What it takes for a Wedding Cake

My, oh my, oh my. What I didn't know about what it takes for a wedding cake.  THIS is what it takes for a wedding cake:

1 day off + Saturday morning
1 patient husband
1 hell of a messy kitchen
8 lbs of butter
14 lbs of powdered sugar
4 lbs of shortening
2 lbs of raspberry preserves
1 qt heavy cream
2 lbs bittersweet chocolate
4 oz egg whites
2 oz food coloring
80 eggs
~2 cups (yes, cups) vanilla extract
~20 combined pounds of flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and all the other stuff that goes into a cake.
~2 years' worth of stress

And, folks, yes, two of the layers in the above picture are fake--styrofoam--at the bride's request. And thank God for that. The list above doesn't mention the ribbon, or the zip top bags, or the fake flowers, or the floral tape, or the cardboard rounds, or the cake drum, or the boxes for the sheet cakes I made for the actual serving, or the special-order baking pans, or the parchment paper, or the materials to make your own damask stencil... but you get the point.

This was my first wedding cake. Looking at these pictures, I can see little imperfections that I couldn't see while I was there in person. And neither could my husband. And we made sure to look at it from all angles, from near and far before we left. In fact, as we were pulling out of the parking lot to leave, I looked at these photos and made my husband turn around so I could go back in and try to fix them.... and then I got back inside, face-to-face with the cake, and could no longer see them.

I haven't heard from the bride, so I assume she's happy. Or just had much better things to do than call the amateur cake maker and bawl her out. Yeah. I'm gonna assume she's happy.

To be fair, I would not have used nearly as much butter, shortening, vanilla, and powdered sugar if I hadn't botched four batches of frosting--four!!--and had to scrape it off. Weather was not my friend (hot and humid), so it took me too long to realize that I needed to modify my traditional buttercream recipe. This resulted in a whole wasted sheet cake which is currently lurking in our fridge, mocking both my husband and I, who have psychological problems with the waste associated with just tossing it in the garbage. To top it off, it was the raspberry-filled one. I really don't like fruit-based fillings. Why couldn't it have been the chocolate ganache one I messed up? Wait, scratch that. This probably works in my favor. I'm less likely to chow down on the raspberry-filled one. My husband complained that it doesn't have a high enough cake-to-frosting ratio (all it got was a crumb coat of frosting before I realized that it just was not going to work), so then I just handed him the massive bowl of scraped-off frosting, and he created his own perfect cake-to-frosting ratio.

And then there was the problem of matching the color of the royal icing for damask print on the double layer... it was supposed to match the ribbon that the bride supplied. I used one whole bottle of burgundy gel food coloring, and it turned out far too grape-y. So then I called my mom, the artist, and asked her how to make maroon. Half an hour later, after endless mixing of red, blue, black, and a hint of yellow, I had something that wasn't quite a match, but it had to be close enough for government work--the frosting had reached a saturation point and the color was no longer changing. I figured it was ok anyway, because it needed to darken a couple shades to match the ribbon, and royal icing tends to darken as it dries.

So, I swallowed my nerves and piped the damask print, and then put it in the fridge. And to my horror, it darkened not just one or two shades as it dried, but more like five or six. It was no longer close to the brilliant burgundy of the ribbon. My heart was in my throat in full-fledged panic mode, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had only two hours before I had to leave for the wedding, and there was too much else to get done. I couldn't scrape it off, re-ice the cake, chill it, mix new icing, and re-pipe it in time. I just figured I could offer the bride a discount if she was angry.

But then, oh, then... in a crazy twist of fate, the buttercream frosting stained the burgundy ribbon once it was on the cake. I had expected some mild staining of the ribbon--it wasn't waxed, and a frosting that is entirely composed of fat and sugar tends to result in a staining grease. At first I panicked, and then I realized that the ribbon was now stained the exact same shade as the damask. It was like it was on purpose! As though I had planned it! The ribbon on one of the fake layers actually wasn't staining because the frosting had crusted too much, so I literally removed the offending ribbon and smeared my emergency repair frosting on it until it was uniformly stained, and then put it back on. Fortune favors the inventive, my friends.

