Betty Crocker Lives!

Ian had a windfall of culinary creativity last night, making a new dessert in the toaster oven consisting of gluten-free chocolate animal crackers and chocolate sprinkles - what we call "Jimmies" in New England - melted in the toaster oven.  He was very inspired by this burst of innovation, and he was reminiscing with Madeleine about a marvelous cupcake he made for me many years ago - no doubt before her time:

Ian:  I put a whole lot of sugar and honey and apple slices and bananas in it.

Madeleine:  You forgot the frosting!

Ian was actually grateful to Madeleine for pointing that out, as he acknowledged the omission.  At first, I thought he just appreciated her historical insights, but it turned out that, in addition to the Animal Cracker Melt, he had also crafted a new and improved cupcake for himself, to be eaten later that night and shared with me.  This one was made up of an animal cracker base (I think) with honey and sugar and perhaps other sweet ingredients melted into the main sauce, with a dab of frosting on top.  Apparently the frosting was there thanks to Madeleine's attention-to-detail.

In the meantime, I wanted to know more about Ian's first cupcake, which he had made for me some time ago.  He thinks it was Father's Day, when he was about seven, he  told me, continuing roughly along the following lines:  "I just wanted to make you something nice, so I put in everything sweet I could find.  It came out kind of like apple crisp."

In any case, Daniel drew inspiration from tonight's bake-fest.  He put something in an aluminum tin and heated it up in the toaster oven.  Amy opined that these tins were not designed for oven temperatures, and she seemed to feel rather strongly about the matter.  But Daniel succeeded in completing his own project, and reported back to me about it:

Daniel:  I tried my hot animal crackers.

Me:  How were they?

Daniel:  Like normal animal crackers.

(January 27, 2014)