Matcha Backatcha, baby! Cake mix tweak #1

So, I realize that this picture is NOT of a cupcake. I do. It's just that the cupcake I want to write about... well, I don't have a picture of it. Because I ate it. "But surely you didn't make just one?" I can hear you asking. It's true, I didn't. I made about 18 of that particular flavor. But it's a long story.

Since I didn't have a picture of the cupcake, I thought about putting a different cupcake picture up. But what would the good of that be? Then I texted my husband, asking if the extra cupcake he took into work was still intact.  No luck. It had mysteriously disappeared. I thought about writing a post without a picture, but can you say bo-ring?

So, I defaulted to what I normally do when meeting someone new and conversation creeps to an awkward halt.  I say something like, "Oh, did you know we have a dog? I think he's the cutest thing in the world, want to see?" (I am NOT a dog person, believe it or not, but I'm sure that story will get told later.) So then I whip out my phone and scroll through the photos until I come to one that's suitably cute. Like this one. What you can't tell is that he's dragged his bed to be vertically leaning up against a cabinet, so he's laying on the bottom... which is actually the side. Confused? Suppose it's not that important really. Either way, he's curled up into a little 5-pound ball of cuteness.

Anyway, that's my dog. What was I talking about? Oh, that's right. Cupcakes. Duh.

I'll let you in on a little secret. I use cake mixes. A lot. Not always. There are some recipes that are sacred. And I never, ever, ever, ever use frosting from a can (anymore). And I never use a cake mix without some significant tweaking. Ever. But it never ceases to amaze me when I just whip something up on the fly and someone comes back to me and says, "Ohmygoshthatwasfantastic. How did you make it?"

And I have to sit there and blush and stammer and say something really inane like, "Oh, you know. I experiment a lot," because the last thing I want to say was that it came from a red and yellow box and I just messed around with it.

But then I got to thinking--I normally use a cake mix because I'm short on time or it's convenient or I don't have other ingredients on hand. And who isn't short on time or needs convenience or runs out of ingredients from time to time? Then someone who is a very talented cook told me that he doesn't bake because he dislikes all the measuring, and the one time he made cupcakes from a mix, they tasted like cardboard. And part of me doesn't want to give away these secrets because there goes my business. But I won't give away all my secrets, I suppose, and who really cares? A good friend of mine once told me that good recipes are meant to be shared. When someone shares your recipe, they're sharing you, and before you know it, you're touching more people than you could on your own. So here goes. Here's one of my "recipes." This is me, reaching out and touching you. In a totally not-creepy way.

I made some jasmine green tea cupcakes with matcha frosting. I can hear some of the "Whaaaaa?" going on in the background. After all that build-up, I give you something fru-fru like green tea cupcakes? Just give me time, folks. I just made a big decision to share any secrets at all, so just let me take my little baby-steps and I'll work up to something a little less fru-fru soon.

I realize that green tea, and especially matcha--the powdered green tea that turns smoothies minty-green and originates in Japan as a frothy, grassy tea--can be an acquired taste. So if you don't like green tea, that's ok. Go ahead and tune out. I'll catch you next time. But if you do like green tea, stick around.

I picked jasmine green tea because green tea itself has nearly no flavor that can translate into cake. Jasmine is aromatic enough that it should work. The problem is, I couldn't just brew a cup of tea and put it in. No flavor, right? So, I took about a cup of loose leaf jasmine tea, put it in a mug, and put about 10 oz of hot water--not boiling--over it, let it cool, and then put it in the fridge overnight. When I was ready the next day, I took a sip of it and had to spit it out because it was sooooo strong. Perfect.

So you know what I did? I took a yellow cake mix (not butter recipe. That would have overwhelmed the tea. You could use white cake, too) and replaced the water with the (strained) tea. I added a smidge of vanilla extract. I used extra-large eggs instead of large (for more body in the cake. You can just add an extra egg, if you want).

While they were baking, I made the frosting. I made my usual American buttercream frosting (not Swiss, French, or Italian, which basically means it was a lot easier to make)--which, unfortunately, I'm not ready to share just yet. But these same tweaks will work with whatever frosting you choose, even (uuuuugh, it pains me to say it) store-bought frosting in a jar. If you DO go the store-bought route, just try to pick a mild flavor, like "white" or vanilla.