I'm sure with practice, wedding cakes would be easier. I'm sure with a better-equipped kitchen with a fridge that can accommodate all the layers, things would be better. But I think I'm going to stay away from wedding cakes. I don't want the responsibility of so many hopes and dreams pinned to my shoulders. Yeah, so no more wedding cakes for me.

Oh, shoot.  Wait a minute... didn't I already offer one to my other friends for a wedding gift? Crap.


Maybe they'll be happy with cupcakes...

Mini Eclairs, or "what to do with all that leftover custard filling from Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes."

I am going to be sooooo sick now.

Why?

Because I've just demonstrated an epic lack of self control by stuffing my face with mini eclairs.

Yes, yes, I know. Merely one post ago I was bemoaning the fact that I really don't like custard-filled anything. But I also said that I was growing into it. And these eclairs are like a gateway custard...they make all the hard-core custard easier to take.

Regardless of how much I may or may not be into custard, eclairs really aren't something that I would gravitate toward making anymore. There was that brief stint in high school when I made them often and earned a name for myself, but I haven't made them--haven't even thought of them--for years.

But after making those delectable BCP cupcakes in the previous post, I found myself faced with an inordinate amount of leftover vanilla custard. It is not in my DNA to waste sugar-laden goodness. So I knew I had to do something.

The good thing about eclairs is that when you're dealing with custard that's already been made, it's really pretty easy. But when making eclairs with leftover filling, it is wise to check the container of custard in the fridge to ensure that your husband hasn't been sneaking bites of it and whittling it away, resulting in the fact that you don't have as much custard as you thought you did and now you have a billion mini eclairs that don't have anything for the filler, and if you would have known that the custard would be just delicious on its own and people would eat it like pudding and that it wouldn't go to waste (but certainly to waist) if you didn't do anything else, but you had already started this whole shindig because you thought you had more than you did and you didn't want to waste anything, so now you have to come up with another filling to stuff all these billion empty little balls of pastry, and this is really just becoming quite frustrating and confusing, so you're going to stuff that offensive little smart-aleck eclair in your mouth to keep it from mocking you.... but that's a WHOLE different story.

Anyway, my original point was going to be something like, "Have leftover custard? Make mini eclairs!" So I'm going to stick with that.

Pastry
1 cup water
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
3 eggs, plus 1 extra, if needed

Egg Wash
1 egg
1-1/2 teaspoons water

Chocolate Glaze
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 ounces chopped semi-sweet chocolate
1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Preheat oven to 425 degrees (if you have a convection oven, you can set it lower). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat. In a medium saucepan, bring water, butter, salt, and sugar to a rolling boil on medium-high heat. Once it boils, immediately take the pan off the heat and add all the flour at once, stirring with a wooden spoon until fully incorporated, or about 30-60 seconds. Return to the heat and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Transfer the batter to a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or use a hand mixer with a large bowl. Mix at medium speed. With the mixer running, add eggs one egg at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. After the third egg, check to see if the dough is smooth and glossy and that the eggs are fully incorporated. When you lift the beaters or paddle out of the bowl, the batter should be thick but fall slowly and steadily from the beaters. If it is still clinging to the beaters, add the remaining egg and mix until incorporated.

You can use a pastry bag to pipe the eclairs, but I just used a plastic zip-top sandwich bag and snipped off a corner. Regardless of which you choose to do, pipe fat lengths of dough about 2 inches long onto the baking sheet, at least an inch apart.

Whisk the egg and water together for the egg wash and brush the surface of each eclair. If any of the eclairs have piping peaks or other deformities, use your fingers to smooth them out. Bake for 15 minutes at 425, then reduce heat to 375 and bake until the eclairs are puffed up and light golden brown, or approximately 25 minutes. Try not to open the oven door when baking. Let cool on the baking sheet.

