Cupcakes - - Page 6

by Lyndsey

The Cupcake Trend Goes Big

Feast your eyes upon this – the new “WORLD’S LARGEST CUPCAKE!” This 1200-plus pound cupcake made its grand appearance at the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise Classic Car Show in the Detroit area last week. Looks beautiful, although perhaps a little light on the frosting?

Unfortunately for me, I missed feasting my eyes on this cupcake by just two days. Happening to be in the Detroit area last week to visit friends and family, we made our way to Dream Cruise on one of the “unofficial” cruising days, Thursday, and thus missed what could have been a life-changing moment for me. Instead, all I inhaled was a mass of car exhaust. I’m sure I would have been a much happier camper if I could have seen this behemoth in person. Apparently there was a cupcake eating contest affiliated with this event as well, where the winner ate 18 cupcakes in 8 minutes. Gag. Too much sweetness in too short a time. I have to wonder if the winner got a crazy sugar headache and crashed out twenty minutes later.

Find more cupcake craziness in Endless Cupcakes

by BS

Top 10 Food Finds at the Iowa State Fair

This Sunday marked the conclusion of the 157th annual Iowa State Fair, known to downscale gourmands far and wide as the annual pinnacle of American eating. From cupcakes to astronauts, if it exists, you can bet the folks at the Iowa State Fair can grow it to an obscene size, deep-fry it and eat it off a stick, or of course, sculpt it out of butter.

10. The Butter Cow

A classic. Look at the detailed carving in that butter udder. Masterful work.

9. Frozen S’more on a Stick

Mmmm…a new era for desserts on a stick. Genius.

8. Giant Gourds

Anyone else think there’s something really creepy about this photo?

7. Rodent Cake

Another creepy one! Who wants a rodent on top of their cake? And this was a blue ribbon winner! What did the losing cakes look like??

6. Mystery Cake

Oh right. This is what the losing cakes looked like. Can anyone even begin to explain what is going on here??? Are those jalapenos? Chocolate covered hot dogs? Deep fried garbage?

Next: Top 5 Food Finds at the Iowa State Fair

by C. Christy Concrete

Green Tea & Almond Cupcakes

_{The ancient Japanese cupcake ceremony.}

(Author’s note: this is my last cupcake post for a while; I’m being sent to India for a work assignment next week, and baking is not in the equation. Watch this space, however; there may very well appear some one-off features on the challenges and oddities of an expatriate trying to eat in the Asian subcontinent.)

Last week I received some sample packets of matcha from Matcha Source. Matcha is traditional Japanese green tea powder, and I’ve wanted to use it in cupcakes for awhile now, but its relatively pricey price in America has so far discouraged me. It’s not that I’m a tea snob; on the contrary, I enjoy a nice cuppa. Black teas provide a gentler morning “lift” as opposed to coffee’s caffeine bitch-slap, regular bagged green teas are excellent for detoxing, (Yamamotoyama’s genmai-cha is a personal favorite) and Mighty Leaf makes a nice camomille blend that doesn’t taste too much like soap.

Fun fact: herbal teas aren’t technically teas at all since most of them contain botanicals and aromatics and no real tea leaves.

Matcha, however, is something altogether different. Steamed and dried, green tea leaves are then stone ground over and over again until a fine, silky powder is produced. Since matcha is mixed directly with water and not steeped, you consume the tea leaf itself, which makes for a very heady, earthy, albeit bitter, brew.

_{There wasn’t even enough of Dr. Manhattan’s remains to bury after Ozymandias got through with him.}

As for the cupcakes, if you take any lesson away from reading this today, it’s this: recipes are written down for a reason. What that reason is varies from cook to cook, but for the most part, it’s to provide a proven, documented legacy of culinary functionality for anyone who comes after that initial session in the kitchen. That said, I’m a person who likes to experiment with recipes, to tweak little things here and there, take something out and add something else, to make the dish my own and create my own legacy. There’s supposedly an unwritten rule among amateur cooks that states you can claim an established recipe as your own creation if you change at least three things about it, which has been the case for most of the cupcakes I’ve posted here during my tenure at ES.

But, as we all know, baking recipes are different than just mucking with a recipe for borscht or noodle soup or green bean casserole. Tweak something the wrong way, and you get a Friday Fuck Up that doesn’t care what day of the week it is.

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Fish / Recipe 9 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Trashy Cupcakes: Cooking with Tang

_{Tang cupcakes with cherry Kool-Aid frosting. You heard me. Oh yeah, I went there.}

It’s been summer officially here in California for a few weeks now, and like most seasons in This Great State, it’s peculiarly schizophrenic. Hundred-plus noonday temperatures one week, crisp and chilly overnights the next. They say you can get used to anything, but even the natives here still find time to bitch and moan about the weather instead of doing something about it, like moving. I guess I’m lucky in that I spent a large part of my childhood growing up in the Midwest, a region of the country notorious for its own extremes of climate: jungle-humid summers, savagely cruel winters, and even the springs and autumns were marred by cicada invasions and the odd freak tornado.

For foodies and other gourmand-types, we often mark the changing of the seasons by the availability of our favorite produce, the arrival of which also sometimes serves as a harbinger of things to come. For example, we know it’s spring when we see the first scrawny stalks of asparagus start to appear at the farmer’s market and more “locavore”-minded eateries; we also know that when this unfairly short asparagus season ends, it means that both summer and strawberries can’t be too far off.