Instead of adding my traditional splash of flavor via extract, I added some of the super-concentrated tea, and then I added quite of bit of matcha green tea powder. I wanted the tea to actually be tasted, not just hinted at. And then I frosted all the cupcakes with a large star tip, boxed them up, and went on to frost the other three flavors of cupcakes I had to deliver today.

This is why I have no picture. I was tired, it was late, I was still doing my "day job" on top of this, and I figured, "oh, who cares?" I didn't even eat one of the finished cupcakes until this morning, and then, as I ate it with my coffee (I know, great breakfast, huh?), I had one of those moments that I always hope for and never get as often as I want--I looked at my own cupcake and thought, "ohmygoshthatwasfantastic!" It was subtle and floral, yet somehow still full of flavor...and I could imagine myself at my favorite bakery inside the JR Train Station in Sannomiya, Kobe, Japan, ordering one of these and walking down the street with it. Or the little hole-in-the-wall in China Town in New York City where you have to climb up a narrow set of stairs and wonder if you're going to run into a Chinese mafia scene right out of a Jackie Chan movie before you get up there and realize that it's run by one of the most talented, young, unsung bakers you've never heard of. Maybe other people won't like this cupcake as much. But man, I sure did.

If any of you want to try something like this but don't know where to find the tea, most Asian markets or organic, health-food,  or co-op stores will sell both versions (maybe even your supermarket). You can get them online through any number of purveyors. Market Spice (from Pikes Place Market in Seattle) normally has an astonishing array of teas, but like I said, both of these tea varieties are crazy popular in Asia, so I've never had any trouble finding them at my local Asian market. Also, if you want to try this with a different tea, you can. Just be sure to put three or four teabags into the same amount of water (approx 10 oz) and, if possible, let steep overnight. Black tea cupcakes with lemon frosting? This has potential.

For my next cake mix tweak, I'll try to do something a little more universally appealing, ok?

Happy baking! Mac says, "Whatcha gonna make?"

Springtime in New York

Is Springtime in New York the name of a movie? If it's not, it ought to be. It seems kind of catchy. And as you can see, springtime in New York can also be quite beautiful.

We have had an incredibly mild winter. Snow didn't even stick--we didn't even put on snow tires. So why, oh why do I have such an intense case of cabin fever? It's only May, for cripe's sake! We moved from Alaska, where winter starts in October and ends in April. This mild New York winter that we had was more temperate than most Alaskan springs.

I have no answer. I don't know why. I just know that lately I've been going stir cra-a-a-azy. So we hopped a train to the city and went to visit the botanical gardens in Brooklyn (pictured here).

Later we went to Brooklyn Heights, had brunch, and afterwards I indulged and bought a cupcake from a cute little bakery that was doing some booming business. I decided that I'd be a little bit adventurous and do the earl grey cupcake. I like tea quite a bit, in all its forms. After living in Japan, I became quite fond of matcha (powdered green tea) in a variety of uses, including pastries. Alas, the cupcake was a wee bit of a disappointment. It would have been very delicious--if I weren't expecting it to taste even a smudge like tea. Lemon Essence would have been a better name. And to my disappointment, they did no tweaking to the buttercream frosting--which is a perfect vehicle to purvey flavor! None the less, it was moist and sweet, which is what I was after. And for a Lemon Essence cake it was downright tasty. It seemed to be just a case of poor naming.

This is precisely why I never name something until I can taste the final result. I've had too many ideas or recipes miss the mark and go south, but if I name it something else entirely, people's expectations are changed! Instead of chewy pecan whiskey cookies (which spread all out on the cookie sheet in an alarming and toffee-like sprawl), call them whiskey pecan brittle bites, and voila! Expectations are reset and everyone is happy.

I don't really know why I bring this up now. It has no relation to anything, really. It's just that I promised that I would write more blogs, and this is what spewed from my fingertips when I sat down to type.

