Cupcake Camp

by
Emily Glenn
&
Jim Eaton

 

As much as people make fun of Twitter and its users, it done some good things for me (username: EmZeeGee) and my husband, Jim (jimeaton). For starters, we’ve met other Twitterers in Clintonville. Following other locals lets us hear about cool things happening here, what’s happening with that mysterious construction project (it will be a gas station), or where the best BBQ is. (It’s Pit Boss, a trailer parked at Pacemont and High Fridays through Sundays.) When I said we’ve met these people, I even mean that in the old-fashioned sense: We’ve shaken hands, gathered for drinks and had conversations for minutes at a time without consulting our smartphones.

So when we started hearing about Cupcake Camp from our Twitter-friends (we reflexively avoid the word “Tweeps”), we paid attention. Jim and I were in our usual spots, side-by-side on the couch, each busy on a laptop.

“You should enter this,” I said. Without looking up, Jim said “I was just thinking that.” We were both on Twitter and he knew what I was referring to. We’ve been married almost 7 years, and we’re nerds.

Cupcake Camp details appeared on our screens as our contacts discussed it. Jim went to the Cupcake Camp website. There were five categories for judging: Saint Patrick’s Day, Spring, Best Use of Baileys Irish Cream or Bushmills Irish Whiskey, Best North Market-Themed Cupcake and Best Vegan Cupcake. Jim wasn’t sure what he would make, but the Best North Market theme seemed to allow the most latitude. He filled out the form, submitted it, Tweeted about it, and then he was in. Now Jim just needed to come up with some North Market-themed cupcakes.

Awhile back, Jim developed a spice-cake recipe that was featured on Naked Sunfish. He decided to use the North Market eatery Taste of India as his inspiration, and make warm, slightly spicy cupcakes using his spice cake recipe as a foundation. He made the cake batter, spooned it into muffin cups, and baked it. Cakes apparently require less flour than cupcakes; they tasted good, but caved in a bit in the middle. Jim adjusted the flour and the spices, and tried again the next day. These turned out perfectly. The cake part was taken care of, three weeks out from the contest. Progress!

At this point, Jim decided he’d need a name for the cupcakes. He Tweeted and Facebooked about his dilemma. His cakes were based on Indian food, and featured cardamom prominently. A college roommate of mine suggested “Cardamom Sweaters.” Perfect. They would be warm and cozy, just like a favorite sweater.

While we were online, we looked at how our friends were faring. One, Jen, had entered the vegan category; she had multiple batches of cupcakes all over her kitchen; she was trying different recipes to see which she did best. Another had entered the Baileys and Bushmills category; her initial baking hadn’t gone well either. Her status read: “Cupcake trial run FAIL. Cake too dry, ganache not chocolatey enough (which I still don't get, since there are only TWO ingredients and ONE of them is chocolate), and not enough Bailey's in the frosting. BLAHHHHHHHHHHH.” This was oddly comforting, as Chrissy is quite a good cook. A third friend, Colleen, baking in the Saint Patrick’s Day group, had made several batches of her cupcakes, each slightly imperfect in her opinion. But she has three kids and she and her husband both work in offices, so all the cupcakes would find homes.

The next weekend, Jim was ready to work on the frosting. He had been scouring Indian cookbooks and cooking websites, but since India doesn’t exactly have a long tradition of cupcakes, the frosting problem was proving difficult. He made a lime curd on Saturday; sweet and a little bitter. He frosted some of his already-baked cupcakes with that. (They were stale, but perfectly good for frosting practice.) It was tasty, but not impressive-looking. He made Indian-style cheese, and tried topping the lime-curd with that. The cheese was tasteless, cold, and the look of the cupcakes wasn’t improved. At this point, Jim cleaned up the kitchen and watched 30 Rock on Hulu for a while.

Meanwhile, online, Chrissy reported that her cupcakes were merely okay, average, fine. She discussed using matcha powder for green tea cupcakes with Jen. Colleen’s husband, Jason, happily reported he was having cupcakes for dessert again.

Renewed by 30 Rock, Jim returned to the kitchen. He decided to go back to the topping for his original cake recipe—a lime buttercream—and modify it for the cupcakes. He made a lime butter cream, making a dense, sugary-rich topping. It stuck to the cupcakes nicely and held up in the refrigerator. He tried piping it on with a pastry bag, but the bag was too small. He used a quart-sized plastic bag with a hole cut in the corner instead.

