Novel Ideas, Heroic Deeds

Holy. Cow. Just when you think you have heard of the coolest thing on God's green earth, doesn't the creativity of the human race just come and surprise you with another delicious creative outlet!

I poked around on my favorite foodie blogs - I love nothing more than a rainy Saturday when I can just jump from one blog to another, seeking out the best new recipes posted this week - searching different recipes of "Opera Cake" that the Daring Bakers just finished for their May recipe challenge. I was so excited to see what this month's recipe would be, and (of course) it was another astounding success. I don't know if I am brave enough to try it on my own (it's a pretty involved recipe), but it sure was amazing to look at and drool over!

Anyway, back to blog jumping. As I moved from site to site I fell upon this amazing little blog called Champaign Taste (yup, that's how it was spelled) and I found such an amazing, creative idea nestled in its posts.

It's called Novel Food, and unlike most roundups that are quite specific in their culinary criteria, this challenge is merely to make a food that is inspired by a book! Well shit, yo, I'm in! If there is anything, anything! I possibly love more than baking...it's books. To the point that I've had to take my visa number out of my online bookstore shopping account since it was being used just a little too frequently with it ready-programmed in there!

The next deadline is June 21st, and I am totally going to try it. I can't wait to look around. Of course, I'd love to find a book that related back to cupcakes, but that might be a stretch. And frankly, baking something other than cupcakes might be a good stretch for me!

Of course, I never would have become so adventurous if it wasn't for another, more taste-specific challenge, that will keep me in cupcake heaven. It's called Cupcake Hero and it's an awesome cupcake roundup that I've been watching for a couple of months. I wanted to make sure that this wasn't for really accomplished bakers, because I'm definitely not there yet, but it seems to appeal to a high number of foodie blogs and non-foodie blogs of all talent levels. So: I'm in. This month's ingrediant was cocoa powder...which sounds really easy right? But when I started thinking about it, I realized that the fact that there was so much choice was actually the hidden challenge in this month's challenge. Supposedly all the entrants will be posting today, or around today, and I can't wait to see what has been created!

So freakin' delicious. It can rain all day at this rate!

"Spaghetti and Meatballs" Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

There have been moments when I am a bit of a snob - turning up my nose to decadent designs with flat taste combinations. For me, it's all about the taste, the taste!, which is why I was slightly dismayed when I opened Karen Tack's book Hello Cupcake which seemed to be devoted to the art of decorating, and not the cupcakes themselves.

I know, what a snob!

Turns out the book is awesome, and in light of my new found appreciation I decided to attempt her cupcakes decorated like spaghetti and meatballs. The picture was so comical I couldn't resist, and it was the perfect way to spice up a basic vanilla cupcake recipe.

I brought them in to work today and my co-workers' mouths fell open. They couldn't believe their eyes! For one, the meatballs look really realistic which had people wondering if I had gone completely nuts, but more than anything it was just the extreme silliness of the entire situation.

So this blog entry isn't dedicated to the cupcake - it's dedicated to the decoration!

Basic Vanilla Cupcakes

makes 24 cupcake

1 c. unsalted butter

2 c. white sugar

4 eggs

2 3/4 c. cake and pastry flour

2 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1 c. plus 2 tbsp. milk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

• sift together flour and baking powder; set aside
• mix together milk and vanilla; set aside
• cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in large mixing bowl; add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly with a mixer on medium speed
• alternate wet and dry ingredients in thirds until well combined
• fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and bake at 350 degrees for 18-22 minutes
• allow to fully cool before frosting

Vanilla Buttercream

• 3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 c. milk
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 5-6 c. icing sugar

Cream unsalted butter with 1 c. icing sugar. Add milk and vanilla and then add icing sugar (4-5 c.'s) until reaches thick enough consistency to be piped consistency

Meat Sauce

adapted from Hello Cupcake! by Karen Tack

• 1 jar no-sugar added strawberry jam*
• 24 Ferrero Rocher chocolates

* I'm serious about the no-sugar added factor of the strawberry jam for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the icing is really really sweet, so the less sweet the jam, the better. It cuts the taste. Secondly, low-sugar or no sugar jam has a better colour, according to Karen Tack (and confirmed by moi!)