Earlier this year, when we were on the cusp of spring in New York, I had to fly home to the Pacific Northwest to deal with some sad family business. I took over my mom's kitchen for the day and baked 48 spring cupcakes (red velvet and almond creme) as a thank you to a staff of helpers who took care of someone very, very dear to me for a couple years. I decided that the cupcakes should be a celebration, not sad, so I made tricolor fondant blossoms to top each of them. And then, since I was away from home and didn't have any of my own packaging on hand, I stopped by the bakery of a local grocery store to ask them if they would mind selling me some of the plastic containers that they put cupcakes in. I figured if I didn't ask, I wouldn't know. And it turns out they did sell me some, and they cost me way less than getting boxes at Michael's or other craft stores. Take that, Michael's! My visits to you have been frustrating and inefficient of late, so I have no remorse for telling people to go to their grocery store's bakery, instead! Ha!

Anyway, I suppose the lesson for the day is this: wait for the final results to name your creation--shaping expectations increases your chances of success! Oh, and if you need some cupcake containers, a cooperative grocery bakery can usually get them to you cheaper than Michael's.

Holy Hannah

Holy Hannah is a term that I picked up from my oldest sister. I have no idea if she still uses the term at all, but as anyone who knows me well can attest, I still use it daily. Usually I use it to express surprise, or incredulity, or shock. For instance, I used it when I opened up my blog and realized the last time I had posted a new piece was in September 2011. Holy Hannah. Sorry, folks. Some of my most loyal "fans" have been bugging me to post new stuff. I nod and smile and flutter my hand like, "yeah, yeah, yeah," but then I never do anything about it.

Have I stopped baking? Certainly not. Have I stopped living? Most assuredly, no. Do I still enjoy writing? Of course! The issue lies in a certain amount of inherent laziness, and the fact that I work in front of a computer all day--so getting motivation to sit at it again, at night, is really not on the top-ten list of things likely to happen on a regular basis. And then it got to be so long between posts that I just figured that no one would notice anyway. If I put new stuff up, no one would ever see it, and the blog would just sit here collecting little electronic cobwebs and pixel spiders and remain very much the same--except here I would be, spilling my culinary guts into the vastness of cyberspace, with no hope of response.

BUT... then a friend whose input I value very much basically gave me a metaphorical slap upside the head and told me to get that giant stick out of my you-know-what. So Friend--you know who you are--this is for you.

My dear, devoted, long-suffering fans (of whom I am not sure there are any but that one), I promise to be better. I do. I have a backlog of photos now, so I'll try to ration them out. And if you think my blog is worth reading, you really ought to check out my sister's. It's all professional looking and getting recognition, and like, total strangers read it and everything. In short, it's everything mine is not. Go ahead. give it a go. It's at www.wherethecookiesare.com. And once you've seen it, you're not allowed to come back and judge this one in relation to hers. You're just not.

As you know (if you've been sticking with me through my silent period), I often bake and send things in with Sean. He's given away a ton of my cards, and they asked me to bake a bunch of cupcakes for a fundraising bake sale. When they told me the quantities they wanted, I encouraged them to get more, because I didn't think it would be enough. They declined, saying, "maybe next time." Then I offered $50 of my services as a raffle prize, but they declined--"maybe next time." Then it turns out that they completely ran out of the red velvet cupcakes by 9:30 am, and the rest of them were gone by noon.  I never really have any interaction with any of them, so I didn't say "I told you so." Besides, you don't say that sort of thing to your clients.

And then, months later, orders started coming in. I'm doing a wedding cake in June (a wedding cake? really? me? Holy Hannah!). I did these cupcakes for a kindergarten spring party:

Aren't they cute? Didn't they come out well?

And then the same lady wanted a cake for her anniversary, iced in white with powdery-blue scroll work. Yeah. Not so great. It had structural issues and some poochy frosting (yes, poochy). I was NOT a fan.  I REALLY didn't like it. I told the lady that I wasn't happy with it and I'd refund her money, but I haven't heard from her. I sent a picture of it via text to some friends, and of course they all said it was fabulous, but it's because they were not there. They couldn't see the uneven corners and the pooched line in the middle. Yes, I have since analyzed it and determined how to avoid this in the future. However, I have decided that I should stay away from cakes and stick to cupcakes. Obviously, the key to success is sticking to your strengths, right? (Sorry, wedding cake person. I promise your wedding cake will be ridiculously fabulous, because I will bake it 8 times until it's perfect. And it helps that you want 75% of the layers to be fake.) So, long story short, who knows if you'll see any cakes ever pop up on this blog. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'll be gathering thoughts for new posts. I'll try to be better. Maybe once a week? Holy Hannah.

