Co-Teaching from the Special Education Perspective Part 1: Get Organized

(preface: this post is low on images but ample in pdf/Google Doc resources!)

      Pretend you are going on a date this Friday. Drinks, dinner, the whole deal! Woo hoo! It's an exciting time for you, my friend. You know that you'll probably spend some time this week thinking about what you're going to wear, looking at the menu for the restaurant ahead of time, making any arrangements you need to for someone to watch your pets, your kids, your laptop, who knows. There's mental preparation that goes into the whole week, because you might be nervous, excited, unsure, or maybe you're even ambivalent but you at least want to make a good impression. Then, the day of, you might take an hour to do your hair, pick out three outfits before you find the fourth option you didn't realize would be your favorite. You've got to iron your shirt, wash the car (if you are old fashioned), make sure you have everything just right; for some people this means even your tan is updated, while for others it simply means feeling like yourself before you go present yourself to someone else.

      The point is, you spend time before the date getting ready, and not just the time it takes to do your hair or iron your nicest dress shirt. Not for the first time, comparing co-teaching to dating/marriage/personal relationships is a great way metaphor for many reasons, but mostly because co-teaching involves establishing an actual relationship. That's why it's the most challenging form of teaching for many people. I'll get into the relationship piece in Part 2, but first think back to all those items you might check off your "to-do" list before a date. You have to get yourself ready!

      Coming to a co-teaching relationship from the Special Education perspective means you're bringing a lot of baggage with you. You bring all the complications to the relationship! You've got the behavior plans, the academic interventions, the modified assignments, the parents who want a daily report on everything their child has done, not to mention the testing modifications and accommodations! And don't forget the meetings that may or may not cause you to miss class, the data collection required for your IEPs, the planning time you have to take to work on IEPs and progress reports every quarter. Your co-teacher may be involved in some of these things, but ultimately, these tasks are only on YOUR radar, and likely aren't on your co-teacher's daily, weekly, or even yearly agenda.

      So it's up to you to get yourself organized before your school year starts, to come into that relationship with your baggage checked. I use a few handy tools to keep myself organized. Because, if I know my annual review dates are a click away, my data notebooks are easy to use (and personalize for those pesky goals that just don't fit any cookie-cutter type data collection tools), and my testing modifications are easy to read, then I know that I've got my baggage in order before I step up to the co-teaching plate. That was a lot of mixed metaphors, I apologize.

      The summer is a great time to reflect on what didn't work last year, and what did work; what items you need to better organize, what stressed you out the most in terms of case management and start brainstorming strategies to relieve some of that stress this coming year. Take out all the parts that are out of your control - last minute district and school deadlines, new transfers, new behavior plans to manage, etc.- and do what you can to improve YOUR organization and clarify your tasks for the year that will not change - writing IEPs, knowing mods, deadlines/dates for annual reviews and re-evals, etc. The more you have a handle on that information, the less it will stress you out as the year goes on.

    Here are some tools I use in the first few weeks of school to stay organized, but PLEASE feel free to comment with your own organization strategies, how you would improve these tools, or any other relevant feedback! Teaching becomes so much easier when we are a community that comes together to share our resources and expertise. You never know who or how many you will help with your advice!

Tool #1: Caseload Management Document

I use a document like this (electronic, I use Google Sheets) to organize my caseload each year. It includes the basic information you need to reference often, such as annual reviews, placement, and whether or not you've completed a progress report for that quarter. I color code mine to keep organized. Yellow annual review means it's scheduled, orange means it's coming up in the next few weeks but not scheduled, green is complete. Same for re-evals (but I add pink, which means we're doing testing and the first meeting is complete but I'm waiting on testing to be completed).

 
Tool #2: Student Data Sheet Document

This is a great document to keep in a data notebook, student folder, or electronic data folder because it is easily transferable to next year's case manager. It's also easy to read information to present at an IEP meeting, a BIP meeting, any kind of meeting, really. Plus, it includes space for all the information you'd need to set up a meeting. Lastly, the small graphs are easy to label with whatever units you need for your myriad goals and benchmarks. You can print as many goal pages as you need, since they conveniently fit on one page each, and you can print duplicates if you collect data more regularly than this sheet allows (way to go, you!).




