Cookie Monster cupcakes have been done. But for our son’s first birthday, I decided awesomeness was far more important than originality.

Reviews of chocolates and other products presented at the 2009 Seattle Chocolate Salon by Oh! Chocolate, Theo Chocolates, Forte Chocolates, L’Estasi Dolce, Choffy, Eat Chocolates, Carter’s Chocolates, La Châtelaine Chocolat, Chocolopolis, Divine Chocolate, I Love Chocolate Jewelry, Posh Chocolat, Crave Chocolate, Amano Chocolate, Intrigue Chocolates, Suess Chocolates and William Dean Chocolates.

Tres leches, move over. There’s a new cake in town with three iterations of the same component: tres (or maybe it should be trois?) ganaches chocolate raspberry cupcakes. Sounds decadent, right? Well, they were.

It’s natural to be suspicious of any signs you think you see in the world around you. Particularly when the sign in question has too much in common with the Virgin Mary burnt into a piece of toast.

For the last few years, I’ve had an occasional craving for fruit cooked in a rum sauce, but every time I’ve tried, I just get something sweet but easily forgettable (and certainly nothing that I would bother to write a recipe down for). That changed tonight.

In search of a vegetarian Peep equivalent, I made some delicious marshmallows set with xanthan gum instead of gelatin, but stumbled when it came to trying to pipe them out like your everyday, mass-produced Peep.

Casting sugar is used mostly to make bases and supports for showpieces, but it can also be a quick way to form custom shapes. Once you learn the technique, you’ll look at everything with new eyes, wondering what would happen if you poured sugar into it.

I wanted to do something different for Easter this year, and because I can’t resist a food pun once I’ve thought of it, the Cadbury Creme Brul’egg was born.

It’s common knowledge that many baking recipes want you to have your eggs and butter at room temperature before you begin. It’s also common knowledge that the craving for chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes is known to strike without enough warning to leave your ingredients out on the counter all day.

Before I start showing any sugar work techniques, I want to give you an idea of what equipment I use and how I set it up. However, keep in mind that you don’t need all of this stuff to get started in the wonderful world of sugar. It all depends on what you want to do, and there are low-cost alternatives to some of the more expensive items.