Baking also has its own season, but it isn’t summer. Or is it? On one hand, what kind of masochist wants to hang around a hot kitchen on a hot day with the stupid oven on? Summer is for bikini sorbets, barefoot cocktails, and halter top fruit salads, not sweater cupcakes or flannel muffins. On the other hand, baking as an activity may be relegated to the comfort months, but baking as a trend has proven itself lately to be an all-weather sport. In our post-postmodern world, it’s the end result that is often a more accurate expression of our labors; and if there’s anything that’s the antithesis of seasonal produce, but still representative of an American summer, it’s the powdered drink mix.

Fun fact:

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes 5 comments

by tvff

Making Peace With Cupcakes

Dear Cupcakes,

Yes, I’ve said some mean things about you in the past, but how can I stay mad at you when I see something like this? Sesame Street makes everything better. Bonus points for adorable use of the cookies.

Love,
TVFF

Found at The Coventry Deli in Philadelphia.

Find more cupcake commentary in Endless Cupcakes

in Endless Cupcakes / Uncategorized 4 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Arnold Palmer Cupcakes

_{“I want you to kill every golfer on this course.”}

Legend has it that one day at the height of his powers in the early 1960s, pro golfer Arnold Palmer was at the Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills, Colorado for one reason or another. Reportedly, Palmer asked one of the bartenders to mix him a special drink, the ingredients of which must have been so gauche that the Tom Cruise-wannabe behind the bar initially refused to sully his Boston shaker with the likes. At this, Palmer allegedly became so incensed with the mixologist’s cheek that he flew into a mild rage, threatened to get snooty, and, if his request was further denied, promised to get downright snotty.

Blanching at the prospects of facing down a murderously thirsty PGA Master and his posse, the barman wisely caved and quickly built Palmer’s beverage: a tall glass of ice, filled halfway with lemonade, and topped off with iced tea.

The drink has since earned the reputation of being the black-and-tan of the country club, the virgin Queen of 19th hole quaffers, and to this day, such a mixture is still known colloquially as an “Arnold Palmer.” Most barkeeps will know what you want when you order one by name, although some restaurant waitstaff may fix you with a funny look, since it is kind of a fusty old drink; something for teetotalers or closet lushes who want to keep their vice on the down-low. And while it hasn’t stopped marketers from pushing pre-packaged versions onto the masses, at least it comes with a readymade practical joke:

in Celebs / Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Recipe 1 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Trashy Cupcakes

_{Keep eating those clown cupcakes, and you’ll turn into a clown.}

We’re a pretty loose group here at Endless Simmer. Although I’ve yet to visit the corporate headquarters in New York, I hear it’s pretty swanky. Hot and cold running microbrews from the bathroom faucets, life-size voodoo dolls of dozens of celebrity chefs skewered with huge Renaissance Fair lances, and a giant chocolate fountain that rises up three stories into the atrium above the lobby. I wonder why they haven’t invited me to see it yet.

Oh well, it’ll keep. It’s just a thrill and an honor to be a member of the team and do my part for the ball club.

Anyway, for the most part I think I’ve managed to maintain the Cupcake Rampage gold standards so far: didactic journalism, spotlighting mature flavors for sophisticated palates, and trying to explain as much why something happens as how it’s supposed to happen. After last week, however, I may have hit the wall. It wasn’t the new directions I was taking my writing, or the tangle of coming up with something pretty and practical every week, or even the dilemma of what do to with all those goddamn cupcakes.

No, gentle readers; I was done in by frosting.

Last week’s Aztec xocolatl cupcakes were a byproduct of another five dozen cupcakes I baked as a favor to a friend and her party for the neighborhood kids. (My first paid gig!) Now, even though it might sound nightmarish, making fifty-plus cupcakes really isn’t that big a deal, even if they’re different styles and flavors; you just get into assembly-line mode and crank them out. Making a different kind of frosting to go with each kind of cupcake, however, now that’s a pain in the ass. The worst kind of crash is a sugar crash, and nothing has more sugar than homemade frosting.

So you see, I needed something simple this week. Nothing terribly fancy or high-maintenance or with too many ingredients, but still something that encapsulated the essence of Endless Simmer: a little class, a little flash, a little trash. Since going vegan I’ve kind of left my trashy food tendencies behind, but just because something is vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for you. (Hel-lo, vegan cupcakes? It’s still a cupcake!) So, what’s classier than a vegan cupcake, flashier than a new cupcake tree, (thanks, Diana!) and trashier than the tops of said cupcakes adorned with the unnatural accouterments of American breakfast cereal? Nothing, I says! Nothing!

Just whip up a batch of your favorite cupcake batter (I made gluten-free vanilla, because I’m still working on my GF skillz) and sprinkle on your favorite brand of sugarbombs before chucking them in the oven. I used Cocoa Puffs, Trix, (gluten-free!) and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Airy, crunchy cereal works best because they don’t sink; marshmallows tend to melt and make the cupcake all gross. (Extra trash points!) Once they’re baked, the cereal is also going to be in direct contact with the cupcake itself, so the topping will start to get soft after a few hours.

What’s that you say? Oh, you don’t think breakfast cereal is trashy enough, do you? No matter how much high fructose corn syrup it’s been soaked in, how nutritionally deficient it may be, how laden with GMOs, artificial colorings, and hidden sodium it is? Well then, let’s just go back downstairs into the lab and see if we can’t find something a little more…disturbing for you, shall we?

Stare into the face of horror after the jump, if you dare…

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Recipe 7 comments