Please Lord, No More Cupcakes
Ironically, I'm not actually that keen on cupcakes. Don't get me wrong - I'll certainly eat one if it's offered - but given a choice between that and, oh, say, the chocolate espresso souffle cake at Pastry Xpo... Well, that's no contest, see wha'm'sayin'?
Anyway, I submitted three recipes to the contest, the last with one minute to go because I am just that skilled:
- Spicy chocolate cupcakes with coconut cream frosting (using Scharffen Berger cocoa powder and three adventure ingredients: whole dried chili peppers, buttermilk, coconut milk)
- Dark chocolate Meyer lemon meringue cupcakes (using cocoa powder again, and three adventure ingredients: Meyer lemon, sweetened condensed milk and Sumatran coffee)
- Meyer lemon ricotta cupcakes with bittersweet glaze (my personal favorite, using the 70% bittersweet baking chocolate, with Meyer lemon, ricotta and molasses)
And I learned:
- When cooking chipotle chili peppers in water over the stove, do not a) bend over the pot without eye protection to confirm that the peppers are in fact cooking and b) sip the cooking liquid to find out if it is, in fact, spicy. The answer to both questions is YES. OW.
- How to balance the ingredients necessary for a moist, fluffly cake recipe. By the way, custom cake recipes are not as difficult to produce as I had thought. The tricky part is the effin' frosting.
- Dogs can eat the better part of a batch of cupcakes in the space of about two minutes without suffering adverse after-effects.
- My dog likes chocolate chili cupcakes. A lot.
The last likely doesn't carry the "spirit of adventure" necessary to get it through the first round of judging, but I fell in love with the flavor of Meyer lemons as a result of developing the recipe, and it's the very first cake recipe I've ever developed successfully from scratch. So I'll add it to my own repertoire.
The chocolate chili recipe, on the other hand, is not only adventurous (I couldn't taste anything for half an hour after my escapades with the first batch) but hands-down the most popular. I've inflicted these recipes on my friends, my housemate's fellow park rangers and most of the ladies in my mom's Monday swim class and where park rangers and pool class students are concerned, the chocolate chili is the one that excites everyone. (Those people are nuts, I'm tellin' you.) I would not make these on a regular basis because I am just not overjoyed by the combination of chocolate and pureed chilis, but the coconut frosting was a win - extremely light and fluffy, fantastic for piping. And the cake texture is perfect, light and spongy, with a helluva kick afterward.
That and the lemon meringue recipe are I think my best two contenders - the lemon meringue is decorative and unusual, consisting of a very chocolatey cupcake made with strong Sumatran coffee, which enhances the depth of the cocoa, and almond flour, which gives the cake texture richness. It's topped off with what's essentially key lime pie filling made with Meyer lemons instead of key lime, and the leftover egg whites from that recipe are then whipped into a sweet meringue and piped on top. Tucked under a broiler for 20 seconds or so, the meringue acquires a lovely golden cast and sets; it's a perfect airy accent for the rich custard and dense cake.
...Or so I hope.
Now I wait two months for the results, and in the meantime I decided to enter an Eagle brand contest that ends next Sunday.
No, this is not an ongoing trend. See, I rather hope to have a job by the end of the month, and jobs have a nasty way of shutting down extracurricular activities, at least in my case.
Speaking of, time to hit up Monster again; later, peoples.
Anyway, I submitted three recipes to the contest, the last with one minute to go because I am just that skilled:
- Spicy chocolate cupcakes with coconut cream frosting (using Scharffen Berger cocoa powder and three adventure ingredients: whole dried chili peppers, buttermilk, coconut milk)
- Dark chocolate Meyer lemon meringue cupcakes (using cocoa powder again, and three adventure ingredients: Meyer lemon, sweetened condensed milk and Sumatran coffee)
- Meyer lemon ricotta cupcakes with bittersweet glaze (my personal favorite, using the 70% bittersweet baking chocolate, with Meyer lemon, ricotta and molasses)
And I learned:
- When cooking chipotle chili peppers in water over the stove, do not a) bend over the pot without eye protection to confirm that the peppers are in fact cooking and b) sip the cooking liquid to find out if it is, in fact, spicy. The answer to both questions is YES. OW.
- How to balance the ingredients necessary for a moist, fluffly cake recipe. By the way, custom cake recipes are not as difficult to produce as I had thought. The tricky part is the effin' frosting.
- Dogs can eat the better part of a batch of cupcakes in the space of about two minutes without suffering adverse after-effects.
- My dog likes chocolate chili cupcakes. A lot.
The last likely doesn't carry the "spirit of adventure" necessary to get it through the first round of judging, but I fell in love with the flavor of Meyer lemons as a result of developing the recipe, and it's the very first cake recipe I've ever developed successfully from scratch. So I'll add it to my own repertoire.
The chocolate chili recipe, on the other hand, is not only adventurous (I couldn't taste anything for half an hour after my escapades with the first batch) but hands-down the most popular. I've inflicted these recipes on my friends, my housemate's fellow park rangers and most of the ladies in my mom's Monday swim class and where park rangers and pool class students are concerned, the chocolate chili is the one that excites everyone. (Those people are nuts, I'm tellin' you.) I would not make these on a regular basis because I am just not overjoyed by the combination of chocolate and pureed chilis, but the coconut frosting was a win - extremely light and fluffy, fantastic for piping. And the cake texture is perfect, light and spongy, with a helluva kick afterward.
That and the lemon meringue recipe are I think my best two contenders - the lemon meringue is decorative and unusual, consisting of a very chocolatey cupcake made with strong Sumatran coffee, which enhances the depth of the cocoa, and almond flour, which gives the cake texture richness. It's topped off with what's essentially key lime pie filling made with Meyer lemons instead of key lime, and the leftover egg whites from that recipe are then whipped into a sweet meringue and piped on top. Tucked under a broiler for 20 seconds or so, the meringue acquires a lovely golden cast and sets; it's a perfect airy accent for the rich custard and dense cake.
...Or so I hope.
Now I wait two months for the results, and in the meantime I decided to enter an Eagle brand contest that ends next Sunday.
No, this is not an ongoing trend. See, I rather hope to have a job by the end of the month, and jobs have a nasty way of shutting down extracurricular activities, at least in my case.
Speaking of, time to hit up Monster again; later, peoples.