Best. Cupcake. Ever.

Those are the words spoken to Sean regarding my newest creation...(Since I send most of them to his office, I don't get most of the accolades. I have to try to live vicariously.) He told me feedback for these cupcakes was off the charts. That people who never really speak to him were stopping by his office to tell him how great they were. That they were gone in record time. What are these cupcakes of awesomeness? I haven't come up with a name for them yet (I like BopCakes in honor of my dad--long story on the nickname), but here's a description:

Start with a slightly spicy hint-of-maple cake (made with rum, freshly-grated nutmeg, a touch of black pepper, and maple), a light maple buttercream (also with fresh nutmeg), and topped with a generous serving of caramelized maple and black pepper bacon. Yup. That's right. Bacon. Incredible. Ab-so-lutely incredible. Breakfast in a delectable paper liner.

And now I'm going to step on my soap box.  I've heard for a long time that "real" cooks use freshly ground nutmeg each time they cook.  They grate the little brown "nut" over a zester each time. "Psh..." I thought. "Really. Whatever. I bet you can't tell the difference."

Well, the last time we were in Seattle, I stopped by Market Spice at Pike Place Market and picked up about 15 little nuts. They last forever, basically, if kept in a good container. "What the heck," I thought. "Food Network has never really steered me wrong."

Oh. My. Gosh. HUGE difference. Gigantic. It's like they're not even the same spice as the pre-ground stuff you pick up in a plastic jar. I had no idea. I've been royally schooled. So if any of you out there care enough to buy some whole nutmeg at a spice shop or online, and a lemon zester or something similar for about $6, prepare to be amazed. If not, well... I won't tell.

But I'm still missing a name for these cupcakes of bacony awesomeness.  Any thoughts?

Stargazing Lilies...

I got another order this week, and it was a big one. 48 red velvet cupcakes, 48 creamsicle cupcakes, 48 mini cupcakes of a flavor I'd determine, and a mini cake for the birthday girl at her surprise 30th birthday party.

In talking to her boyfriend (the one who is financing the cupcakes), he said that she is spunky, fun, loved tie-dye, and her favorite flower is the Stargazer Lily.

So I made red velvet cupcakes and put two or three little red fondant blossoms with pearl centers on the top of each. Not really spunky, but perhaps fun. I made "tie-dye" fondant stars to put on top of the creamscicle. I chose chocolate cupcakes with Bailey's coffee frosting, and made chocolate swirls and chocolate zigzags.  And for the mini cake, I made an off-center stacked red velvet (her favorite) filled with cream cheese, iced in buttercream, and topped with three handmade, handpainted Stargazer Lilies crafted from gumpaste.  The picture above doesn't show the beading I piped around the bottom of the cake once it was moved to the platter, but boy howdy... am I proud of that cake!  If she wants to eat the lilies, she could--though gumpaste tastes nasty. But they'll also stay in that form for a really, really long time, so if she wanted to keep them, she could do that, too!

The party is tonight, so we'll see how the feedback goes. Sometimes I'm surprised that I'm so willing to give away something that I work so hard on. But isn't that why I do this in the first place? This is my art... you don't hang it on walls, but I can be sure that for the next few days, people will be talking about this cake!

The place you are meant to be...(an artsy-fartsy, non-cupcake post)

Sometimes at night, I find myself standing in the darkness, staring out at the moon. Somehow, standing there alone, it’s comforting to know that no matter where I go in this world, the same moon is hanging above those I love. I catch myself wondering nonsensically if anyone else is staring at the moon at that moment, thinking about me… then I generally shake myself out of it and crawl into bed.

It’s so difficult for me to fathom how I came to this point, how I came to this place.  Nothing in my life is as I would have imagined it to be ten years ago, five years ago, three. I am not who I imagined I would be.

