Ice Cream and Cake and a Relapse

I need to test a cupcake recipe.  The Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious are sponsoring an Ice Cream Cupcake Contest.  I have an idea I think is really awesome and I want to enter, thus the need to test the recipe.  But I'm less enthusiastic about turning on my oven.  We are experiencing "near record temperatures" (as The Weather Channel keeps reminding me) and the idea of turning on the oven isn't so appealing.  I guess I'll have to stay up until wee hours of the night or get up at 0:dark:30 to prevent overheating the kitchen.  I won't spill the beans entirely yet, but I'm calling them "A Taste of India".  Curious?  I am.  The recipe and photos will be posted here after I enter.

In other news, a relapse of my caramel addiction was inevitable.  After finishing the caramels for the Food Blogger Bake Sale, I verbalized something along the lines of not wanting to think about, see, smell, eat, etc., caramels again for quite some time.  In the lyrics of Elvis Presley, "well that was just a lie".  To be completely honest, I don't think I've ever stopped thinking about caramels. 

I'm thinking about chocolate stout caramels.  I'm thinking about goat milk and buckwheat honey caramels.  I'm thinking about caramels made with apple juice.  I'm thinking about how to incorporate peanut butter into caramels.  I'm thinking . . .

I'm thinking I need to learn to make smaller batches of caramels.