Tool #3: Testing Mods/Accommodations Documents

I'll include 2 versions of this- one which is more "basic" and another which has added detail. Different teachers like different things, and I personalized the same format to be a simple version for a teacher that just wanted the quick glance, and a detailed version for a teacher that wanted more background information and details on the mods themselves. The pdf version embedded on this post is blank (and small, I blame Google), but the link will provide both a blank copy and an example of a mods form that is filled in with sample mods. I typically create the spreadsheet for the regular teacher (or myself!) requesting them at the start of the year, and then share it only with them, so that they have a copy a) of just their classes and b) that is not shared with all teachers, so that confidentiality is protected. Then, as I have meetings where mods are changed, I update the spreadsheet to reflect those changes (and usually I highlight that student's row so they know it has changed).

Basic Version (blank or filled in):

Detailed Version (blank or filled in):


Tool #4: Student Checklist/Parent feedback Document

Here's an example of a checklist I used with a student whose parents wanted feedback on class performance in order to support us (the student would avoid work, so his parents and teachers set up this sheet to give daily feedback to the parents so they could reward/reinforce expectations at home as needed to improve work completion). I've used check-ins like this with students in a self-contained setting, as well as inclusion 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders This type of system requires major parent effort and teacher effort as well, so it's not a one-size-fits-all type of system, but it's easy to modify based on classes, context, or per-student needs. It helps to organize some of the behavioral/parent contact needs you may have in your classroom. If you know some students who may be in your classes or on your caseload next year, summer is a great time to search for these kinds of resources to have at your disposal when you need a new strategy during the year.



Co-Teaching from the Special Education Perspective Part 2: Relationship and Communication 

Co-Teaching From the Special Education Perspective

     I was recently given the opportunity to present to some of my teacher peers at the first ever Orange County Schools summer conference. The county Board of Directors and School Board have determined that one of their main objectives in the county strategic plan is to do a better job of appreciating teachers in hopes to retain more teachers. In the Triangle area of North Carolina, teachers often move between counties- for a better school, better supplement pay, or even just a change of pace. On top of that, North Carolina is continually ranked low on the list of states where you'd want to teach, for a variety of reasons I can get into later. The point being, the first annual summer teacher conference, where the presenters were all teachers in the district and the organizers made the teachers feel like royalty for 2 days, was a big hit! I had a great time learning from my peers, CHOOSING my professional development sessions, and getting some free swag (and ridiculously delicious mac and cheese) along the way.

     I had signed up to present a short session on co-teaching from the Special Education perspective, in hopes of demonstrating some co-teaching techniques and strategies. Unfortunately, I was told last minute that instead of a room for presenting, I had to follow a round table presentation format, which didn't quite fit the type of presentation I was planning. I made do, but the situation birthed the idea of a blog series about co-teaching. So many of the teachers I have worked with or talked to about co-teaching, from student teaching until now, have struggled with co-teaching in some fashion. I had planned to start off the session with a poll to gather audience perceptions of their co-teaching experiences. Because the format was a round table in a room full of 7 other round table sessions, we didn't quite have the space/volume to really get into everyone's concerns. I thought that of the few respondents I had, the results were quite telling:

Responses (7) to the question "How would you best describe your experience(s) co teaching in Orange County Schools?"

     Most people, especially when talking to them about their co-teaching experiences, feel they don't have enough time to co-plan, and that they do not have enough resources to know HOW to co-plan. Based on these discussions and my previous experiences co-teaching, I am hoping to address a few of you who actually read this post with some resources and strategies I've found to work well (and some that don't).

     I'll have a short series of posts in the next few weeks to give some background information on the types of co-teaching, strategies for the special education teacher in a co-teaching relationship, and general advice I've followed throughout my 3 years of co-teaching (with a total of 5 different co-teachers across 3 grade levels and 2 content areas!). Stay tuned, and if you like the advice, share it! You can never be armed with enough information about co-teaching, in my opinion.

