them for the second one, so the fingers part of the mitts should match, or be close.  Time will tell.

Not much for us.

The big blizzard that hit New England yesterday dropped only four inches where I am:

I measured in several places, and the official National Weather Service results had my town in the 4-6" category.  I saw friends report much more in other towns in the county, so I guess we were unlucky, or lucky, depending upon your view.

Today was clear with a brilliant blue sky and the highest temperature I saw was 18°F.

The pullover is within a few inches of completion: the body is done, and one sleeve, and I'm two decrease rounds from the ribbing on the second sleeve.  So it should be done tomorrow, within the month.  Not bad, especially given that I sidetracked to other projects periodically.

Including darning a mitten, which had a hole at the base of the thumb, the tip of the fingers, and in the ribbing.  The hardest to do was the thumb, because it included an increase, and I forgot to photograph it.  I also didn't get a "before" picture of the ribbing, just after:

Darning on the ribbing - three locations needed it.

The bigger hole in the tip, before mending.

The mended hole in the tip.

I got the yarn in a kit from Morehouse Farm many years ago at New York Sheep & Wool, when their mittens kits included single-ply wool, and knit them for me.  There was a hood but it came out smallish and I donated it, but the mittens just fit.  I think a moth munched one; the other was tucked far into the coat pocket.  I don't have any of the yarn left but these are workaday mittens and I had a bit left from something else that I decided would do, and I did.

Resolutions Update

If I finish the remainder of the second sleeve tomorrow, and run in the ends, I will consider the pullover finished although technically it would need to be washed and blocked for many to consider it truly DONE.  But I think it will be wearable without blocking, although the yoke looks a bit wonky.  That's one more item completed from my resolutions list.  I'm making progress in the second book of the year, also.

Souper Saturday.

Yesterday I decided to join a weekly session called "Shining Lights" which is designed "to shine a little light into the dark spaces. Come be inspired by examples of kindness, bravery, and hope all around us .... connect over Zoom to be reminded of how much love and beauty there is in the world."  We started with a discussion of the hostage-taking at the synagogue in Colleyville last week.  Apparently it dropped immediately off national news reporting, which I didn't realize because I have been following the papers there and of course they have constant reports.  We agreed that it seems sad but unless people die, most of the news quickly loses interest.

Then in the evening we had Rev. Alvin Johnson speak to our service, giving words of wisdom as a longtime friend of the congregation and our rabbis, and also a pillar of the community.  It was good to hear from him, as we often do around the MLK day observances.

Speaking of which, due to the weather, I was late to the blanket-making session.  I used the additional time at home (to be sure the roads were clear enough to drive safely) to write some more cards for the Meals on Wheels collections.  Then I stayed to help make egg salad sandwiches which were destined to be lunch at the South Park Inn on Tuesday.

We were supposed to provide 60 sandwiches, we ended up with about 70 plus leftover filling that the children ate while the adults cleaned the kitchen.  It was amazing where we found egg salad.  Start to finish was about 90 minutes, very impressive.

Most of the week was standard in terms of work.  I continued to make progress on the pullover and pulled out a UFO scarf.  Yesterday I did the weekly errands because today I was enrolled in a One Day University course on Abraham Lincoln, which I enjoyed.

I also made soup from a 1948/1951 cookbook:

I may have over-simmered it a bit.  I tried to halve the recipe, for practicality, and didn't measure exactly.  I also substituted carrot (which I have) for celery (which I rarely have), left out the bacon and flour (it was clearly thick enough), and didn't soak the lentils.  Overall, it's not bad, and fairly close to ad hoc recipes I make.  I definitely wanted some more seasoning, just having what the frankfurters brought was a bit one-note.

It happened again.

A gunman in a synagogue.  This time, everybody got out safely, except the hostage-taker.  I kept checking news feeds through the day and evening, and many of us were communicating on social media.  Some reports said it was a coincidence he went to a synagogue - no, it wasn't.

We are very, very tired of being targeted.

Originally, this post was going to be about the knitting I've done this week. I finished a hat to go with the seawater-dyed mittens:

Sadly, they are too big for me.  I also made a pair of mittens from UpNorth Yarns superwash wool in the "Campfire" colourway, deliberately too big to use up as much of the yarn as possible:

Tomorrow is the annual Day of Service in honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  I am going to a scarf-and-blankets-making session.  There is also a cardmaking option; I wrote some notes on pretty stationery or cards and will drop them off at that table.  I may or may not stay for the working session; I took a number of blankets I've collected for the dialysis center in Dallas, and will donate them here.  No telling when I'll get to deliver them to the friend who transports them, and no telling when they would be accepted if I did get down there.

I figured I could donate some scarves I've made also, and a hat I finished for National Hat Day yesterday:

The scarf on the right has a matching hat.  They are of mystery
$1 yarn from A.C Moore.  Top left is Caron Big Cakes and
bottom left is Lion Brand Shawl in a Ball, used double.

Leftovers of Patons Classic Wool (purple, it looks
blue in the photo), Koigu, and something else.