There is a section of path near our building where young oaks grow tall along the sides of the trail, forming a ceiling of leafy gothic arches and white sky. For that stretch of path, separated from anything to yank myself back into the present, it’s possible for me to imagine that I’m somewhere else…some time else. I used to wish for that. I used to wish to be in another time. I felt convinced I was meant to be in another era, another time in history. I grew out of it, I suppose. It was nothing more than the wistful dreams of an angsty teenager, convinced that no one in the world could possibly feel the same way. I’m sure at some point it’s a thought that crosses most everyone’s mind.

Our town is also a place that’s stuck, uncomfortable with its place in time. We all live in various remnants of its heyday. In the enormous brick cotton mill that made it a “company town,” in the rows and rows of converted boarding houses, in the mid-20^th century rowhouses of brick and shingle. The people, too, seem caught out of time. With no back porches, people gather on the stoops to escape the oppressing summer heat of their airless houses. Shirtless men sit drinking their beer for dinner, while women in shorts and tank tops smoke on the steps, keeping watchful eyes on the kids riding bikes, running up the sidewalk barefoot, drawing in chalk. A beat up sedan drives by, windows down, base thumping and vibrating everything within a 100-foot radius. An anachronism.

I can hear the cicadas now on my evening walks. I didn’t expect to find cicadas here, and the joy that I felt when I first heard their screeching calls took me by surprise. It is not a sound I had ever expected to miss. Like so much else, it reminds me of a different time.

Growing up, I was certain that I was going to be a country girl all my life. Keep me out of the cities, they’re too crowded. Now it seems that too has changed. While I’m not unhappy here, I find that I love Manhattan. I love the bustle, the subways, the characters, the rudeness, the kindness, the cafes and coffee shops and bakeries. We talk about a future there, but what use is planning anymore? And yet, when I go home, back to the mountains and the evergreens and the rivers, I find it hard to pull myself away. I love the calmness, the quietness, the predictability. Like so much else that I find I am no longer sure of, I no longer know where I belong.

I am sure that if I tried hard enough I could find a quote from someone long dead and purportedly much wiser than myself that would say something like, “The place that you are meant to be is the place where you are now.”

For now I know I will find no answers. For now, I will have to content myself with being right where I am, right when I am.

Red Velvet and Blue Suede

The weekend after I made the cupcakes of mass meltage, I was catering a dessert open house for the same woman. I met with her and she gave me a budget, and told me that she wanted traditional flavors, and she really wanted my red velvet cake and a coconut cake with lemon filling. Her daughter really wanted strawberry cupcakes, and her son wanted chocolate. her husband, apparently, didn't get a say. So of course I ended up making all of the above, along with lemon cupcakes. I also made sugar cookies and the crazy, ridiculous, super rich, over-the-top brownies that she liked last time.

The main conclusion that I came to after two whole days of baking was that if I do this for any sort of living, I'm really going to need another mixer. Mixing batter and frosting for strawberry cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, lemon cupcakes, red velvet cake, coconut cake, and brownies means that I washed that sucker 11 times. 11 times in a day! And that's not counting all the other bowls and prep dishes I had to reuse time and again. I really hate dishes.

After the monster week of fondant disaster, I didn't have the gumption to do anything stellar with the decorations--plus, it wasn't in her budget. I made blue, yellow, and purple molded chocolate flowers for the strawberry cupcakes, but I just relied on pastel metallic sprinkles for the chocolate cupcakes, and yellow and orange decorating sugar on the lemon cupcakes. I covered the coconut cake in--what else?--coconut, and I shaved some mild German chocolate to rim the red velvet cake.

I have to admit, when I went to the open house I had moments when I felt like a rock star. I had people seek me out and ask if I had made "my" red velvet cake because they had heard all about it and wanted some... but yet again, over and over, people said, "oh, YOU made those brownies? Those are crazy fantastic!" The irony of this is that I don't even enjoy eating brownies. They are usually last on my long, long list of crave-able sweets.  Theoretically I earned some future specialty business from the event, but none of it has hit yet.