     I'll link to the posts here as I complete them, for easy reference: 

Part 1: Get organized! 
Part 2: Relationship and Communication
Part 3: Types of Co-Teaching
Part 4: Be a Professional Collaborator 

A Bit on Running

Running. What can I say... A LOT, actually. I haven't written about running yet because I haven't had a good focused idea for a post. Honestly I could talk about it for several posts, and if I had just sat down to type a post about running, it'd be a LONG post. And no one would read it because it would ramble, and probably run on (get it? run on? anyone?). But now I have a focus! Today's post will share an inspiration of mine and then I'll follow that with a small example of a training schedule to get your pace down. This is by no means a plan for those extreme runners who want to BQ (Boston Marathon Qualify) or any other major running feats. This is more for those people who are runners but are perhaps more leisurely, who run on their own, and are maybe looking for a way to challenge themselves in a new way while running.

This sticker adorns my laptop; so much inspiration! And cheesiness.

A little background: I ran track and cross country in high school, and then just kept running. "Back in the day" I was a sprinter more than anything, and even today running more than a 5k (3.1 miles), unless I'm training for something longer, takes something special. I enjoy running because it's an easy way to burn off some steam, take some time for myself, and achieve goals. Even the smallest accomplishments feel like major feats when you're running. As a sprinter, knocking off half a second from your race pace was like being on top of the world! It was all so exciting- was I going to PR (personal record) that day? Had I trained well enough? What could I do to continue to improve? Running is a sport that is always looking forward- literally, because, DUH you look ahead while you're running, and figuratively because running allows you to continually strive to meet that next goal. Maybe it's increasing your distance, decreasing your time, feeling good while you run (not fatigued), losing weight, improving your mood, or just getting a good sweat in before dinnertime. Whatever the goal, because there are myriad goals you could set for yourself, no matter how small, you can always feel accomplished while running. I think that's part of the reason that races have become so popular recently. Anyone can feel accomplished running, and it takes minimum equipment to get yourself to your goal. It does, however, take maximum effort.

Action shot from "back in the day" when my
hair was long and I recovered from injuries
so much quicker than I do now. Sigh. 

So, my inspiration today is my mom! She is a wonderful person with more energy than I think I've ever had in my life. We started running a Warrior Dash 5k for Mother's Day 6 years ago, and we haven't missed one yet! The Warrior Dash is a fun obstacle course and mud run over 3.1 miles, and my mom always kicks my butt. Whether I'm just more out of shape than her, or just keep wiping out in the creeks because I try to hurdle a log (my track coaches in high school forbade me to go anywhere near the hurdles because they were smart coaches), she is always ahead of me in these races. After a couple of these, she started doing miniature triathlons on her own (run 3.1 miles, bike 12.4 miles, swim half a mile), which then became doing 5ks for beating her times, and then she started running 10ks, and she recently completed running a half marathon (she got the same time I did when I ran a 10 miler. Ooof.).  Her adorable dog, Jackson, is her  "trainer" and, again is very adorable. That link will take you to his website (he is a therapy dog). 

For the "training schedule," this is something I use to help me start when I have to "get back to running," typically because I've been sick, injured (have I mentioned I'm clumsy?), or wanted to get myself out of my comfortable pace zone.
********Before I start this schedule, I have typically been running 1-2 days per week and keeping a comfortable pace, to get myself back to a place where I'm ready to train. ********
Starting off with this schedule, from nothing, is NOT a good idea. You will get injured (I've done that too) or worse- you'll think it's too hard from the start and then give up. When you are in a place where you can run 2-3 miles, without stopping, at the same pace each time, and feel comfortable at that pace, THEN it is a good idea to start something like this.

Before you begin you need to decide the following. Then you can fill in the schedule with the times you're aiming for:
Starting pace: ____ (Ex: 10:30 min/mile pace)       Goal pace: _____ (Ex: 9:00 min/mile pace)
Starting distance: ____ (Ex: 3 miles)                         Goal distance: _____ (Ex: 5k at goal pace)

I'm working on formatting a table and/or being able to link the pdf in to this page directly, (#computerskillsproblems) but here is a link to the training schedule via a shared Google Doc pdf. Enjoy! 

Spring Updates!

       I've got some crazy news! 
But first, hello internet world, it's been a while. 

I wish this had been a lucky jersey because a lucky
jersey might have helped the Caps get past the
second round of the playoffs. Ughhhhh. 