Use pastry tip to poke a hole in one end of each eclair, or use your finger (I used my pinky to open the whole eclair). Using a pastry bag or a zip-top bag fitted with a medium plain tip (snip a corner off the bag, put the tip on the inside, and tape the bag around the tip--or, if worst comes to worst, just snip a corner off the bag), pipe the custard into the eclair gently, filling it but not stuffing it.

For the glaze, put the chocolate in a heat-safe bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the heavy cream and corn syrup over medium heat just until boiling. Pour the cream over the chocolate in the heat-safe bowl and whisk until it's completely melted and smooth. Let stand for approximately 5 minutes to thicken and cool slightly, and then dip the top of each eclair into the chocolate. Chill the eclairs uncovered in the refrigerator for at least one hour, or until the glaze is set. Serve chilled.

And if you just happen to find yourself in the same situation as me and you have half a million eclairs with no filling, but a bunch of leftover glaze and some whipping cream in the fridge, consider making a whipped chocolate cream filling by whipping 1/2 cup of whipping cream with a mixer until stiff, and then folding in some of the glaze to taste. Pipe into the eclairs (though I suppose now they're cream puffs, no?) just as you would with the custard.

Filling
For those of you who don't have any leftover custard, consider this custard from my BCP post, or, for a super-easy alternative, use instant vanilla pudding made to the "pie filling" directions. You can even add half a cup of cream cheese (at room temperature, with a mixer) to thicken it and make it less like pudding.

Recipe for pastry adapted just slightly from 'Butter Sugar Flour Eggs" by Gale Gand, Rick Tramonto, Julia Moskin; Clarkson N. Potter Publishers, 1999. Recipe for glaze slightly adapted from The Best of America's Test Kitchen Cookbook 2012.

Oh my, Boston Cream Pie!

Prepare yourselves for a shocker, folks. I have never had Boston Cream Pie. Never. The closest that I've ever come was some Boston Cream Pie (BCP)-flavored yogurt by Yoplait or someone when I was in high school. Not being much a fan of yogurt anyway, it didn't make enough of an impression to make me want the real thing.

To top that off, I've never been much a fan of custard or pastry cream-filled anything--which is sort of ironic, because I kind of established a name for myself with chocolate eclairs in high school. But I have found that over the past few years, I'm kind of growing into it. Plus, the hubby really likes custard-style stuff, so I suppose I can expand my repertoire.

Lots of what I have posted so far has been fancy stuff. I would say that 90% of my business, however, is not fancy stuff. It's a couple dozen strawberry cupcakes with sprinkles here, it's four dozen chocolate cupcakes with coffee frosting (and no sprinkles there), and the occasional fancy order thrown into the mix. And generally, if someone asks me if I can do something, I never say "no."

So when a woman who has ordered four or five things from me in two or three months asked if I could do BCP cupcakes for her daughter's birthday, of course I said yes. And then I combed the internet and my cookbooks to find a suitable starting point.

I found lots of semi-homemade recipes that started with yellow cake mix and vanilla pudding. But, having never had BCP, I didn't know if that would be "suitable," or if it would immediately expose me as a total fake. We all know that I have nothing against cake mixes, when used appropriately. But I also have equal affinity for absolutely-from-scratch recipes... so, in order not to label myself as a BCP Poseur, I went for the scratch method. The resulting cake is dense and moist, and the pastry cream is thick and custardy, and not very sweet. The glaze is rich, with a hint of sweetness. Put it all together, and it's very, very rich.