Assembly

• Lightly ice each cupcake; position on one tray touching each other (4x6 format)
• Use an icing bag with a 4 Round (Wilton) tip, or a ziplock bag with a very small hole for piping. If you choose to use the ziplock, try your noodle size out on a piece of wax paper before icing...my first try looked like fettuccine more than spaghetti!

• Loop that icing all over the place! Move from one cupcake to another, and let it dribble down the sides a little, to look like piles of noodles
  
• Pour the jam into a bowl, mix in chocolates gently until completely covered. Spoon one chocolate and a little jam on each cupcake*

* I would suggest that you don't add your meatsauce and meatballs until just before you are ready to serve, because the jam will set and get gelatin-ish if you leave it too long.

Voila! Excellent-ly delicious, easy, and amazing cupcakes! (Don't those meatballs look believable?)

They were very easy to make, and that vanilla cupcake recipe is easy, moist, and delicious. It's also the basis for most of my flavour experiments as I find it a really versatile recipe (except I think I should challenge that preconception soon, because as I learned last week, my orange cupcakes could have used a different base...so perhaps there is still work to be done).

Anyway, it was a great week with great results. Recommended!

Almost Orange Cupcakes with Absolutely Almond Buttercream

OK a lot of posting in a little amount of time. Turns out I lost the cord that hooks my camera up to the computer, so I had to put my pictures on CD at Shopper's Drugmart and the price for a CD is exactly the same if you have 2 pictures or 20...so I waited until I had 20.

:)

Anyway, last week for work I tried orange cupcakes with almond buttercream. The idea of the recipe started a week earlier when I read about on Wishing on Clovers' website called "Oh My Darling Clementine" Cupcakes. I tried the cupcakes and loved the clementine sharpness (which I kicked up a notch with a tsp. of orange extract) - however, when I went to make them the next week, I had lost my copy of the recipe, my computer crashed, and I had no clementines.

Time to improvise!

An orange was an easy substitute for the 2 clementines Clovers suggested, but it didn't have the same kick, even with 2 tsp's of orange extract. I also had to wing the rest of the cake recipe, and I think Clovers highlights the citrus taste a little better.

Still, it was a resounding success. Even the one Financial Advisor who used to be a professional baker said that the cake was great and the almond in the buttercream made for a fantastic fusion of tastes. It was subtle, but definitely there, and overall a pretty sophisticated blend of tastes. The morning after I took these pictures I topped all of the cupcakes with half a marachino cherry for a little colour.

The true success, though, was in my icing technique. Take a look at that swirling technique! Can you believe it? It took me a couple of tries (even to just fill the icing bag) but I totally managed it. At one moment my friend, Kiki, who was helping me bake up a storm, took a picture of me in a squatting stance to bring my eyes down level with the counter. It was embarrassing. Hence: not published!

So even more than the cupcake, I was impressed with the icing...but people hardly even noticed the artistry once they took a bite!

Almost Orange Cupcakes with Absolutely Almond Buttercream
makes 24 cupcakes

1 c. softened unsalted butter

2 c. white sugar

1 c. milk
3 tsp. orange extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract

juice of one orange

zest of one orange

2 3/4 c. cake flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder*

• Preheat Oven to 350 degrees farenheit; paper 2 cupcake pans
• sift together flour and baking powder; gently mix in zest with fingertips until just combined; set aside
• mix milk, orange extract, vanilla extract, and orange juice together; set aside
• in a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar on medium with mixer until fluffly
• add eggs one at a time on medium speed and beat again until fluffy
• alternate wet and dry ingrediants in thirds until fully combinedtaste...does it need a few drops more orange extract? let your tastebuds guide you!
• fill cupcake liners 2/3 full; bake 18-20 minutes until golden topped and springy to the touch

* check your baking powder - it does have an expiration date. I found that my recipes turn out so much better since I splurged and got a new little container full of fresh stuff!