      A long while, actually. I apologize for my absence! It's been a busy spring so far. However I am armed with some extra time in my schedule, some new ideas, and a whole lot to update on in a quick update post! I have spent quite a bit of time the last few months doing what I usually do every spring, panicking over the end of the hockey season and then slowly killing my nerves by watching my team in the playoffs. I am a Washington Capitals fan through and through and EVERY SEASON they just screw me over in the playoffs with their lack of playing as well as they should. Sigh. Of course the games are 3 hours plus overtime, and of course there is one every 2-3 days, so I lost both sleep and time to get things done. Laundry piles up, social obligations fall to the side, and all I wear is my giant hockey jerseys and leggings. It's a rough time. And, like they do every year, the Caps fell in the second round again this year to our biggest rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Life is so rough. So, so very rough.

      Work has been super busy- wrapping up my caseload management responsibilities, getting test-prep planned, getting through test prep, and then on top of it all supporting coworkers in all of their personal endeavors. Half marathons, babies, buying houses, babies, weddings, and mostly people having babies. I love that I work at a school where there is a huge culture of both teamwork and shared celebration. We love to support each other through all of life's journeys, not just the ones we are on in our classrooms. I've done a bit of baking for these celebrations- a bouquet of cupcakes for a "bride wars" themed bridal shower, cute little cupcakes for a baby shower, and this sprinkled beauty, which admittedly was a severely huge amount of cake, for another baby shower. We've got another one coming up in a few weeks, and for that there may be some cookie pictures on my Instagram page.

      My husband and I have traveled quite a bit, too! We visited friends in San Antonio for spring break, went to a wedding in Atlanta, and....for the big news....we went to Munich, Germany for a few days in March! Aside from our honeymoon in Jamaica, this was my first big international trip and it was quite a trip! From the long flight over to exploring a new city on my own for 2 days (hubs was doing work related things), it was both fulfilling and exhausting. The even crazier news is that we are MOVING to Munich in September! Hubs will be working there for 1.5-2 years in a post-doc position. Holy moly! He applied several months ago as it was his "long shot" scenario, and after  months of him waiting to hear back, then getting invited for a visit, then him giving a talk on our visit and then more months of waiting to hear back after our visit, we finally know for sure we are headed across the pond in a few months. This beautiful city pictured below will be our new home!

I took this picture from the top of St. Peter's church in Munich, right across from the Marienplatz (tall tower on the right)
and Frauenkirche (tall church on the left) on my first day in the city. 

      I've got so many posts I have wanted to post but haven't for professional reasons; look forward to additional posts about traveling, moving, and managing all of life's daily requirements in between the moving and traveling posts! I'll still be baking, running (if I ever recover from a sprained ankle that is nagging me), teaching, bullet journaling, and I'll definitely be back to the blogging on a more regular basis.

Bullet Journal Weekly Spreads Evolution

     Two months ago, when I discovered Bullet Journaling, I figured that because I had a cute little notebook and inspiration all over the internet, that suddenly my new planner/journal/lifesaver would just BE cute. After all, one of the major draws I have to the Bullet Journal system is that it's easy to personalize and easy to make cute at the same time! I wanted my planner and calendar and journal to all be in one place. And of course, I wanted it to just instantly look as adorable as the journals I'd see on Instagram by Boho Berry, Pretty Prints and Paper, and Tiny Ray of Sunshine, among others. I spent HOURS the first day I got it, setting it up, making precise lines, cute handwriting, the works. I was so happy with it!

     And then...I started using my journal for actual daily life functioning and organizing. And my journal went from cute, clean and tidy, to this --->
Messy. Un-cute. Unorganized. Not the kind of thing you want to share. Part of the Bullet Journal system that appeals to me most is the ability to make your weekly layout however you want, but I wasn't taking time to lay out my week because I didn't know how much space I'd need. Which resulted in the chaos you see to the right. After two weeks of unsightly entropy I decided I needed a structured layout and began playing with how much space I'd need.

     One reason I struggled with choosing a daily layout is because I don't use my bullet journal during my weekday. Shocker!! I know. I know. A planner junkie who doesn't look at their planner during the day? What kind of crazy am I??