Consider yourself warned, folks. Unlike my other postings, this is very much an intermediate-level recipe. If it intrigues you and intimidates you at the same time, I'd highly recommend using the cake and glaze, but choosing a simpler (perhaps vanilla pudding-based) custard as a filler. Also realize that unless you start in the morning for an evening cake, this is NOT a same-day cake.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes
makes approx. 20-24 cupcakes

Pastry cream
(this is adapted from an actual BCP cake recipe, so you will have a LOT of pastry cream left over for other delightful uses, or you can double the cake recipe and still have enough cream)
2 cups half-and-half
6 large egg yolks (saving these egg whites is great for meringue)
1/2 cup (3.5 oz) sugar
Pinch salt
1/4 cup (1.25 oz) all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into four pieces and chilled
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Heat half and half in medium-sized saucepan over medium heat until just simmering. Meanwhile, whisk yolks, sugar, and salt together until smooth. Add flour to yolk mixture and whisk until incorporated. Remove half and half from the heat. Whisking the egg mixture constantly, slowly add 1/2 cup of the hot half and half mixture to the eggs to temper. Once incorporated, add all of the egg mixture into the pan with the half and half, whisking constantly. Return the pan to medium heat and cook, whisking constantly, until slightly thickened, or about 1 minute. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue to simmer, whisking constantly, for 8 minutes. Note: this is when you go find your husband/child/friend and ask them for their help in the kitchen. Then you can walk away and come back 8 minutes later. Increase heat back to medium and cook, and bring your whisking speed up until you feel like you're going to whisk your little arms off, whisk-whisk-whisking away for 1 to 2 minutes, until bubbles burst on the surface. Remove from heat and whisk in butter and vanilla until incorporated. Strain the cream through a fine mesh strainer set over medium bowl. (If you don't have a fine mesh strainer, you may be able to use cheese cloth, or even skip this step--though you might have some clumps.) Press lightly greased parchment paper directly on the surface of the cream and refrigerate until set--at least two hours, but as many as 24.

Cake
1-1/2 cups (7.5 oz) all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup whole milk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1-1/2 cups (10.5 oz) sugar

Make sure oven rack is in the middle position, and preheat oven to 325 degrees (if you have convection, you can set it lower). Line your muffin pan with baking cups. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in bowl. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the eggs and sugar together at high speed until light and airy, about 5 minutes.  While it's whipping, combine milk and butter in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter is melted. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and cover to keep warm (if your eggs aren't ready yet). When the eggs are light and fluffy, slow the whisk down to the lowest, slowest speed and slowly add hot milk mixture. Slowly and consistently add flour mixture to liquid mixture, mixing just until combined. Give the batter a few turns with a spatula to make sure everything is incorporated. Batter will be somewhat frothy and liquidy, a lot like pancake batter. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 to 3/4 full (I recommend using a 1/3 C measuring cup to scoop batter into liners). Bake 20-24 minutes or until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, turning pans once during cooking (My oven is convection, and thus was set lower. I recommend keeping a close eye on your cakes. They may not need as much time, or, since all ovens vary, they may need more).

When cupcakes are 100% cooled, use a small serrated knife to core out a section of cupcake in the middle. Do whatever you want with the scraps (I recommend drizzling them with glaze in a bowl and giving them as a loving gift to your husband). Fill a plastic zip-top bag with the custard and snip off a corner. Pipe the cream into the cupcake until level with the top. Use an offset spatula or spoon to smooth cream level with top of cake. Set aside (refrigerate, if possible) while preparing the glaze.

Glaze
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine (I highly recommend a food processor for this step)


Bring cream and corn syrup to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Whisk gently until smooth, or approximately 30 seconds. Let stand, whisking occasionally, until slightly thickened, or about 5 minutes. Spoon the glaze into the middle of each cupcake, and let spread slightly. Use offset spatula or spoon to bring it to the edge. Spoon more glaze to cover any bumps, crumbs, or unevenness.

If you want the pretty white stripes, melt 2/3 cup white chocolate chips, 2 teaspoons corn syrup, and 2 tablespoons heavy cream in a microwave-safe bowl in 15-second increments. Stir thoroughly with a fork until smooth. Using the same fork, scoop glaze out of bowl and over cupcakes placed on wax paper, using long, confident movements--beginning and ending off the cupcakes to avoid big splotches of white.

Chill for at least two hours before eating.

And hey, folks, if I find a good "fake" BCP recipe, maybe I'll share it later!

Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from The Best of America's Test Kitchen Cookbook, 2012.

Holy Grade School Graduation, Batman!

So, it's happened again. Another school year has passed. The wonders of technology allowed me to watch my oldest nephew's 8th grade graduation live via streaming on my iPhone. School buses are cruising by the house earlier than usual because of end-of-year early release days. And my friend again engaged my services to make cupcakes for her twins' class at school, each one reflecting a topic they'd discussed during the year.

She asked me to do this last year, when I was just cutting my teeth on the use of fondant. Though they came out well, the whole experience was basically a tragic saga of stupid mistakes. For those of you who missed it originally, you can read all about it here.

This year went so much easier. Like, you can't even compare the two experiences. I put a sign on the oven so that I would be forced to check it every time and not bake the decorations I was storing in there. My skills are a lot higher now. It was just so much easier to work with the fondant. No stress. No fuss. Hardly even a mess.

And for those that are curious, I used homemade marshmallow fondant and worked with it over the course of about three days to make these decorations. I made one batch of plain white fondant and then colored it as necessary. If you're looking for a good marshmallow fondant recipe to try for yourself, here's a good one. Some marshmallow fondant recipes out there suggest that you use shortening from the get-go when you knead it. After my own trial and error, I don't recommend that. However, if you're working with the fondant over the course of a day or even over a few days, it can get stiff and less pliable, regardless of how much plastic wrap you've smothered it in or how many zip locks you put around it. So what I do recommend is that if you get that stiffness, just grease your hands up with some shortening or even no-stick spray and work it in. It will get more supple.

If you're new to working with marshmallow fondant and need tips on coloring it or otherwise using it, drop me a comment and I'll help however I can.

Anyhoo, this brings me away from the purpose of the post. I had time to actually take quasi-decent photos of the cupcakes this time, so I figured I'd post all 15 of them for your viewing pleasure. Notice how none of the fondant is melted?

The cupcake is chocolate, with cream cheese frosting. Some of the designs were up for interpretation, some were specifically requested.

Apple on bale of straw for orchard visit.

Metro Card to commemorate NYC trip.

Wagon wheel for pioneer studies.

Brain for human anatomy.

Big Mouth Bass for Hudson River Study class trip. Should have painted the inside of his mouth pink so that it would make more of an impact.

Newton's Second Law of Motion: Force equals mass times acceleration.

The U.S. Constitution for American Studies.

The bell from Polar Express.

Salamanders from a field trip to a local pond.

Gold nugget and pick axe for Gold Rush Day.

Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars for Planetarium Trip (obviously not to scale, all you sciencey-folk out there, but did you see how I managed to get the "eye"--the atmospheric storm on Jupiter?)

Sneaker for Holes book.

Rat and cockroach as friends for Gregor the Overlander book.

Easter Island head for "Dum Dum Gum Gum" in Night at the Museum.

Beagle for Shiloh book.

Rod of Asclepius and kitty with bandage for trip to veterinary hospital. For those of you who thought the caduceus was the medical symbol (like me), you're wrong. Wikipedia told me so.

iVamanos! Cake Mix Tweak #2

Hola! Tomorrow morning, my husband and I are taking off for the sunny shores of Mexico--which means, of course, that I won't be posting for a week or so.

However, in honor of the destination, I'm posting Cake Mix Tweak #2--Chocolate Chipotle Cinnamon Cupcakes, aka Sassy 3C Cupcakes, or Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes. 


These cupcakes are sassy, and because I loathe it when people/bakeries/restaurants say that something is spicy when it's really not, this tweak is actually spicy. If you can't take the heat, either don't make the cupcakes or tone it down. You can't take spice away, but you can add it slowly until you get to your desired level of sassy heat. When it comes to flavor, I don't go halfway.

Chipotle, pronounced chee-poht-lay (another pet peeve is people who call it cheepohltay), is a smoked, dried jalapeño pepper. Its spice is somewhat milder than other chilis, but not by much. When it's paired with cinnamon, the resulting impact is almost a spicy mint. If you don't want the quasi-mintiness, leave out the cinnamon. And if you can't handle the spice of the chipotle but want the smokiness, go for smoked paprika.

