It has been sometime since my last post and I have still been hard at it baking at least three cupcakes a week, so I apologize this post may be a little long. This chilly Sunday morning has been a good one to gather up my thoughts and ask myself honestly, why cupcakes? Over the last ten years or so the gourmet cupcake world has exploded with shops popping up everywhere, catering companies, and food trucks even hopping on the wagon, so after a successful college career and a successful post college job, why cupcakes? When I was a kid I was a baker. When I was a teenager I was a baker. And now that I am an adult I still remain a baker. The only catch in being an adult baker is your not as cute as a kiddie baker and reminding everyone being a baker isn't about being a millionaire. Being a baker makes something inside of you feel like a millionaire. I don't know if it is the little kid in a in all of us but something about seeing those little perfectly individual cakes makes us forget about adult worries. When I hand someone a cupcake I am handing them a smile and a feeling of nostalgia. That is the reason behind the cupcakes, not the fad or the cupcake trucks, but the feeling.
With all that sentimental explanation out of the way, lets get to the meat and soul of this bad boy blog. The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of butter and sugar. I am entirely certain that I have bought more butter in the last couple weeks than my entire life combined, and can I just say it feels damn good. If the secret to true happiness is butter, than Ms. Paula Dean is sure on to something. The baker inside of me loves to emerge somewhere around 5-6am. My first official cupcake delivery started with the normal 5am rush of excitement. I got up and was convinced that the collapses in my batters were in the past and I had to push forward and really discover how these little lovelies rise and transform. The batches for the delivery were pistachio with white chocolate or cinnamon meringue, non collapsing chai tea, and cracking down on the perfect chocolate. To begin with I finally got to make my first batch of flour. Pistachio flour was the result, and can I just say I never ever thought something that green could be so tasty. The batter for the pistachio cake was significantly different from all of my other batters, it was hearty. Like cornbread and chili hearty. The cakes came out perfect little domes, no collapsing in the oven or in my heart. Riding high I knew something special needed to go on top of these. I whipped up some white chocolate buttercream. Sticking with my patterns of the past I had a glitch. I let the melted white chocolate cool TOO much and when combined with the twelve sticks of butter in Beatrice resulted in a tasty frosting with chunks of chocolate instead of a smooth finish. Piping on the cakes may not have been the best but boy were they tasty. However, I need to revisit the pistachio flavor. The double flour made them VERY dense. So on the FF scale, flavor OUT OF CONTROL! Fluffiness, defiantly needs some work.
I have already detailed the creation of chai tea cakes so I will not go in to the details of that, but I did finally figure out how to stop those suckers from collapsing. A little more flour and baking powder and they domed just like the rest of them. I believe the secret in the phenomenal flavor is to brew your own chai tea curdle it with apple cider vinegar as well as blend the chai spices from the pantry. The tea mixture adds an explosion of flavor along with a moistness that is necessary for the FF factor. The thing I will give a good bit of detail was my discovery and love of meringues. Last weekend everything was topped with meringue. You start with whisking egg whites and sugar in a double boiler for ten minutes or so and then transferring them into Beatrice for another ten. It is an extremely time consuming process but if you have an automatic mix master machine like my lady it is no problem at all. After allowing the egg whites to whisk to room temperature you then SLOWLY add tablespoons of butter one at a time letting them blend very slowly. When all the butter is added you leave it to blend,blend, and blend. Note, if your eggs are not room temperature make sure you brew another pot of coffee and feed the dogs because you are in it for the long haul. After I finished laundry, showered, and made butternut squash soup my meringue was done! The result is well worth the wait because it is creamier than anything you could ever find in Julia Childs' house. I added cinnamon to the frosting wanting to just add a hint of spice, but of course with my extreme cooking skills, I took the whole lid off and ended up dumping a large amount in to the bowl. That ended up being the best, and brownest, mistake thus far. The frosting rocked!
Deciding that was enough for the first delivery I packed them up in my cupcake carrier, Wilton is a genius, and started the trek to the bank. I was all smiles as I went through my drive-thru coffee shop and gifted the ladies with a smile and a cake. I arrived at the bank and set up the cupcakes on a vintage looking cupcake tier. The kindergarten feeling came back, but a different kind of feeling. It was the adult feeling. The feeling of you leaving your child at kindergarten on their first day. I was sending my pride and joy out in to the world to be enjoyed and also judged. I wasn't sure if I was ready to hear the reactions to my hard work, but I had to let them go. If I didn't, how would I take my cupcake dream to the next level? If I didn't, how many days would I have to run to burn off eating four dozen cupcakes? I left them and thanked the employees for humoring me. A couple dozen more cupcakes, another batch of meringue, a thank you card, and I felt great about giving the gift of a sugar butter rush on a Friday!