     Before you close this tab and ignore the rest of my blog posts forever, let me say that I do use a bullet journal during the day, just not my personal one! I have a spiral notebook (the green one, in the above picture, if you must know) that houses my daily work to do lists. It's a series of lists- no formats, no weekly or monthly anything. Just to do lists and information I need to remember. As a special education teacher I work with a lot of confidential documents and I don't want to-do's based on writing and planning those to be in my personal planner. I don't have time to make it pretty- honestly- and I need it to be functional more than anything, which it totally is. I use the bullets for tasks and cross them out when they're completed, I put an arrow on any migrated tasks, I rewrite lists when it gets too chaotic, and keep everything I need in one place. Plus the Maybooks planner there, which houses what would be considered my "future log" for work. Aka calendars.

     But on to the fun stuff...my pretty personal planner (alliteration much?) and how I've made it work for me. Here's the weekly layout I've settled on:

     Each week day gets 5 squares in my Leuchtturm 1917 and then Friday gets a little extra. It's a good space for a weekly recap, a doodle, a quote, etc. Saturday and Sunday each get half a page because I typically have time those mornings to USE my bullet journal and reflect, plan, and make to-do lists. Throughout the week I can list reminders there as well. On weekends, I layout the next week and take the time to make it LOOK cute, the way I want! Here are some ways I've customized the layout to look different each week, while the spacing and format stays the same.

Cute arrows! Colored in!
That appointment got moved...

Cute banners! Blue pen!

I added in a new language for some fun this week. You can see my "to-do" listing for weekdays versus the weekends here
although my Sunday meal planning is missing from this page. 

Added boxes instead of banners or arrows this time, and changed Saturday and Sunday to be a little different. I enjoy
making them different because I get to practice more borders that way! I played with color this week too. You can 
also see how Tuesday and Wednesday I didn't have a whole lot going on- extra space! I had the mindset of "FILL 
ALL THE SPACE!" at first but then everything just looked so cluttered. I think leaving it blank gives the option to 
doodle in it later on, or maybe I need to do more journaling in those spaces! Regardless, cleaner looks better than full. 

     I've been using Pilot G2 pens in a variety of colors, as well as Crayola Super Tips markers. I love, love, LOVE these markers! I even numbered them and then indexed the colors in my bullet journal as a collection, because sometimes the marker cap colors are misleading (dark cap light color, and vice versa). Smartest thing I've ever done, really. I'll post some of my other bullet journal hacks in another post, but for now enjoy the weekly layout! Feel free to try it out in yours, or find another format that works for you and share it in comments below! I love the bullet journal and planner community, and I'm grateful for the inspiration of others.

Self-Paced Lesson follow up: Lessons learned!

Back in January, I blogged about how we were planning a Self-Paced Lesson for our 8th graders, specifically for our unit on Volume. In that post, I talked about how excited we were to implement this unit as a self-paced one, and to see how our students responded. We planned the unit quickly, and anticipated the students would complete it quickly too (ha!). Today's post is a follow up,  which I'll try to keep short and sweet, to reflect and share feedback about using Self-Paced learning an inclusion classroom.

Quick overview of our process: 
~ The unit was schedule to be 6 "days" of lessons, and we planned 8 school days for the students to complete it. On the first day, we gave a detailed overview and took up a significant portion of class explaining what our expectations were, as well as the process from the student's side of things. We showed them where their paper copies were, we explained how we were grading it- basically we laid everything out up front. We did this on purpose because we a) wanted to be clear and b) wanted to ensure that students didn't finish "Day 1" on the first day- so that they would understand that the term "day" was fluid (thus, being self-paced instead of daily requirements).

~ We printed a blank attendance roster and labeled columns as the different assignments students were completing and turning in, so that we could easily keep track of who was where. When we required IXL practice, we could quickly lookup who had completed practice and who hadn't, and check it off. That way, when they did terribly on an exit slip, we knew if lack of practice was a factor (surprise, it typically was!). We also put in the grades of each assessment they turned in, so that we could see in one easy glance which students were improving, which were declining, and which were staying steady in terms of their proficiency (Only the post-test went in the gradebook).

 Most of our students looked
like this during our Self Paced unit!
Source

~ We turned them loose! They were excited to get started.

