Would petit fours fit the bill? I really love those little cake bites.

Yes, but there's no way I'm working that hard to be plunked down between the Cheetos and the grape tomatoes. And I was thinking more on the lines of a little frosting and sprinkles rather than enrobing and pastry bags. I love them too, though I have to admit a greater fondness of American ones than French. Mostly because I like jam better than cream. :)

That's a funny visualization, cheetos next to the petit fours !

What about just the sheet cake with jam layers (and/or lemon curd) and a dollop of jam with a blueberry on top? (No enrobing or pastry bags in sight:))

Anyway, better bakers than me will show up here tomorrow with good ideas !

The jam cake sounds like a lot of work too. This discussion is really useful, though. Thanks! Sometimes considering what one won't do clarifies what one should do. I could make flat squares in the silicone mold and do a set of chocolate and one of vanilla, and just stack them with a little frosting and sprinkles, or whatever I have. I have some sugar eyes, which would be funny, but maybe some sugar candles?

Any recommendations for recipes that make up fine little?

As Colleen suggests you could make any basic tray bake style cake and cut it up

No specific recipe. Two thin ones could be sandwiched with anything you like when cool. If you don't want to ice them just sprinkle with icing sugar through a sieve. I make a basic Victoria sponge in a roasting tin for this. It can be made lemon, coffee, choc or have fresh berries on top before baking. For a chocolate one you could pour melted chocolate over the whole lot after they're cut up. Have them standing on a cooling rack so excess drops through. Add any kind of decoration you like.

Did you check Sally’s site?

I see she has cake pops…?

Homemade Cake Pops

Duh. Why didn't I think of that? So, I didn't see anything like what I was thinking of, but I think cupcake batter is the right way to go, and she has plenty of those. And she has a cupcake with sprinkles in the middle that scream birthday cake, and she lists which kind do and don't work. Since this is a Cheeto eating crowd, I'm can get away with commercial colored sprinkles, so this is my fallback position. Thank-you!

Great!👍🏻

Cake pops is another thing to check. Thanks!

Or... I could try making the layered brownies with cheesecake and cut them with cookie cutters.... No, wait. The cheesecake will rip. Pooh. I have commercial sprinkles ind. butterflies, but I can't find any candle shaped candy decos and really can't make them...

Couldn't find candle decos...how about balloons? BALLOON LINK

Thank-you! They're too big, but it was very kind of you to look.

Today, I almost started trying to make some with royal icing--keeping in mine that I'm terrible at piping--but that was procrastination. I ddi get the work done. But perhaps tomorrow I'll feel simiilarly disinclined to do icky stuff. :)

I did find the mini papers, but not a mini tine. I rinse the square molds, and got out the sprinkles. I'm still not sure what I'll do, but perhaps the mini-cupcakes are the best idea for this and the stacked squares iwll be for a time when I need more of a star. I don't want to be too showy, really. This is a group effort.

I would love an elevated cake pop without the stick. Why waste all the time and effort on baking basically a one bite item? It can be a quality cake ball popper.

The mention of ”Sally” snd then the ”duh!” reaction has me wondering if she’s someone everyone but me knows of?

Joan, thank-you for the suggestion. Truly. They might love them. But the answer to the why waste... question is that I don't personally like cake pops and making something kind of fancy would be fun for me.

OTOH, it's looking like I'm being tasked with something entirely different. :( One of the beloveds really wants me to make the layered squares, though...

FOAS, yep. Those of us who bake regularly, at least, or take note of it when it's mentioned in threads, know Sally's Baking Addiction,. A not-so-secret thing about cookbooks is that many cooks want to sell them, but some don't like sharing and leave their special twists and/or best recipes out. Social media cooks are notorious for "discovering" cooking knowledge that their grandmothers would have known, and for making food that looks better than it tastes. The successful bloggers, however, who don't over-monetize their sites and are sharing to pass along what they've learned and achieved, rather than polishing their egos, at their best, have become reliable resources. Sally's Baking Addiction is one of those. (Another favorite of mine is Joy of Baking.)

I can make a basic cake without a recipe. I learned when I was barely out of college. There are different proportions for ultra thin layers and rolls, for cupcakes, for trifles, etc. I hadn't even thought of using cupcake batter until Chloebud mentioned Sally. I think that would work best since no one has volunteered a cake bite recipe (nor has Sally).

Thanks! The point wasn't to cut squares but make little squares in a little squars mold, which is more like a cupcake batter. If I give in an make a sheet to cut, I'll come back for these recommendations.

Well, if you actually have a little squares mold, I don’t see why you couldn’t use any cake batter in it and watch the baking time like a hawk.

The proportions are wrong in regular cake batter. Cupcake batter is generally thicker, and I thought the little squares might be thicker yet, but I'm not sure on that. Eggs behave differently small. I just don't have the energy to do tests, so was trying to increase my chances by being prepared. :)

I use my chocolate cake batter for cupcakes all the time. I’ve never had a problem with them.

I don't doubt you. Not all cakes do.

If you were worried you could add a little extra flour and maybe a tablespoon of butter and one of sugar to balance it out.

Thanks! That has been my sticking point. I haven't been confident in the adjustment.

If you add a lot of flour, maybe more than 1/4 cup, you should include 1 tsp of baking powder and tablespoon or so of cocoa per cup of flour, or pro rata.

So. I woke up feeling like carp and slept a couple hours at noon. So I decided to make Sally's sprinkle cupcakes in the squares mold. It has half a cup of sour cream and half a cup of milk. The batter seemed perfect for the Bites after just the sour cream, but I thought I should still add some milk, so I mixed in about a third (i.e., 1/6 c.) and it was still thick, but not waffle-y. I also subbed castor sugar for regular, but it, still seemed too much after weighing 1:1 so I scanted it a bit. I used the some of rest to ”flour” the buttered mold.

Rather than halving the recipe, I made it and divided in half, and added sprinkles to the first half. They're very sweet--too sweet for icing or filling, so no stacks-- especially with the sugar from the sprinkles, so when I baked the second half I put a blueberry in each, rolled in the last bit of the sugar to help them float.

I used my smallest scoop to fill the mold, and was careful with the first batch. I just plumped down scoops on the second batch (which was greased with avocado oil spray and a little Wondra). Some were way over full and look like blobs, but enough look nice to take. The big ones are out of balance with a single blueberry, but nothing wrong with plain vanilla cake. ;)

I started by baking two minutes alarm at a time. Turns out these take the top time, or a minute or two more, that is listed for mini-cupcakes. Pondered. Oh! If anything silicone is an insulator, though the mold was on enamelled steel (the bottoms are nicely brown, and the tops are pretty white—I couldn't have done better on purpose!). Good ol' wire cake tester did the trick. :) Pushing up the mold bottoms made the tiny cakes pop out easily, sharp corners and all. The box is a reuse lined with parchment.

Thank you all for the advice and encouragement.

I was hoping for pictures! Thanks!

Smiles,

Sooz

Sorry I didn't make the fancy ones...

They look perfect ! Wish I was there

Well done!👍🏻

They went over well. Lots of "Oh! That's good!"s and "She made these". So I guessed right and they will eat sweets, which gives me people to bake for. I was really missing baking sweets. Many thanks to Sally, Chloebud for dropping her name in, and Colleen for the primmer on making batters thicker, which made me go into it with confidence. And another thank-you to all who contributed.