I did not think I would be posting again in 2010 but I realized I forgot to wish you a Merry Christmas! And what better way to do so than with a post about balls and nuts... all baking related, I assure you!
A while back I caught wind that the shiny balls I always loved on holiday cookies and fancy cakes are actually outlawed in California (I also learned their proper name is actually "dragee"). I cannot find any law to prove this, but I trust my fellow bakers on the interwebs. Apparently these shiny balls can be dangerous because they contain trace amounts of silver which the food and drug administration has deemed non-edible, and a good-for-nothing lawyer actually got the state to ban the poor little things. In other states, the FDA requires dragee makers to label their balls "for decoration only" which apparently wasn't enough for mr. party pooper. Perhaps he is a vampire.. we will never know.
I acquired some of these balls in Italy last September and vowed only to use them on special occasions. Christmas seemed special enough for me! I made a red velvet cake and placed a few on top to give it a festive, classic holiday look. I had to explain the balls to my guests, and next time I probably won't do that because the word "illegal" doesn't really help sell baked goods.. unless you're running a fakery.
I also made Martha's Linzertorte for our lady's secret santa gift exchange. The recipe called for hazelnuts and almonds in the crust and a raspberry jam filling. I used my flavorite raspberry jam recipe (not Martha's) and it came out tasting fab. It was my first time making a torte AND working with hazelnuts, and I was super pleased with the outcome:
I also got some good news today that Iron Cupcake SF was featured on Cupcakes Take the Cake and I got a shout out as the winner! My blog was linked and I got about 100 hits in one day (that's a lot for me!!) What an awesome Christmas gift and exciting way to end the year!
Last night was the Iron Cupcake SF grand finale of the year. Baker's were invited to bake their signature cupcake a.k.a. the cupcake they are known for- a very special treat because normally we have to bake something related to a theme or key ingredient. We were promised fabulous prizes and exciting announcements about the challenges coming in the new year. I had skipped a few of the more recent challenges but made it a point to attend this highly publicized annual extravaganza.
I arrived with little time to spare but fortunately got one of the prettier tiered trays which was very large and shiny. I baked my signature raspberry chocolate cupcake- my favorite cupcake on the planet and a recipe I can pretty much call my own: chocolate cake with a punchy raspberry filling, raspberry buttercream, and topped with a dark chocolate dipped raspberry. I named it "Chocolate Raspberry Rapture"- this photo does not capture much of the chocolate half of the raspberry, but you get the idea: I was positioned at #12 out of 16, not bad considering my tardiness. As soon as I was identified as a baker, the organizers told me I had to wear a santa hat and kindly let me pick my color- I chose an emerald blue* number and placed it on my head like a beret because let's face it, I have an enormous dome and that hat was not fitting properly.
My crew arrived shortly after I did and we had a good time chatting and laughing which helped to cut the nerves. I could tell I had some stiff competition.. I was surrounded by a bunch of bakers who brought the best of their best to the table.. and they were all easily identified with their Santa hats on: Tasting was, as always, a TON of fun. A lot of people come up with cute ideas for decoration, and flavor ideas that never cease to surprise me. I liked the wreath decorations the best, and was most excited to try the chocolate fig and apple cupcake that shimmered curiously (front). Some girls even took the "signature" quite literally and piped their names with frosting and chocolate!: However, after tasting, there was a clear winner, and my girls and I weren't shy about sharing our opinion! Our opinions didn't matter much unless we voted. Brooke and Jean were on it when the text in polls opened: I walked around to take some photos and realized I never took one of my display. I arrived in time to notice only my large display cupcake remained.. but all the minis had been gobbled up. Shortly after this photo, one of the girls in the background stole the large cupcake.. which was sad and a fabulous compliment all at once: The polls closed and we all sat around and waited to hear the winners. I was nervous because although I knew mine was delicious, my last experience with text in voting didn't go so well.. I didn't place at all- a hard knock coming off a 3-in-a-row winning streak. But this time around, we were allowed to vote for three different winners, so I felt better that at least one of those three votes each person sent in included my cupcake. As the winners were announced one by one, my girls and I all started to get a little more anxious. Brooke had lowered herself into a nervous crouch and swayed to and fro while the 1st place prizes were announced. As soon as first place was announced and my name and cupcake number came out of the announcer's mouth, the girls all screamed like banshees and I noticed Brooke was steadily elevating her scream along with her stance. I tried to hand her my camera for photos but she was caught in the moment, so I let it ride and excitedly made my way up to the front of the room to collect my prizes. Cameras flashed and people congratulated me.. it was one of those moments that don't seem real and nothing you do is free of the cheese that comes along with winning a prize you worked so hard for. I posed with my winnings, which included a custom glass plate hand made by local artists. I was so excited to also win cash I couldn't resist trying to count it immediately:
But then I realized I needed to calm down so I took a more tame photo for the grandchildren to see someday: It really has been a wonderful year for me and baking. Winning the final Iron Cupcake of 2010 was a huge boost and motivation for me. I cannot wait to set some new goals in 2011 and see them realized!!
Thanks for reading.. see you next year!
*a typo too hilarious to cut out.. i did indeed mean to write "sapphire blue"
It's the holiday season! Which means more baking than "normal." And I love it!
I had a few friends to visit this past weekend and I was excited to give them all a little bit of home baked goodness as holiday gifts. I decided on cookies because they are easy to transport and share.. and.. I like cookies. Especially the ones I chose to bake: raspberry thumbprint cookies and chocolate chip.