Start with a chocolate cake mix. The darker the chocolate mix, the better. Replace the water with strong, freshly brewed coffee. Add a (slightly heaping) tablespoon of chipotle and a tablespoon of cinnamon. For the true Mexican flavor, add a generous amount of freshly grated nutmeg. As in, nearly a whole nut. Mix and bake according to directions.

The ones above are topped with a Mexican-spiced dark chocolate ganache. Ganache is ridiculously simple to make. This ganache is thicker than some of the other recipes out there. Finely chop 1 C of a mix of dark chocolate and bittersweet chocolate (Mexican chocolates tend to be on the bitter side. If you don't want that, use whatever chocolate you DO want, or add some sugar to the cream) and put it in a heat-safe bowl. Toss the chocolate with 1 to 1-1/2 tsp chipotle, 1 to 1-1/2 tsp cinnamon, and some grated nutmeg. Heat 1/2 C of heavy cream over low heat until it's nearly boiling, but not scalded. Pour it over the chopped chocolate and let sit for a couple minutes, then stir until everything is melted and the mixture is smooth. If it's not melting, put it in the microwave in 10-second increments. Ganache is not an exact science. You can add more cream or less cream or more chocolate or less chocolate, or put the whole thing over the double boiler. Some people even heat the cream in the microwave. The thing is, this is your tweak. Do what you want.

Holding the cupcakes upside down by the liners, dip them into the ganache, and give them a gentle twist while you lift them up to cover the top fully. Once all the cupcakes are dipped, sprinkle some kosher or sea salt on top. It looks pretty, and it helps cut the bitterness.

Next time you get together with your friends for taco night, volunteer to bring dessert! And then you can point and laugh when your friend who doesn't like spice gives it a double-take and goes for his beer. Ole!

The Pudding Can Suck It

Hello, everyone! This is going to be one of those posts that's not necessarily cupcake-related. Sometimes something just happens to me and I have to share it, because I think SOMEBODY out there will find it amusing, even if you just stumble onto my blog by accident from somewhere else (I know that happens to some of you people. I see the stats on my webpage. Welcome! Please come back!).

And yes, once more this photo has nothing to do with anything, but I need to put SOMETHING up there, and since I took it, I have the rights to it. No copyright infringing here!


So, to get to the point: All my life I have struggled with my weight. Up and down, up and down, up and down. For a while, I was really, really down, and I was so happy! And now I'm right back up. Not so happy. And finally discovering that the creative outlet that makes me the most happy is baking... well, not a recipe for success (hard-dee-har-har).

I made a bunch of cookies and sent them out to moms and grandmas and sisters and friends this last weekend, and then I made more for my heart-friend whose birthday I had missed, because let's face it--I'm a really lousy heart friend. So I made her some more of the brownies that she loved, and these old-fashioned toffee bars. As soon as she opened the box, she did a little happy dance (even though I wasn't there, I know she did a happy dance, because she told me--and my heart-friend doesn't lie) and started texting me.

This, my friends, is a true, uncensored text string:


Her: The toffee bars are super good!

Me: Thanks! My sister came up with that recipe based off one of my grandma's. (She forgot to add a cup of flour.) The mistake stuck! It's super duper easy, if you want to make them yourself.

Her: I love your food!

Me: I love my food, too. That's why I'm back to my heaviest weight. :-(

Her: Have you ever met a "good" skinny chef?

Me: No. So I take it as a compliment. I tell people, "you can't trust a skinny baker!"

Her: So true. The proof is in the waist line. The pudding can suck it!


That, wonderful readers, is what qualifies this woman to be my heart friend. Sheer awesomeness.


And yes. Both of us text without shortcuts, cutesy lingo, or ridiculous number substitutions where only letters should be. We're old school. And we're rather attached to our grammar, thank you very much!

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?"