The past two weeks has been a culinary exploration and also a little bit of self exploration. In the end, I am not quitting my day job. But, I am good and convinced that I have a future littered with cupcakes and smiles.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Bacon, Beestings, and Beatrice
The week came to a sugarless close just in time to start the creating process again and to let the Halloween festivities begin, aka hours of Halloween 1,3,4, and H20. After much contemplation during the week I decided to grade all creations on flavor and fluffiness. I began the weekend with the usual run in to town for supplies and was excited to explore flavor and fluffiness. The same thing that pushed me in to that bakery the day this all began pushed me to find the perfect rubber scraper leading to a stumble upon my ultimate dream mixer. I am fairly certain I came out of the womb demanding a Kitchenaid and now I finally had one! Let the creating begin!!!!
I broke Beatrice out of the box in time to start a batch of double chocolate cupcakes with a hearty heap of orange cream cheese frosting. The adventure began after discovering I bought unsweetened dark chocolate, which if any of you have tried it will make you feel like your mouth is going to fall off. I doctored up the melting chocolate and butter with sugar in my first successful attempt with a double boiler and the beauty went off without a hitch. The orange frosting complimented the richness of the Dutch coco and the "make your mouth fall off chocolate." I used orange zest and the juice of half an orange for the frosting and I believe on the next go around I will only use the juice, the zest made it a tad bitter. The cake was a hearty cake that could withstand the weight of a heavy royal or buttercream icing and fell short on the fluffiness scale but excelled on the flavor train.
Day two was and will remain Murphy's Law Day. The first recipe consisted of grinding cardamom seeds, making chai tea, and dumping every spice in my pantry into Beatrice. The smell was incredible. The chai filled the house and I am fairly certain that is how the North Pole smells. Riding with my head high I mixed, wisked, and got down and dirty. Anxiously I turned the light on in the oven and my heart dropped as the centers of my tiny beauties collapsed on what I believe was my overly large head. They came out of the oven, cooled, and were smeared with white chocolate frosting. My crowning glory had been in the fridge marinating all day and atop the white chocolate sat my candied bacon.
In between batch number one and batch number two my black lab Bodhi managed to get in to a sleeping/dying den of wasps and Justin and I noticed that he was starting to get well.....lumpy. His faced looked like the kid off Mask, the Cher version. His jowls got so fat he looked like Lisa Rhinna. One emergency trip to the vet and another batch of collapsing cupcakes and this gal was ready to hang up her pearls.
But, being the relentless searcher I am I continued on. The second chocolate cupcake used coffee and coco powder to create a runny batter which caused me to second guess adding the coffee, but I charged ahead refusing to give up my pearls. A couple trials and several errors and my table was littered with cupcakes waiting to be frosted. Atop the fluffy chocolate cakes I worked on my frosting roses with a simple buttecream dyed for the holiday. The final FF for chocolate number two, fluffy awesome cake and a chocolate flavor that resembled a boxed cake mix.
The final consensus of the weekend, Chai tea, white chocolate, and bacon is something I will be dreaming about for months. The journey to create the perfect chocolate cupcake is going to continue. Lastly, if you stick your melon in to a bush and it stings you once, get your face out of there so you don't have to go to the vet on a Sunday.
I broke Beatrice out of the box in time to start a batch of double chocolate cupcakes with a hearty heap of orange cream cheese frosting. The adventure began after discovering I bought unsweetened dark chocolate, which if any of you have tried it will make you feel like your mouth is going to fall off. I doctored up the melting chocolate and butter with sugar in my first successful attempt with a double boiler and the beauty went off without a hitch. The orange frosting complimented the richness of the Dutch coco and the "make your mouth fall off chocolate." I used orange zest and the juice of half an orange for the frosting and I believe on the next go around I will only use the juice, the zest made it a tad bitter. The cake was a hearty cake that could withstand the weight of a heavy royal or buttercream icing and fell short on the fluffiness scale but excelled on the flavor train.
Day two was and will remain Murphy's Law Day. The first recipe consisted of grinding cardamom seeds, making chai tea, and dumping every spice in my pantry into Beatrice. The smell was incredible. The chai filled the house and I am fairly certain that is how the North Pole smells. Riding with my head high I mixed, wisked, and got down and dirty. Anxiously I turned the light on in the oven and my heart dropped as the centers of my tiny beauties collapsed on what I believe was my overly large head. They came out of the oven, cooled, and were smeared with white chocolate frosting. My crowning glory had been in the fridge marinating all day and atop the white chocolate sat my candied bacon.