I made raspberry thumbprint cookies last Christmas for coworkers and the came out more like raspberry frisbees. One coworker even asked, as serious as can be, if they were pancakes. She had never seen such a flat cookie and didn't know what to make of it. Needless to say, this year I did some more research. The first thing I learned was to refrigerate the dough after the cookies are shaped, thumbprinted, and filled with jam. The second thing I learned was thumbs should be avoided.. actually, a chapstick cap used in place of a thumb to make the necessary indents was the recommendation that seemed to be most popular. These two news flashes helped me make some of the most perfect looking razzthumb cookies I have ever encountered:
As I mentioned, I also made some chocolate chip cookies. A while back, I had that flat cookie dilemma. I realized shortly after my whole ramblog (rambling blog) that my problem was the butter. I have my little tricks and forgot this one, whoops. But all is well now that I remember. I would tell you, but I'd have to $collect$, you understand. And hurrah! Not so flat this time around!
Okay they look pretty flat in the photo, but trust me, there were nothing like the pankcakes and crispy discs I served up over the past year. I need to start writing this stuff down! Oh wait.. tee hee, I am!
Everybody could use a cupcake.. friends, coworkers, bratty kids, even the ladies in county jail. Tomorrow, I will be donating cupcakes to the county jail's women's facility. I'm not sure how many birds are locked up, but I made 72 cupcakes especially for them.. two dozen each of chocolate chocolate, vanilla vanilla, and red velvet cream cheese. The cupcakes and the ladies will be attending a holiday party of sorts, but not me. I will be in my own private jail, aka work, all day. I will sit back and think of all the crimes they may or may not have committed and imagine them eating my little creations. I'm hoping a few have mullets. I'm hoping more than a few smile and remember that the holidays are as much about eating cupcakes as they are about giving your very best to fellow community members- no matter who they are.
Yesterday was a little insane. Brad and I had our engagement photo session and I took the entire day off in order to feel less stressed- I could have just left work at lunch and made it to our appointment on time. I'm glad I didn't. It started the night before, when I forgot I was taking the following day off. I left a conference call with some folks in China to run out of work at 5:30 in order to make our catering tasting by 6. I told my coworker I would follow up on a handful of things the following morning. On my way to the tasting, I realized that was impossible because I wouldn't be at work the following morning! I had tried to make the most of my day off and scheduled Jeepers' vaccinations for 8:30am. So I resolved to come back into work to finish things up after the tasting. I returned to work at 8:30pm and wrapped things up at 10.. was in bed by midnight.. then.. Took Jeepers to the vet at 8:30 (somebody tell me why the vet always takes at least an hour.. with 30 minutes of waiting despite being the first appt of the day??), ran home, got changed, got a manicure at 10, had a makeup trial at 11:00, got my hair blow dried at 12:45, made it home at 1:50 to a barely dressed Brad, and showed up to our photo shoot at 2:06 (6 minutes late!), had a blast pretending to know how to take good pictures, then at 4:30 we visited with Brad's sister who is in town, and then made it home in time to eat a TV dinner, and get started on 24 strawberry cupcakes and a chocolate cake at 7:30pm. I was so tired I almost just went to bed, and maybe I should have. I offered to make strawberry cupcakes for my dear coworker's birthday and was excited to do it. I tried out a different Martha recipe despite having used another one of her strawberry cupcake recipes with some success, but not any fantastical memories as it was basically a white cake with strawberry chunks baked in. I guess I was hoping to get a really pink moist cake this time around. FAIL. I should have known, because the recipe I got was Martha's version of Sprinkle's strawberry cupcakes. In summary, they came out like dense, flavorless, sickly brown muffins. I attempted to fix this by coring out the cupcakes and filling with a fresh homemade strawberry sauce, and it seemed promising. I planned a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, but had few eggs, and I wanted to try out using pre-separated egg whites, the kind in a carton. Big mistake. Huge. The egg whites did not fluff up at all, they just turned into a white liquid goo. I had to toss it and go with a basic buttercream, the crunchy kind Edith likes, but with no shortening. The end result was nothing more than a concoction and it made me so sad. I couldn't even decorate them cutely. The goofy decor on top was a sweet gift from Brad, but looks a little odd out of context.. it was part of a whole love and peace hippie motif: I still had a chocolate cake to make, so I moved on. Brad's sister was coming over the following night to celebrate her birthday with us. Thank god I had boxed- it's what Brad and his dad like, and let's get real, it's good. But it still took time and it meant I wasn't in bed until about midnight again after cleanup, etc. I was beated! Then, on my way to the car with all the cupcakes this morning, I lost my grip on the pan and the cupcakes went flying down and landed with a crashing boom thunder bang. Brad hollered from the bedroom, telling me how awful whatever just happened sounded. I grumbled at him and surveyed the damage. Fortunately, only a couple flew the coop onto the floor.. unfortunately, several had done a flip and landed sideways or upside down in the pan. I salvaged what I could and decided there's no use crying over spilled cuppies. They had been refridgerated so they didn't lose much frosting and looked decent. People seemed to like them, but they'll eat anything. I'll never make them again.. and I would recommend you avoid the Martha/Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes recipe. But it was a learning experience and I do have good ideas for future strawberry cupcakes! It's all in the sauce... Oh, and Denice loved her chocolate cake, which Brad ended up frosting. We only had one can of frosting and he had trouble making it spread over the entire cake.. adorable. We all loved it though! No pictures, but a brief video just for fun:
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