My first test was last night. I followed Nigella Lawson's cupcake recipe -- the one on the cover -- from her Domestic Goddess book (that's right, it describes exactly how how feel in my fancy Anthropologie apron). I may have taken the cakes out of the oven a minute or two too soon. They were perfectly sized when they first came out of the oven but shrank once cooled. The taste and texture was lovely, very grown up, refine. I'll have to keep trying to find the perfect vanilla cupcake.

While the kids (yes, there is also my charming 18 month old baby girl, Océane) are at the Aquarium with papa and grand-papa (as we say in French), the house is immerse with the delectable smell of chocolate cake. I just gave Martha a try with her One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes recipe (from the Baking Handbook -- a different recipe is on her website, and those are impossible to release from the paper). They look fine, perhaps a little big -- my bad for not following the instructions and filling the cups to 3/4 full instead of 2/3! Ok -- this is a very good cake: moist (to be expected of a recipe with water), perfect chocolate taste (I used Ghirardelli baking cocao), and they all flew off in less than 15 minutes. They stick slightly to the paper cup when cool -- need some investigating on the subject, could it be the paper cups?