My Cupcake Problem, My Answer

   I had a particularly tough problem last week. As far as problems go it was a pretty mild one on the Problemo Meter. For most people getting hold of dessert is really the least of their problems and I can attest to that. For someone undergoing cancer treatment however, and on a special diet, just the right dessert at the right time can make their day.

   The friend that I've been cooking for is having treatment for thyroid cancer and as a part of that treatment, has to follow a special restricted diet for about a month. He's normally a vegetarian and that's no problem as the diet the doctors have him on is a vegan diet... so far so good. It's a vegan diet however without soy, beans, spinach or any food high in iodine.

   Almond milk is okay as a substitute for soy, but almond milk must be home-made from scratch. Coconut milk is fine, but not shredded coconut. You get the idea. The normal things that one usually uses in place of dairy are out since a lot of vegan substitutes include soy products. It can get tricky. I've been supplying him with all sorts of vegan Indian food since that's a lot of what we eat around here anyway. I'm not a vegan, but it just happens that a lot of the dishes I serve are vegan. The one thing that really stumped me however was dessert. What goes at the end of one of these meals?

  And don't say an apple, or plain fruit. This guy is an athlete, an avid cyclist and he's not going to settle for fruit when they've taken his soy away. I made sorbet and he liked that but he was wanting pastry something awful. As Alan explained to me, "when a man wants cake....he wants cake dammit!" Alan suggested I make cupcakes for our friend, and when I asked him how he'd like that he said, I'd read his mind. Men, go figure. It turns out that cupcakes were the perfect dessert. He could pack a few with him when he visited his wife at the hospital, or when running errands. On a limited diet there would always be a bit of sweetness portable and close at hand.

  So I made some chocolate cupcakes. And he loved them and ate them all. Then he wanted more, something different this time. Now I have a zillion vegetarian and vegan recipes but when it comes to stuff like cupcakes I'm a real one trick pony. After chocolate... I got nothin'.

  So I did what anybody in need of anything would do. I went to Twitter and I asked if anyone had anything that would fit what I was looking for. Within minutes I had a response from The Duo Dishes,

   Two great chefs from Los Angeles who had just what I was looking for, Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes.
Their recipe called for  vegan "cream cheese" frosting which I was unable to make because all of the non dairy cream cheese I found contained soy. I decided I'd bypass the non-cream cheese and make a simple non-buttercream frosting with the Non Hydrogenated Organic Palm Shortening I was given to try buy my friends at Tropical Traditions.

 The cupcakes were super easy to make and you can have a dozen of them ready to pop into your mouth in about an hour.

Vegan Cupcakes

Here's what to do:
 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
 Fill a cupcake pan with cupcake papers.

In a measuring cup mix together:
 1 cup of coconut milk
 1 tsp of cider vinegar

 Stir it up and set it aside to curdle.
 In a large bowl mix together:
  1 and 1/4 cups of flour
  2 Tbs of cornstarch
  1 tsp of cinnamon
  3/4 tsp of baking powder
  1/2 tsp of baking soda
  1/2 tsp of kosher salt
 In another bowl mix together:
  1/3 cup of vegetable oil

  3/4 cup of sugar
 1 Tbs of vanilla extract
 The zest of 1 orange

 Mix the curdled coconut milk into the oil sugar and zest mixture.

 Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix them together until they're just blended.

Pour the batter into the paper-lined cupcake tin.

 Pop them  into the oven for about 22 minutes or until they're golden brown.

 Let the cupcakes cool on rack while you mix the frosting.

 Non-Buttercream Frosting:
 In a large bowl mix:
  1 cup of Tropical Traditions Organic Palm shortening
  1 and 1/2 cup of powdered sugar
  1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
Whip it together with an electric or hand mixer until you have a thick "buttercream" style frosting. If you need to add a bit more powdered sugar for stiffing that's fine. I like my frosting less sweet so I use just enough to give it texture.
Now it's time to frost those cupcakes.

Sprinkle them with a few finely chopped fresh pistachios.

Serve them up.