Positive Observations:  
~ So many students were PRODUCTIVE! They enjoyed the FREEDOM; some worked at home, even when they struggled, while others asked for help through the difficult spots while in class.
~ Our process was very EFFICIENT- students knew where to get materials, when/where to turn them in, and for the most part did a great job of keeping track of their progress.
~ For students who struggled, we were able to PARTNER them with a peer who was ahead of schedule, in order to foster some interaction, although to be honest it wasn't planned. For example, their TenMarks lesson on the subject was rather difficult, and several students worked together to problem solve or explain what they'd done (and how it was wrong) to try and persevere to get right answers.


Lessons Learned: 

This happened for a few students!
Source

~ In our inclusion classrooms, and I'm sure in yours as well, ATTENTION is a huge issue. The streamlined process helped several students stay on track- they knew where to get information (their Google Doc), where to get copies (the bin), and that they could easily ask their neighbor quietly if they got stuck. However, some of our students really had difficulty staying on task due to the lack of structured expectations.
~ TIME became a concern. We'd had a couple of snow days in the middle of the unit- no problem, we thought! They could work on it at home. But they didn't, really. A few did, but the concept of the self paced unit was pretty new and I think it didn't even cross their minds that they could work on it and get ahead. They're also very used to the idea that snow days = pushing back lessons to the next day, so they assumed we'd move our deadline for the unit test (we did, but not much).

A teacher's greatest foe.
Source

~ After a few days, and coming back from snow days, students struggled with MOTIVATION. They monotony of coming in and working off of directions from the same document daily was not motivating for some of our lower attention students. For example, some of our students with Autism (and some without!) realized they could give the appearance of working while they were actually off in their own world!

Going Forward: 

As my other co-teacher and I planned a self-paced unit for our 7th graders, we took away a few lessons from my experience with 8th graders in order to plan for our 7th graders more appropriately. Specifically, we wanted to address TIME, ATTENTION, and MOTIVATION. 

Strategies we used to adjust for time: 

• Having students stop practice short (i.e. if they'd been told to get a smart score of 80 on IXL, we had them move on after 60 if they were behind)
• Picking/choosing what was MOST important (Obviously anything you include in a unit is important, but one example of this was having students test without completing the unit review before the test, just because we'd run out of time and they didn't complete it at home)
• Modifying assignments for length
• Assigning parts as homework (with an email home to parents!)
• Requiring students to come work on the unit during their lunch intervention time
• Communication with parents regarding progress 

Strategies we used to adjust for attention: 
(in addition to the above)

• Preparing groups for various lessons in the unit (We knew some students would get behind or need re-teaching, so we prepared groups ahead of time and started a new class period off with having the students in that group complete a lesson with me or with my co-teacher. This added in a little structure to keep attention going.) 
• Greater variety of activities (We threw in some hands on activities with manipulatives, and Quizlet practice where we encouraged the students to try and get below a certain time- competition always helps with motivation!)
• Anticipating more individual instruction (We listed students ahead of time that we thought would need individual prompting, support, and explanation of new material and made sure to give them that support, either in class or during lunch intervention time.)
• Change seating! Or sit next to them while they worked. 

Strategies we used to adjust for motivation: 
(in addition to the above)

• Communication with parents regarding progress 
• Communication with students individually regarding progress (We gave some students a checklist to work off of on days where they'd been less productive the previous day; others we talked with about their individual progress and our expectations)
• Making sure grades were updated daily (so students could check to see their progress)
• Starting class with a mini-lesson to recap (We did this the last 3 days of the unit, so students could see a) the main take-aways of the lesson, b) where the concepts were going, and c) what they were expected to do, mathematically, as a preview for the day)

I think that self-paced learning has a huge place in the inclusion setting, but it has to be worked the right way in order to be productive for all students. Hopefully these lessons learned will help your inclusion classroom learn productively from a self-paced unit! 

Hot Buttered Rum Cupcakes

     It snowed recently. We got a whole 4 inches! Of course, in North Carolina that's what happens when a blizzard rolls through. That, and closure of pretty much every school, business, and backroad for a few days. We couldn't even leave our parking lot for 3 days after 4 inches of  snow.


       I spent some of that snow day time whipping up a a batch of these Hot Buttered Rum Cupcakes. The recipe came from the "Prohibition Bakery" cookbook I got for Christmas from my brother. The book is full of mixed drink recipes converted into lovely, scrumptious, boozy cupcakes. It was brutally cold those snowy days and when reading through the recipes, this one stood out as warm and cozy. If you've ever had a Hot Buttered Rum drink on a cold, winter evening...well, you know that these appeared to be the perfect baking plan for a snowy winter day.