Almond Icing

2/3 c. unsalted butter, softened
1/4 c. milk
2 tsp. almond extract
4-5 c. icing sugar

• cream butter and 2 c. icing sugar until smooth with mixer on low (otherwise the icing sugar shoots right out of the mixing bowl)
• add milk, mix again until cottage cheese consistency.
• add icing sugar until desired thickness**
• add almond extract and beat until smooth

** I came to a breakthrough: fun 1M swirls on cupcakes need stiff icing. I used a lot more icing sugar than I generally do, which made it stiffer...and sweeter. When I finished I slipped an extra 1/2 tsp of almond extract in there. But be careful, because I think my almond extract was also a little old. I'm a big fan of the "taste test" for optimal results!

Happy Baking!

Crazy for Cookbooks

Blame it on my type-A personality that needs instructions for everything. Blame it on my English degree, that has cultivated in me the love of the written word. Blame it on whatever you like, it still doesn't change it - I love books.

I love all books: fiction, non fiction, poetry, children's...but one of my absolute favorites is the cookbook. Especially if it comes with those amazing colour photos of the final products (you can blame that one on my Art History degree because I love a textbook with pictures)...mmm, mmm.

In Ontario, my home, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) puts out a quarterly publication called food and drink which promotes a lot of alcohol, but also has some darn good recipes (which, by the way, they publish online for easy access. Check out their dessert section, it's mouthwatering) so during my very very poor days as a university student I didn't really buy a whole lot of cookbooks, although I managed to scam a bunch off my Mom.

And even now, I do a lot of my recipe searching on line because I can get feedback on the different recipes. But with my new challenge as a cupcake connoisseur, I noticed that there were the same cupcake cookbooks surfacing as must-haves. So I did what any beginning would: I got my tools.

In other words, I went on an e-shopping binge at Chapters book store and stocked up!

Before I did this, my personal cookbooks looked like this. It had a couple of goodies, including the slim volume third from the left called Cakewalk:Loving Spoonfuls from a Southern Kitchen by Robbin Gourley, and my old standard, the Joy of Cooking. It was a pretty good show, but didn't really speak to my present undertaking.

In total I spent a little more than $50.00, but when all five cookbooks came in, the box was pretty huge. Now my shelf looks like this:

A little Nigella Lawson, some Clare Crespo, and a smattering of others - what a haul! I was so excited until my Mom came into the room.

Ahh, the mumma. Her heart really is in the right place, but no amount of arguing that this was the same amount my brothers could drop in a bar in one evening fell on deaf ears. The whole scenario was slightly deflating.

Still, I soldier on! My cupcake dreams will not be quashed, and I am still super excited at my new finds that are blending my loves: cookbooks and cupcakes! Complete with glossy photos, great how-to, and some excellent stories along the way, I'm caught up in culinary bliss!

Now the adventure really begins!

Take Your Cake To Work Day

Mmm, finance. The sweet smell of money in the morning; the subtle art of crafting with cash. Nothing beats the aromatic smell of laser printer ink iced with application carbon copies...

Hmmm. Not buying it? Me neither.

In fact, being a recent English Literature and Art History major at university, an avid gardner and an aspiring baker, I had big dreams. And I found myself at 24 coming back to my family home and working as the receptionist for a major insurance company. A good job, but not quite my dream job.

Moving home was the hardest part. Leaving my new-found independence behind for a while to add some cushion to my wallet might have been a cheap fix, but had costly implications on my spirit. Coupled with the job that offers some big plusses (wage? plus. people? plus) and some bigger nonplusses (data entry? nonplus. inside all day? nonplus. routine, computer screen, routine? nonplus.), I knew that I needed a creative outlet. Fast. Something that, at home, was all my own, but also something that could make its way into my life in bigger ways and sprinkle a little joy around.

So I did what any creative cookie would - I decided to mix things up. If you can't beat 'em, cream and sugar 'em.

I brought cupcakes to work. The first week was after stumbling across the blog 52 Cupcakes, which chronicles one woman's journey of one cupcake recipe a week for a year. It. is. fabulous. What an amazing way to make your life and job just a little more exciting (and delicious).

I thought to myself how awesome is this idea! Could I start a cupcake revolution like this in my life? It was a pretty darn good fit: 1) Cupcakes are exciting for me: check. 2) Cupcakes are perfect sharing food: check. 3) Cupcakes make people happy: check. 4) Cupcakes are an excellent way to break the ice and make new friends: check.

