Ham Sandwich Indicted!

Just some self-indulgent/self-serving pictures of projects I've been working on in the past few days. Above: raspberry-vanilla cupcakes with raspberry preserve filling and blueberry-vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd filling. Below: my first strawberry-rhubarb pie. Pretty damn delicious, thanks to the awesome crust recipe from Cook's Illustrated. (Unfortunately, the photos are terrible since I had to take them with my phone. Boo.)

One of the competitors at Cupcake Camp Columbus took this picture--it's lovely, n'est pas ? When I was trying to create these cupcakes, the goal was to have an orange-liquor flavor that wasn't too overwhelming or cloying. Also, I wanted to give the cake part a more dense texture, and mimic that of a crepe. I found that melting and browning the butter helped in that department, and gave the cake a depth that you couldn't quite put your finger on. Crepes Suzette (Grand Marnier) Cupcakes *This will make about 24 regular cupcakes or 48 minis.* 2/3 cup butter, softened 2 2/3 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 2 cup brown sugar 4 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp Grand Marnier 1/2 cup buttermilk 1/4 cup orange juice, preferably with pulp Zest of one orange Preheat oven to 350F. Line your muffin pan with liners. Melt butter in a small saucepan and cook over low-medium heat until butter has turned an amber color and smells toasty--and then take it off...

So, CupcakeCamp Columbus came and went in a whirl of sugar, butter, and frosting. There was every variety of cupcake imaginable--irish stout, chocolate raspberry truffle, bubblegum, buckeye, french toast & bacon, neopolitan...well, you get the idea. For those of you that are curious, I did not win, but am consoling myself that I got lots of positive feedback from those in attendance--we'll pretend I won "People's Choice." :) The winner of the Best Use of Alcohol category were Irish Car Bomb cupcakes--and damn, they were good!!! There's a second comptition already in the works, and I definitely plan on competing. In the meantime, there's a link here to tons of pictures of the event--careful, you might go into sugar shock just looking at the bounty. Thanks for everyone's enthusiasm and support--I really appreciate it!!!! (And I'll post my recipe to the Crepes Suzette Cupcakes on this post as soon as I get a chance!)