Iron Cupcake: Chili

Well, it's time for me to unveil my submission for Iron Cupcake: Earth. This month is the inaugural challenge, and the "secret" ingredient really put my creative cogs into motion. Chili peppers were the ingredient, and with so many types of chillies, and so many different cuisines that utilize them, there was a wealth of places to draw inspiration.
My original idea was sort of a Southwest/Tex-Mex inspired cupcake- a jalapeno-peach cupcake. I even went so far as to actually make them. Sadly, the whole thing really lacked flavor... the cake, the frosting, everything. I had imagined something with the bright, grassy flavor of fresh jalapenos and the sweetness of peaches, but it was very bland and disappointing. So, I went back to the drawing board...
I really love Thai food, and how so many Thai dished combine nutty flavors with spiciness and a hint of sweetness. This is what gave me the inspiration for my second cupcake- a spicy sesame cupcake with chocolate cayenne buttercream.
The cake is a chiffon cake made with toasted sesame oil and studded with red chili flakes. The icing is a chocolate French-style buttercream spiked with just a hint of Cayenne. The cake is light and spongy with a toasty nuttiness that segways into a pretty decent burn in the back of the throat. The buttercream was freaking awesome! French buttercream is made with egg yolks whipped with a hot sugar syrup, combined with butter- It's sweet and rich, but very light in texture. I added cocoa powder and melted dark chocolate, as well as a tiny pinch of Cayenne. (The icing got many compliments!) The nuttiness of the cake was nicely complimented by the sweet chocolate.
The cupcakes were enjoyable, but not omigod!igottahaveone! I think, while I appreciate the spicy/sweet flavor combo, I like it better applied to savory foods rather than desserts. However, for the spice-junkie (especially ones that appreciate Asian cuisine) these would be the perfect cupcakes!

Toasted Sesame Cupcakes

Makes about 14 cupcakes

1 1/4 cups cake flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 T baking powder

1/2 T red chili flakes

1/4 cup toasted sesame oil

1 t vanilla extract

2 egg yolks

4 egg whites

pinch salt

Preheat oven to 300F. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and chili flakes. In a different bowl, mix oil, vanilla and yolks. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture a little at a time, mixing to make a smooth batter. In a clean bowl, whip the egg whites and salt until they form med-firm peaks. Fold half the whites into the batter. Once mostly incorporated, fold in the other half. Be careful to not deflate the whites too much, but be sure there are no streaks of white.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake wrappers. Fill each cup about 2/3 full. Bake for 10min, then turn and bake about 10min more, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle cupcake comes out clean. Cool before icing.

Chocolate Cayenne Buttercream

Makes enough for 14 cupcakes (at least)

5 egg yolks

2 T cocoa

pinch Cayenne pepper

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

10 oz room temperature butter, cut into chunks

2oz melted dark chocolate (I like Green and Black)

Whip yolks, Cayenne and cocoa powder until light and foamy. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, heat sugar and water to 240F. Once at temperature, carefully drizzle hot sugar into yolks, whipping constantly. Continue to whip the yolk/sugar mixture until the sides of the bowl no longer feel warm. The mixture should be body temperature or just below. While whipping, add the butter chunks one at a time. As one incorporates, add the next. Once the butter is all in, add the melted chocolate. If the icing is too loose, set the mixing bowl in an ice bath and continue whipping until it thickens. Pipe onto cupcakes, and sprinkle with chili flakes, if desired.

You can view the contenders and vote for your favorites (*cough*mine*cough*) starting tomorrow. I'll post the links once the voting begins.

We Iron Cupcake Bakers are competing to win bragging rights, as well as fabulous prizes from Jessie Steele Aprons, Cupcake Courier, Taste of Home, Fiesta Head Chefs as well as Etsy artist Cakespy (check out her artwork- it's soooo cute!)

Showing Off a Little

I just finished my very last kitchen class of pastry school! I'm obviously excited, as it means I'm almost done with school, but it's a little bittersweet because the kitchen classes are the best part of school. All I have left are some classroom classes- cost control, computers, a wine class amongst others. I do have a three week break from classes in September, as some of my credits from my BFA transferred and I don't have to take English.