      My official review of these cupcakes would fall somewhere in between perfect-warm-from-the-oven and TOO-sweet-to-just-grab-and-eat. Hot Buttered Rum as a warm drink is generally sweet, but the combination of sweet vanilla cupcake, caramel filling, and sweet rum flavored frosting was a bit of a sucrose overload. The cupcakes were perfectly fluffy, the frosting beautifully smooth, and the caramel was delicious. I made these as full sized cupcakes because I only had regular cupcake liners, but maybe there was a reason they  made these (and every recipe in the book) in miniature! I'll have to test out another recipe and let you know..

     The directions were multitudinous. As I was typing this post I had a deja-vu moment back to when I was baking the cupcakes and felt overwhelmed by the directions. They took quite a while from start to finish! I think there could be a simpler way to make these, but I haven't experimented with that yet. Additionally, you WILL use ALL of your pots, pans, and measuring utensils (and probably your stash of butter in the fridge too) making these. All of them. Ask my husband. I did so many dishes during those snow days, that it's put me off from baking since (well, not true, but it did put me off baking for a day or two).

I believe that this picture substantiates that I overcooked my caramel just a bit. But it was amazing to eat when warmed up!

Hot Buttered Rum Cupcakes
taken From "Prohibition Bakery" page 101
by Leslie Feinberg and Brooke Siem

Ingredients:

Filling 
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons (2 oz) butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 pinch salt
1/4 cup dark rum
                                                                                   Frosting
Cake                                                                          1 pound powdered sugar
1 egg                                                                          1 stick butter
1/3 cup sour cream                                                    1/3 cup dark rum
1 and 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter

Preparation: 

Filling  (My input- up to a day ahead of making the cupcakes, prepare the filling using the following instructions)
1. In a saucepan, heat sugar and butter over medium heat until butter is melted and the mixture appears smooth (not grainy). After a few minutes, the mixture will bubble and turn a nice golden color.
2. While the sugar and butter mixture is melting, warm cream over low heat, taking care not to boil it.
3. When the sugar is fully dissolved in the sugar/butter mixture, slowly stream in the warm cream, stirring constantly.
4. Add a pinch of salt and stir thoroughly
5. Once everything is fully mixed, slowly pour in the rum, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth and even in color.
6. The caramel will appear thin when hot but will thicken significantly when cooled.
7. Transfer the caramel to a squeeze bottle and let it cool before filling cupcakes.

Frosting (My input- make the brown butter for the frosting (steps 1-5) up to a day ahead of time, but at least 2-3 hours ahead of time, to allow the butter to set again before mixing frosting) 
1. Heat butter in saucepan over low heat until it is fully melted.
2. Turn the heat up to medium high, keeping a close eye on the butter. Stir constantly, taking care to scrape the bottom of the pan.
3. Remove the pan from the heat once the butter begins to take on an amber color and smell faintly nutty, and little flecks of browned butter are visible. Keep a close watch over your butter at this point. The difference between browned butter and burnt butter is a matter of seconds.
4. Transfer butter to a heat proof container, taking care to scrape every last fleck of browned goodness out of the pan.
5. Cool in the refrigerator.
6. Allow browned butter to soften again, then combine with confectioners sugar in a standing mixer on low speed.
7. Slowly add dark rum and beat until fluffy.
8. Transfer the frosting to a piping bag.

Cupcakes
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line mini cupcake tins with paper liners.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg and sour cream. Set aside. (I just left mine in the stand until step 5) 
3. In another bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.
4. Combine water and butter in a saucepan and heat until the butter melts.
5. Remove from heat. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the hot water/butter mixture into the mixing bowl containing the egg/sour cream mixture. Beat until incorporated.
6. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until incorporated.
7. Fill cupcake tins 2/3 full.
8. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cupcakes cook completely on a wire rack before filling or frosting.

Assembly
1. When the cupcakes are cool, core the cupcakes with a narrow bladed knife.
2. Fill each cupcake with the rummy caramel, taking care not to let it overflow.
3. Frost to your liking. (I piped using a large round tip)
4. Garnish with a sprinkle of brown sugar, if desired (I did not!)