   Of course before these cupcakes could be delivered they had to be checked out by Alan, you know, to make sure they were up to snuff. I handed one to him... naturally he was worried about the whole "veganess" of them. He took a bite, I reached out to break off a piece, he pushed my hand away. I knew I had a winner.

  I want to thank The Duo Dishes for such a killer recipe which I know is going to be a permanent fixture at our house, and my friend Paula Wolfert for lending me her Sassafrass La Cloche Bread Baker to help supply the non-iodine, artisanal bread I've been baking. Our friend has about 10 more days of the vegan/non soy diet before he can return to his regular vegetarian fare. I'm going to need a few more desserts, so if anyone out there can do me a solid and steer me in the direction of a few more treats it would be appreciated.

 Coming up next, potatoes and lentils  join together to deliver a great protein hit. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori  

My Little Cupcake...or What would YOU Do If The Winner Of Cupcake Wars Was In Your Neighborhood?

   This is the story of an obsession. I don't normally think about cupcakes. I am not a regular watcher of Cupcake Wars. In fact I've only seen one episode in my whole life. I guess as they say, it just takes one.
Anyway I was surfing around one evening and stumbled across the show. I watched fascinated, as several teams of bakers from cupcake shops across the US competed to create the most gorgeous mouthwatering cupcakes. I was going nuts from craving and was about to flip the channel when I heard the winning bakers say, "Well, we do a lot of weddings here in Wine Country..." What? Wine Country? Wait a minute....I live in Wine Country. Which Wine Country are we talking about here? Upstate New York? Santa Ynez Valley? Washington State? Somewhere in Oregon? Sift was the name of the bakery and a quick punch up of Lord Google told me that the Wine Country they were talking about was my Wine Country right here in Sonoma County. Uh oh... this could mean trouble. I'm not kidding. When I get an idea in my head I just can't get it out. The cupcakes I'd seen on Cupcake Wars had definitely stuck in my head and I had to have them. There was no question about it.
   Sonoma County is pretty big... not a lot of people but a lot of space. It's not always easy getting from here to there. Distance might be the only thing keeping me from these insanely tasty looking cupcakes. I Google mapped. Sonoma County contains nearly 1800 square miles I had a decision to make. Unless these cupcakes were somewhere north of Fort Ross, near the Mendocino border, I was getting those cupcakes.
   As it turned out the cupcakes were about a 50 mile round trip (acceptable) and wonder of wonders, they were located about two blocks from the only Indian Grocery in Sonoma County. I've just been chosen to be one of the participants in Foodbuzz's 24 x 24 Dinner Event this month and I'm going to be cooking a big Indian feast on the 29th, so of course I had to make a supply (cupcake) run. I had to! Really. So on Saturday morning, I did.
   Of course being a disciplined person I did all my Indian grocery shopping. See. Really. I had to go.

   Once my groceries were safely stowed in the trunk, I drove (very safely and not too fast) over to Sift. It was a wonderland of cupcakes. When they crowned these people the Queens of Cupcake Wars they weren't kidding. They were A-mazing! Such beauty, such fragrance, such color and those names!
"Knock Your Box Off", "Black Cherry Jungle", "Carbomb""24 Carrot", "OOOh LaLa""Peanut Butter Ripple." I was stunned. They also had huge whoopie cookies and those little cups with spoons on the cake carousel are... wait for it... Frosting shots.

   I don't usually freak out around stuff. I've learned over the years in my business to keep my cool. In Hollywood that's how we roll, but "Ohmygodthere'sredvelvetwithcreamcheesefrosting! Samoawithcoconuttopping! Oh My God I loved you on Cupcake wars!!!!" I mean I may as well have been gaping at Brad Pitt on the Red Carpet.
   "Almondcupcakewithblueberrysandtequillafilling!!!!" These cupcakes were like movie stars.
We made our selections. For me the red velvet cupcake I'd seen on Cupcake Wars. For Alan, the Black Cherry Jungle.

Outta the box!

A moment later.

