Deb, I don't have many tips, as this is the 2nd batch I've made. I did find that I had to dunk the ends of the sticks in the coating, then stick them into the cake balls and freeze them before dunking to coat or they just slipped off the sticks into the melted coating. I have to confess, these are not the crumbled up cake and frosting mixture, I made those once and just found the texture too disgusting. These are made with one of those "Babycakes" baking pans, Makayla got one for Christmas. You just fill the indentations with cake batter, bake 5 minutes and have little balls of cake. You still have to dunk the sticks in coating and freeze them, though. To put the ears on the cake, though, I had to cut little slits in the sides of the cake balls to insert the ears. Some broke in half, but I "glued" them back together with coating, figuring that after they got dunked, no one would notice. I was right... Funny you should mention "Hello Kitty". The first batch I made, with the frosting/cake mixture, was supposed to be "Hello Kitty". I used butterscotch chips for ears and made fondant bows. Dunked the cake pops and tried to make faces with those edible marker things. I got something that looked more like zombies with horns and pink bows, LOL, they'd have scared the dickens out of "Hello Kitty". The worst part was that they also tasted disgusting, even the kids wouldn't eat them. So, I guess you don't want pointers from me. (grin) Annie

1 pound crabmeat 1 tablespoon small diced red pepper 1 tablespoon diced green pepper 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley leaves 2 tablespoons heavy mayonnaise 2 eggs 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce 1 1/2 teaspoon maryland-style crab seasoning (recommended: old bat) 2 tablespoons canola oil mustaed sauce, recipe follows In a large bowl, mix all ingredients, execpt oil and mustard sauceuntil blended Heat oil in large skillet over medium- high heat. With a tablespoon, careful spoon poker-chip size mini-cakes into pan. (The batter will bevery loose since there are no bread crumbs, but once the eggin the mix starts to cook they will hold together fine.) Cook on 1 side until firm, about 2 minutes, and then flip and cook for about1 more minute. Cook in batches as necessery. Serve hot with mustard sauce. Mustard Sauce 1/4 cup hearvy mayonnaise 1/4 cup dijon mustaed 1/4 teaspoon fresh lemon juice Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Ilene I made these tonight and dh and i both like them.

Austin Air Companie, any evidence for this? "The other thing about inverter type mini splits is the power source needs to be really good. " airahcaz I am operating on memory. I read the Uneno and Loomis case study considerable time ago. I think that those monitored homes were experiments in energy efficiency. They were built to be super efficient and have way above code insulation. They were small and may have all been two-story and at least some of them were. In order to keep equipment costs low, and get correct sizing, they decided to try to condition the homes with single mini split heat pumps. In the two-story homes, these were located at the top of the stairs. There were lots of (predictable) problems. Downstairs is difficult to heat from upstairs. Upstairs is difficult to cool from downstairs. Doors need to be kept open for the most even temperature. (They monitored door open/closed state.) After failure, they added second units to some of the homes so they could heat from downstairs and cool from upstairs and continued monitoring. Set-back advice from that study applies most to very-well insulated and air sealed homes. The heat transfer between rooms is very fast compared to through exterior walls so zoning and set-backs are not very useful. In an old, poorly-insulated, leaky structure, the calculations are different. How different depends on leak and other heat transfer rates. How closely do the conditions of that study apply to your basement? In some aspects, pretty well. In others, maybe not so well. Set-back utility depends on heat loss rates and how long and deep the set backs are. (If you are out of the house for a month, a set-back is a no brainer.) It bugs me that the manufacturers have not yet programmed a "set-back" recovery mode for their variable speed heat pumps where they'd operate closer to an efficiency sweet spot to bring the temp back up, albeit, more slowly. Residential boiler manufacturers have done it. You can do it manually by raising the temperature setting gradually, but who wants to do that?

Sounds like it's a problem w/ the muffin pan, not the recipe. If you use a non-stick pan, it most likely would come out cleanly. Alternatively, you might bake the cakes in little ramekins or custard cups and serve them unmolded. Additionally, I find letting cakes & muffins cool in their pans for @ least 10 minutes causes enough steam condensation to make it easier to turn them out. Sliding a thin blade around the edges first definitely helps.