Ham Sandwich Indicted!

It's Ash Wednesday--a day of fasting and restraint, which means it's the perfect day to post a recipe for the cupcakes I made for a friend's birthday a couple weeks ago. Chocolate and peanut butter. There's really not much else to say. Reese's Cup Cupcakes (recipe modified from this NYTimes recipe) Makes 16-24 For the cakes: 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch process) 5 1/3 ounces (10 2/3 tablespoons) sweet butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 3 eggs 1 cup milk 1/2 cup sour cream (plain yogurt would work, too--so would mayo) For the peanut butter frosting: 12 tablespoons butter, softend 1/3 cup heavy cream/half & half/milk 1 1/2-2 c. peanut butter 2 c up powdered sugar 1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tins with cupcake liners. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder and set aside. Using a hand or stand mixer, cre...

This weekend I had the privilege of making cupcakes for a friend's birthday party. Having been informed that she was a fan of vanilla cupcakes, I busted out a Bon Appetit recipe that I used last Spring. That recipe, however, is fairly coconut-centric, and I wasn't sure how the party guests would feel about it...coconut seems to be rather polarizing, you either love it, or loathe it. The recipe calls for reduced coconut milk to keep the cupcakes moist and add flavor to the batter and icing, but I felt that the concentrated coconut milk might be too much. Having read about the wonders of mayonnaise as a useful ingredient in keeping baked goods moist and delicious, I thought that maybe I could combine some un-reduced coconut milk and some mayo and get the same effect as using straight, condensed coconut milk. Yes, mayo is well, mayo, and the thought of it in a baked good sounds somewhat bizarre. Turns out, however, mayo is pretty fantastic and keeping your cupcakes from drying ou...

I had my first paying baking gig in a while last night. 50+ mini cupcakes, chocolate and vanilla. They were for my former law school prof's class on patent and copyright, the focus for this particular class being the issues surrounding the copyrighting of recipes. Food and the law!!!! What a delightful combination! Someone should start a blog..... Anyway, after a long day of keeping criminals behind bars, baking some cupcakes would be a welcome reprieve. The vanilla cupcakes were basically the strawberry cupcake recipe from this past summer, sans strawberries. The chocolate ones were a new recipe from the fine folks at Cook's Illustrated. The cake batter itself turned out OK , but I'm a little concerned about it's moisture level--in that there's not enough. It's deeply chocolaty though, which is excellent. The bigger concern I had was the icing--basically processing hot cream with bittersweet chocolate chips in a food processor, then adding some powdered sugar,...

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!)

Hey Friends! I'm competing in a cupcake baking contest on Saturday May 9th! It's the first Cupcake Camp Columbus, being held at Surly Girl Saloon in the Short North. There's two sessions you can go to: 2-3pm or 3:30-4:30pm. $5 gets you in the door for all you can eat cupcakes in 4 categories: Best Use of Alcohol, Best Use of Bacon, Best Vegan, and Most Creatively Decorated. I'm entering the Best Use of Alcohol Category. (Shocking.) If you're free that afternoon, come down and try one (or several cupcakes) and know that your admission fee is going to a great cause...The Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Thanks and hope to see you there!!!!

April 1st saw my 31st birthday (Happy Birthday to me!) and my first non-friend/co-worker cupcake order for a central Ohio CSA workshop at Wild Goose Creative . Jaime Moore from Wayward Seed Farms, as well as representatives from Toad Hill Organic Farm , Bridgman Farm , Elizabeth Telling Farm , and 2Silos sat down with local residents to talk about CSA's, what they do, how to get involved, and how important it is to support your local farmer. (In case you're not familiar, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture--basically, you pay a certain amount of money at the beginning of the growing season, and for that money you get fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, etc. on a weekly basis, depending on which type of CSA you sign up with.) With so many great local farms so close to Columbus, it's a great way to support small agriculture AND get super delicious fruits and veggies.* Anyway, thanks to Jaime at Wayward Seed, I had the opportunity to provide cupcakes for the event--S...

Yay! These are the "commercial" versions of the cupcakes I made earlier this week. (Buttercream Vanilla on top, Cream Cheese Carrotcake on bottom.) Wednesday afternoon I visited the Cake Craft store on North Cleveland Ave to pick up some accouterments for my baking project--clear vanilla extract, gel food colors (they keep your icing from getting runny), some more piping tips and disposable piping bags. It was definitely money well spent--the gel colors are super vibrant, and the clear vanilla doesn't darken white icing. The pink and green flowers are my first attempt at doing anything fancy, and really, once I got used to the feel of the icing bag and the amount of pressure I needed, it wasn't too hard! I have a feeling I could definitely get into this!

So, I'm proud to share my latest project/ experiment with you all: delicious baked goods available for your home/school/office events! At this point, I'm still in the early stages of determining interest and what my levels of capability are. The photos show two types of cupcakes I made this weekend-- carrot cake with cream cheese frosting above and yellow cake with butter cream frosting below. My coworker is paying me $1/cupcake for 40 cupcakes for her daughter's confirmation party and the trial run cupcakes shown got some positive reviews around the office, so hopefully, I can get this little side project off the ground. Because I don't have any training in icing/cake decorating (yet), I'm pretty much limited to cupcakes, brownies, cheesecakes, and pies. Basic sheet cakes are possible, too, but I'm not at the point where I'm making icing roses and all that. Yet. :) If you think you may need some baked goods for a party or potluck, drop me a l...