And so it began. My pledge to my workplace to turn them all into cupcake connoisseurs in one year flat. It started with chocolate cupcakes and pink peppermint buttercream. I kept them at the front desk, and as each confused coworker entered that morning I handed them a cupcake, a napkin, and a pink scrap of paper reading: Have a cupcake, cupcake!

I've been at it for a month, now, and it has been a smashing success. There has even been a little envelope placed in the kitchen to take donations for the cause! The feedback is incredible, as are all of the stories that these recipes are bringing out of my coworkers. Stories of their childhood, mostly (which is hard to imagine of some of these suits), but also promises to recipe swap, and just general silliness.

It's amazing. Thursday (cupcake day) is an anticipated day of the week. People who have snuck in the back door come up to the front just to chat and grab a cupcake throughout the morning. Even the UPS man is excited for his early-morning sugar high. And life for me is infinitely more exciting - having something to look forward to, to prepare for, to joke about - it's made me twice as nice and more than happy.

Cold world of finances no more! Warm that up with a little cinnamon and spice!

Who said cupcakes can't change the world?

Born To Bake

Born to Bake.

It all began inconspicuously enough. At six, positioned at my Mother’s elbow, we made peanut butter cookies together. She had a copy of the Joy of Cooking, and the book practically fell open to the page. Smeared with dough from countless previous bakings, the page smelled wonderfully like peanut butter…a smell and taste we couldn’t get enough of.

As one of five children (and the eldest at that), the cookies never lasted long. We had notorious sweet teeth among us, and a batch of cookies would scarcely last a day before they had all disappeared.

I loved peanut butter cookies, but I loved the act of baking them even more. My Mom recounts the story of waking one morning to the smell of peanut butter cookies at 6:30 in the morning. She came down stairs, wondering what the heck was going on, and found me (kitchen in shambles) pulling trays out of the oven with mitts that stretched past my elbows.

They were that darn good.

So it's been a bug that's stuck. Baking in general refined itself to more cakes, than cookies, as I got older. Always seeking new recipes. Always trying new flavour combinations. I'm amateur for sure - my baking is decent but my frosting techniques are atrocious - but I'm bumbling through, failing as often as I succeed, but learning all the same.

My personal favorite kind of baking is definitely the cupcake. There's something about that cute little frosted sweetie that just gets me every time. They are definitely my most common culinary feat and love playing with old recipes, or creating brand new ones.

I'm also a blog junkie. Not writing blogs, but searching them for new recipes, tips, and ideas. Some of my own stuff has turned out OK, and I love to write, so I thought to myself what the heck? I’ve always been extremely jealous of the online baking community, and I’ve had to reason with myself – I’ll never get a chance to participate in cupcake hero, or a round-up, if I never get into it myself! I’m getting all this inspiration from others, why not contribute the little bit I can?

Still, I’m really amateur and not much to look at. I still haven’t figured out how to get the photos off my camera to start posting them with my recipes. So, on the right are links to baking blogs that are really good and the bakers have obviously been doing this a lot longer than I have. You'll be amazed by their freakin' glorious recipes. Most of my creations are merely variations on their themes. But, here's to hoping that as time goes on and I grow a little culinary backbone, more of these recipes can be honestly cited as my own.

But not today! Today's recipe goes to that lovely cookie that started it all.

Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies
From the Joy of Cooking

1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. light brown sugar, packed
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 c. peanut butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugars together. Add peanut butter and beat until incorporated. Add egg and vanilla.
In a separate bowl whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Add slowly to the peanut butter mixture. It's going to get really heavy, but trust me that's OK.
Chill the dough for one hour (I never had the patience as a six year old to wait for this step, but supposedly it's a good one...actually, I also used to use butter right out of the fridge and microwave it to melting point. Gimme a break, I was six!) Once chilled, roll into balls, line non-stick baking tray and press each one with a fork.

Cook 15-18 minutes at 350 degrees.
Voila!

Rich, delicious peanut butter cookies.
I think I'll make some right now...