   Yes, that is frosting on my knuckles... I don't know how it got there.
   So in short, is a 50 miles round trip worth it to get down and dirty with the winners of Cupcake Wars? Yes, though I think I would be able to go more often if I walked over there.Yeah. walking. That's the ticket. In fact if I walked over I could buy a whole dozen, and then as I was walking I could eat them and I'd walk if off right? Sure. As they said in Brokeback Mountain. "Damn you Sift Bakery..I can't quit you!"

Black Swan Muffcakes..."Mmmmm So Pink, So Pretty!!!"

    I'm a little late, okay about 4 or 5 days to the Muffcake party, but ever since Salty Seattle suggested them I cannot get them out of my head. Another thing I can't seem to get out of my head is the movie Black Swan. We get sent DVDs from the studios every year at this time, in order to vote for the screenplay awards. One of the films I've really loved this year is Black Swan. I've watched it twice already and will definitely be voting for it at nomination time. That aside,  if you've seen the movie you'll know what a natural it is for the Muffcake theme. This movie screams for Muffcakes all around!
   In a nutshell, Black Swan is about an ambitious and really nutty young ballerina about to dance the lead in Swan Lake who finds herself in a battle first to find and then to harness her dark side, the notorious Black Swan. One thing leads to another, there's sex, there's ex, (this is not your Gramma's Swan Lake) there's bulimia, there's delirium and there's a whole helluva lot of pink.
   The young dancer played by Natalie Portman, and her Mama Dearest Barbara Hershey, live in a pink girlie-girl world in the film, pink rooms, pink stuffed animals, pink grapefruit, pink frosting, pink... which brings me back to these Muffcake things.
   Muffcakes are simply a cross between a muffin and a cupcake. But what pray tell is the difference. Size? Frosting? Actually the difference lies deep within. In the heart of the Muffcake if you will. I had to go deep within my dark side (okay, actually Google) to discover that a cupcake contains twice as much egg, fat and sugar as a muffin, transforming it magically to....cakedom.
   I would start with a muffin. Muffins are easy. I could make muffins with my eyes closed. It would be the cupcake that would be hard. Actually not really. Here's what I did:

Black Swan Muffcakes

First preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
I started with a simple muffin batter.

 Sift 2 cups of cake or pastry flour, then measure them again and sift them together with:
 2 tsps of baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt
 In another bowl mix together:
 1 egg
 3/4 cup of milk
 Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture then add in:
 4 Tbs of melted butter
 4 Tbs of sugar

 Mix this together well. This is your Muffin batter or as it will be known...The White Swan.

   Now for the Black Swan!
 Divide the batter in half. To one of the halves add:
 1 egg
 2 Tbs of melted butter
 3 Tbs of unsweetened cocoa
 4 Tbs of sugar

   Mix this together well. This is your cupcake batter, or as it will be known...the Black Swan.

   Grease a muffin tin.
   Now for the tricky part. Into each muffin cup add a bit of the White Swan batter.

On top of that add some of the Black Swan batter.

Or you can go the other way.

It's your call Bunkey. You are the boss of this show.
   Pop the Muffcakes into the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes.
They'll come out looking like this. Half Muffin, Half Cupcake!!! It's an abomination. No. It's a Muffcake.

 I made a simple butter cream frosting. Mix together with an electric beater:
 4 oz of unsalted butter with 1 cup of powdered sugar.
 When you have a nice creamy frosting base, add in a bit of vanilla and 2 Tbs of warm water.
 I added in a drop of red food coloring to give it that pink Muffcake glow.

I then dusted some sweetened, shredded coconut with unsweetened cocoa powder and sprinkled i on one half of the cupcake.

   I sprinkled the other half of the cupcake with plain, sweetened, shredded coconut.
 There you have it. White Swan, Black Swan.
Here they are as seen in migration seen from the overhead Swan-Cam.

   But what is at the heart of the Black Swan Muffcake??? Of course I had to slice one open to see the beating heart.

  And what good is a Muffcake without someone willing to get up close and personal with one?
It's Alans' birthday so of course he got the first Muffcake.

 

    Mmmmmmmmm  Muffcakes. My Little Princess you are perfect...and delicious!