Around the Fourth of July, I decided I wanted to make a stacked cake. I made a few mistakes, though, and the cake wasn't stiff enough for stacking.  I ended up scrapping a whole cake (poor Sean...he had to help me eat the leftovers). My original plan was to make red velvet and "blue suede" and cover it in red cream cheese frosting with white stripes, but alas... it was not meant to be. In the end, I just made a blue suede sheet cake with red cream cheese frosting, white filling, and white fondant stars.  Sean said that he actually had a few people come up to him and ask permission to cut the cake because they thought it looked too nice to cut into. I'm not sure what the commentary was on the name of the cake (I thought it was pretty witty), but apparently they thought it was delicious.

Sean's little brother Anthony came out to visit us over the Fourth of July weekend, and his birthday is coming up this month. I told him I would make him any sort of cake he wanted (and though Sean was in the background trying to pressure him into asking for red velvet), he chose chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.  And.... of course I biffed the cake. I inadvertently turned the oven off when I was setting the timer, so by the time I got it reset and the oven back up to temperature, the cake that resulted turned out dry, dry, dry.  And I also learned another hard lesson--"natural" peanut butter, which has zero hydrogenated ingredients, makes HORRIBLE peanut butter frosting. It's granular and separates and looks completely unappetizing (we're talking like something you'd find in a baby diaper unappetizing) and is just generally no good.  I stood there, looking at the mixing bowl in perplexity, wondering how in the HECK I was going to fix this, when brilliance struck. It wasn't working because nothing was hydrogenated, right? Or even partially hydrogenated? So obviously, I needed to add hydrogenation. Fantastic! Half a cup of shortening later, and it was a creamy dream.  Of course, I couldn't tell that the cake was a chocolate Sahara until we cut into it, at which point I lamented the death of a good cake. But Anthony, bless his soul, said, "Jill, I didn't even notice. I'm not a cake expert or anything, so it's fine!" Sean wisely said nothing at all, and just poured some milk on his cake. Me? I skipped the milk and went straight to the Baileys. Anything can be fixed with alcohol.

I don't think Sean ever got over his red velvet cake craving, so he told Anthony to ask me to make another cake, because apparently I can't say no to Anthony (and as though I would ever say no to Sean???). This whole red velvet kick of his has taken me by surprise. I mean, I'll admit that it's a dang tasty cake. But his hands-down favorite has always been spice.

"Is this your new favorite, or something? I would figure you would ask for spice," I said.

"Well, can't you kind of mix them both?" he asked?

"Hm.....," I replied.

So I did. I made some sort of super delicious red velvet spice hybrid. It was moist, delicious, and perfect with its sloppy cream cheese frosting. Sean took a bite, and said, "Ok, you've redeemed yourself." Anthony, mindful of my feelings, told me that it was delicious and very moist, but "the chocolate cake was good, too."

After work on Monday, Sean came home and asked if I was in a baking mood. Apparently, he needed to bring treats to his meeting with the State, and he told his team he would check with me. I really didn't feel like baking, but like I hinted earlier.... I can't say no to Sean. So out of my entire repertoire of cake, what does he ask for? The red velvet spice hybrid again.  I made 48 minis, some of which didn't make the cut because of symmetrical problems, and at least three of which Sean and I ate. But after I was done frosting them, I only had about 23. 23?? Where did the rest of them go? I just shrugged it off as really bad math (if I had eaten that many calories, so I didn't want to think about it) and cleaned up.  After all, Sean really only needed about 16. Well, when I was going to bed, I noticed a whole cooling rack of mini cakes that I had set aside and missed. After I got over my relief that I didn't unconsciously inhale 20 mini cupcakes, I froze them. I really didn't want to frost more at midnight.  When Sean came home that night with the empty cupcake carrier, I asked him if the cupcakes went over well. He nodded his head and kind of rolled his eyes in a little bit of exasperation and told me that he nearly had a mutiny on his hands when one of the teams thought they wouldn't be able to get any.  Next time I'll be sure to send the full 40.  And something tells me that I should start charging Sean. He would have just spent the money at Dunkin' Donuts anyway, right?

And you know what I did every single stinkin' time before I turned on the oven?  I opened it up and checked it out first. Even though I knew... I knew there was nothing in it. Yes, yes.... I can be taught.