I thought in honor of my final kitchen class I'd post a little retrospective of some of my favorite pictures and projects that haven't yet appeared on the blog.

This was a project from a cake class. We had to make a cake with our choice of cake flavor, filling and icing. Mine was based on an Arnold Palmer- a beverage named after the golfer consisting of half iced tea and half lemonade. This is an iced tea chiffon cake with lemon curd filling, sweet tea syrup and lemon-tea italian butter cream. The lemon/mint garnish is supposed to recall a glass of iced tea. It was delish, and very summery.

This was a project from custard class. We had to make a bavarian or mousse in some sort of sponge-type cake. Mine was called a Mocha Char-latte Russe. (A Charlotte Russe is a bavarian custard lined with ladyfingers.) It was a layer of chocolate bavarian, a layer of coffee bavarian, ladyfingers (yes, I made the ladyfingers), topped with whipped cream and cocoa powder. (Like a mocha!) I clearly find a lot of inspiration in beverages...

This is a Dobos torte. It's a traditional fancy-pants Hungarian cake made with seven layers of almond sponge brushed with rum syrup, filled with chocolate buttercream and topped with hard caramel glazed sponge cake.

This was a final project from petit fours class. It's an assortment of petit fours, including mini fruit tarts, French macaroons, cream puffs, eclairs, mini strawberry mousse and hazelnut truffles.

There are obviously dozens of things we've made, and I have pictures galore, but these are a few of my favorites.

A Wedding Cake for the Bride of Dracula

For the past three weeks, I've been in an advanced cakes class at culinary school. It's been quite an enjoyable class, except for this week, when I was freaking out about our final wedding cake. We had a short 4-day week, which means we lost a day of production time, not to mention it's summer in Florida, and therefore humid as a sauna in Hell. The humidity wreaked havoc on our (or at least my) gumpaste (which wouldn't dry) and fondant (which tended to get sticky), not to mention my royal icing, which started out a perfect consistency, but slowly absorbed moisture from the air and became gooey and runny. I suppose the end result is, if I can make a presentable wedding cake in 80% humidity, I can do it anywhere.

We were allowed to design our own cakes and themes, provided the cake met certain requirements- it had to have at least two tiers, a handmade topper, covered in fondant, and needed royal icing filigree, a pastillage* component and gumpaste** flowers or fruit.

Since I loooove Halloween and all that spooky stuff, I decided to create a Gothic wedding cake. It was two tiers, a six and a ten inch. The tiers were covered in purple fondant, which I airbrushed so the color faded from purple to black. I then piped the whole tiers in royal icing spiderwebs. The tiers are separated with pastillage, which was hidden with purple and black "dead" gumpaste roses. The whole cake was covered in a swag of lavender fondant, and was topped with a skull and spider that I moulded from fondant and airbrushed. The skull turned out super-adorable, kind of doofy and loveable, and we decided he needed a name. We named him Elliot. It seemed to fit. His spider friend's name was Lenore.

There was more I would have done had time permitted (I wanted to put edible glitter on the spiderwebs), but on the whole, I was really happy with it. I wanted to do something creepy, but elegant, and I think I achieved that. (The Chair of the Pastry Program said it was "elegant, but bizarre" and laughingly suggested that the school offered free counseling, if I felt like I needed to talk about anything.)
*Pastillage is a dough made from powdered sugar, glucose and gelatin that can be rolled out and cut into shapes and then dried. It dries very hard. It's good for cake toppers and also for making separators for the tiers. It's basically the same stuff that Necco wafers and candy cigarettes are made of, only unflavored.

**Gumpaste is a dough made from powdered sugar, glucose and gum tragacanth. It's used mostly for moulding flowers and fruit on cakes. It dries firm, but not hard. It's technically edible, but it doesn't taste too great, plus with the amount of touching required to make flowers, I wouldn't recommend eating it.