In between batch number one and batch number two my black lab Bodhi managed to get in to a sleeping/dying den of wasps and Justin and I noticed that he was starting to get well.....lumpy. His faced looked like the kid off Mask, the Cher version. His jowls got so fat he looked like Lisa Rhinna. One emergency trip to the vet and another batch of collapsing cupcakes and this gal was ready to hang up her pearls.
But, being the relentless searcher I am I continued on. The second chocolate cupcake used coffee and coco powder to create a runny batter which caused me to second guess adding the coffee, but I charged ahead refusing to give up my pearls. A couple trials and several errors and my table was littered with cupcakes waiting to be frosted. Atop the fluffy chocolate cakes I worked on my frosting roses with a simple buttecream dyed for the holiday. The final FF for chocolate number two, fluffy awesome cake and a chocolate flavor that resembled a boxed cake mix.
The final consensus of the weekend, Chai tea, white chocolate, and bacon is something I will be dreaming about for months. The journey to create the perfect chocolate cupcake is going to continue. Lastly, if you stick your melon in to a bush and it stings you once, get your face out of there so you don't have to go to the vet on a Sunday.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
In the Beginning There Was Butter Cream
The cupcake journey began after a recent visit to a local bakery. I entered the tiny shop, it is in a very old one level farm house, and was immediately greeted by the display case, namely all of the things INSIDE the pastry case. The donuts waved, the cupcakes smiled, and the cheery baker gave me a warm welcome to the quaint shop. I could feel the desserts waiting with bated breaths to see who the lucky winner would be. After an inward debate of cupcake or donuts I finally decided and inwardly said, "I am 24 years old, why the hell do I need to chose one!" I chatted excitedly with Roberta about my purchases of a maple bar with bacon and my all time personal favorite, a vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting and sprinkles. I excitedly walked to my car with my treasures tucked under my arm and decided to drive in to the country to enjoy my desserts among the fall foliage.
I reached my destination and pulled over and after salivating the entire drive I opened the perfect boxed that housed the tiny cake. The frosting was elegant and was in equal proportion to the cake, I hesitated for a moment admiring the things beauty and dove in. A full bit from top of frosting to bottom of the cake. My mouth watered with the immediate rush of butter from the frosting and then I was hit with a wall, a wall of cake. The build up proved to be more exhilarating than the event itself. The four inches of butter cream masked any flavor of the cake and probably for good reason. The cake was dense, almost like a boxed corn bread. The vanilla flavor was lost in the blandness of flour and the richness of the frosting was a lasting flavor in my mouth. After sitting for sometime with the half eaten cupcake on my lap I felt a wave a disappointment that I was not given a light fluffy vanilla rich cake. The disappointment rapidly disappeared and was replaced with feelings of excitement that something so small could create a level of passion inside of me. With the butter cream and determination smeared across my face I vowed to find and create the perfect cupcake.
This blog is a journey through bakeries, cookbooks, experiments, and is transforming a dream in to a reality. I will be accompanied by my adoring husband of three months to the day, our goofy dogs Clementine and Bodhi, and the countless amounts of people needed to sample my creations. This is day one and I am headed to kitchen to make brown sugar cupcakes with cinnamon pumpkin cream cheese frosting! Justin is hunting for the weekend and while the husband is out the Mad Housewife will create!
I reached my destination and pulled over and after salivating the entire drive I opened the perfect boxed that housed the tiny cake. The frosting was elegant and was in equal proportion to the cake, I hesitated for a moment admiring the things beauty and dove in. A full bit from top of frosting to bottom of the cake. My mouth watered with the immediate rush of butter from the frosting and then I was hit with a wall, a wall of cake. The build up proved to be more exhilarating than the event itself. The four inches of butter cream masked any flavor of the cake and probably for good reason. The cake was dense, almost like a boxed corn bread. The vanilla flavor was lost in the blandness of flour and the richness of the frosting was a lasting flavor in my mouth. After sitting for sometime with the half eaten cupcake on my lap I felt a wave a disappointment that I was not given a light fluffy vanilla rich cake. The disappointment rapidly disappeared and was replaced with feelings of excitement that something so small could create a level of passion inside of me. With the butter cream and determination smeared across my face I vowed to find and create the perfect cupcake.
This blog is a journey through bakeries, cookbooks, experiments, and is transforming a dream in to a reality. I will be accompanied by my adoring husband of three months to the day, our goofy dogs Clementine and Bodhi, and the countless amounts of people needed to sample my creations. This is day one and I am headed to kitchen to make brown sugar cupcakes with cinnamon pumpkin cream cheese frosting! Justin is hunting for the weekend and while the husband is out the Mad Housewife will create!
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