Surprise Inside Cake - More Hidden Polka Dots

Actually the title should read more like, "Twice Baked Cakes and Cupcakes" to be accurate.

The reason is that the insides are baked first in a separate step

and then baked again with more raw batter.

Remember this cake from my last post?

I just couldn't wait to experiment some more!

Good thing we had a long holiday weekend so that

I could play Barbies in the kitchen all day long.

My head is just filled with things to try inside cakes and cupcakes!

At 3:30 am this morning, cones were calling.

Must've been on my brain from my recent snow cone cupcake post.

Who knows? Anywho, cones were first at bat in the oven today.

 It had been several years since I made the snow cones but the cans and cups were still waiting for me.

I'd forgotten about the very minor fumes from the empty V-8 juice cans I'd used way back then.

Word to the wise: find a can with no plastic coating, inside or out to support the cup while baking.

I plan to try the chrome plated egg cups next time or maybe Wilton's King Sized Muffin pan.

A metal rack for ice cream cones might also work.

I'm fairly certain my V-8 can method is no where near food safe.

Who knows what kind of drain bramage I caused myself already.

 That would explain SO many things!

Please be safe and let me know if you come up with a better solution.

 These are the empty wrappers from today.

Since snow cones were the goal last time and they weren't to be

removed from the liner until eaten, I didn't worry about the cake

releasing from the paper so much. It stuck more than I'd have preferred.

Next time I plan to try an inner liner of either parchment

or waxed paper inside the paper cone. Baking spray probably

won't work since the paper is somewhat more porous than cupcake liners.

You can see that I combined two colors in one cup in the red/green paper above.

Fun little surprise when I opened that cone.

The green on the bottom had baked up inside the center of the red.

Not sure if this happens every time but it might be worth looking into.

 Here are the naked cones inside a prepared 9 inch round.

A thin layer of batter went in first then the rest was dumped on top to cover.

I added an additional 1/4 cup of water to the cake mix this time

so that it would be thin enough to flow around the shapes.

I'd also trimmed the top and bottom of each cone to level them up a bit.

The tips of the cones all stuck in the very points of the cups

but I wanted a blunt end anyway. So it was all good.

Photo used with permission of Kerry Vincent.

Forgive me Kerry Vincent, for I have sinned. On purpose.

I made no attempt whatsoever to do a good job at frosting or decorating

the following cakes and cupcakes you'll see in my next few posts.

I really wish they would have magically decorated themselves.

For your sake. But I was beyond caring about the outside.

My mommy always told me, "It's what's inside that counts."

Let's hope so.

I am the slowest decorator ever and I REALLY

wanted to get to the heart or the guts of the matter in this case.

(I had a punk boss many years ago whose favorite saying to me was,

"You may not be good but you sure are slow!" Still true. And he's still a punk.)

So please forgive what you are about to witness.

Plain. White. Frosting.

Not even smoothed down. Shameful.

Okay. I caved and smoothed a tiny bit.

The embossed circles were added with the large end of a giant piping tip.

Notice the red/green one? That's the one I was telling you about earlier. Cool.

I was hoping to end up with larger and smaller polka dots with this cone method.

Perhaps if I'd arranged them differently.

So when it came right down to it, I still had no idea what the middle would look like.

 But I LOVE the bright colors!


More experiments to come . . .

Snow Cone Cupcakes

Now that summer is almost here, I thought you might like to see some frosty treats.

Well, sort of frosty.  Frosting looking at least.

The ice is a combo of sugar crystals and crushed rock candy.

Which is a lot. Of. Sugar.

But the colors are so pretty!

I'd also planned to perfect the insides before sharing

them with you by using the Jello poke cake method.

Thought this would give them a more authentic look

while adding in some fun snow cone flavors. Like rainbow. 

But one of my baking heroes has come up with an easier way.

Bakerella. She's a genius.

These are her multi-colored snow cones.

You can see how she made them here.

If you'd like to try my version, I used cone shaped Solo drinking cups and supported them

with clean empty V-8 juice cans while they baked.
Empty soup cans also work depending on the size of cone cup you use.


UPDATE: DO NOT USE V-8 CANS IN THE OVEN!
It had been so long since I'd made these that I'd forgotten what happened last time. The coating and colors are used for the labeling started to smoke a tiny bit while baking. Probably not food safe to say the least. Please make sure whatever can you are using doesn't have a plastic coating inside or out.
I plan to try the chrome version of wire holders like those shown below the next time. The coated version might also melt or smoke in the oven so please don't use it. Not sure if Wilton's King Sized Muffin pan is tall enough but I may have to look at that option as well.


The chrome wire holders were sold as egg cups but I wasn't the only one who saw their potential.

Some clever person came up with a coated version in all sorts of fun colors.

These can be found with the snow cone supplies at discount and kitchen stores.

And yeah. I bought some. Couldn't resist.

You can find all sorts of designs on snow cone cups these days

but if you don't want to spend a fortune on them, try good old   cone shaped water drinking cups.

The kind sold for use on those big orange coolers.

Much better buy. About 200 for around $4 - $5. Plus they come in a variety of sizes.

So start saving those empty cans and pull out the flip flops!

It's TIME!