Jim was worried that, without anyone but me handy to taste-test, his cupcakes might be tailored only to my unusual tastes. So we decided to hold a Cupcake Camp pre-camp at our house, and invite friends over for sugar and alcohol. Chrissy and her husband Matt came with her Irish Coffee cupcakes for taste-testing. Friends who didn’t enter the contest also brought cupcakes and we served coffee and liquor. Our dining room table was fragrant with sugar and dotted with white, yellow, and chocolate-topped cakes. We each poured ourselves a mug of coffee and liquor, collected a plateful of dessert, and seriously tasted cupcakes. Chrissy’s were divine, with a strong Baileys-infused bite in the frosting and a lump of chocolate ganache in the cake. She wasn’t pleased with how they looked though; the unruly frosting was a problem. The Cardamom Sweaters’ icing was sweet-tart, contrasting the cakes’ warm spice. But thanks to the reaction of the butter and lime juice, the frosting had a slightly crystalline, deckled appearance. We stuffed ourselves with cupcakes, drank coffee and liquor, then pondered running around the block or falling asleep.

Back in the kitchen, Jim deliberated. The obvious solution to the frosting problem was to use shortening, but he preferred to avoid it. He made the lime frosting again, but this time he beat it with the handheld mixer long time and used more powdered sugar. The icing moved from crystalline to smooth and rich. Jim put it in the refrigerator and checked it later: Still smooth. He frosted spare cupcakes with it: Smooth.

Next weekend, he would need to do it all again perfectly.

On the day before the contest, Jim made the frosting. On Sunday morning, Facebook and Twitter had many posts about cupcake baking. Chrissy, after running out of ingredients unexpectedly, was waiting in a grocery store parking lot for the employees to unlock the doors. She would walk in and buy baking ingredients and a bottle of Baileys on Sunday morning, which seemed wrong somehow.

Jim baked using his batter-stained notes, then carefully piped the final batch of frosting on the cupcakes. He topped each cake with an almond, then put them into cake boxes kindly given to him by Simple Sweets bakery.

We arrived early at the Columbus Dispatch kitchen upstairs at the North Market. Each category had a cluster of tables for its corresponding cupcakes. There were empty trays on the tables with cupcake names on them. Jim arranged the Cardamom Sweaters on his trays. We watched contestants filter into the room. We hadn’t met Jen yet—we were merely Twitter friends—so we introduced ourselves to her. She was warm and friendly, and if she was unnerved by a couple in their 30s abruptly introducing themselves, she hid it well. As competitors and ticket-holders drifted in, the organizers took cupcake samples for the judges and sliced the remaining cakes into pieces so everyone could have a taste. Everyone mingled, taking pictures and admiring, but not tasting yet.

Two other batches of cupcakes in the market-inspired category had taken Taste of Belgium as their inspiration. They had tiny waffles incorporated into their structures. Entries in the spring category were adorned with butter cream and fondant bees, ladybugs, spring vegetables and flowers. A “pot o’ gold” towered above the other entries in the St. Patrick’s Day group. Sitting on a hillside of green icing, the pot was formed with chocolate and filled with gold M&Ms printed “Cupcake Camp Columbus.” Colleen’s mini Pinch Me Key Lime-flavored cupcakes were classic, with a whorl of frosting and twist of lime. At the Baileys and Bushmills tables, Chrissy had solved the frosting problem, piping it on in broad swirls, then filling the crevices with drops of Baileys. The crowd was especially curious about the vegan cupcakes; did a batch of dark chocolate mini cakes taste as good as they looked? A tray of lemon-basil cupcakes was also intriguing. Jen’s cupcakes had an ice cream sundae appearance, topped with banana slices, Maraschino cherries, chocolate lacing and snowy-white frosting. The attendees bunched around the tables with the cakes that most interested them, and waited.

When the go-ahead was announced, the crowd grabbed for their choices. Most of the bakers stood back for a minute, watching everyone taste and evaluate three weeks’ or more of work. Then they walked to the tables, picked up plates and started piling them with cupcake slices too. At the front of the room, the judges tasted. Someone mentioned that she had seen a judge grimace upon tasting one cupcake; I tried not to look at them. I thought of Jim’s hours in the kitchen, the cookbooks spread out on the counters, his lists of ingredients and notes.

Colleen’s cupcakes had the crisp tang of lime on top of the sweetness of the cake. Chrissy’s frosting was still delightfully, alcoholically, strong, while the cake was distinctly coffee. Jen’s were a riot of sweet tastes and textures. The dark-chocolate vegan cupcakes delivered; they were thick, dense and rich. An entry in the spring group, Honeypot Lemon Thyme, was topped with wee sugar cups, each holding a few drops of honey. Hot and Cool Mango in the market-themed category (inspired by CaJohn’s Flavor and Fire), somehow captured fiery food in a baked good: the cool sweet of mango paired with hot spice. Honeyed Sweet Pea in the spring category had real fresh peas, soaked in a bit of honey for a topping. The variety and number of cupcakes was overwhelming; after one plate of bites, we couldn’t eat any more, despite the many inviting options. I felt like I had a hummingbird inside my brain.
The judges stood up; someone took the microphone. It was time for the prizes. Colleen didn’t win the St. Patrick’s Day category, though the judges’ notes praised the Key Lime flavors in her cupcakes. Chrissy won her category; the judges said the frosting was quite nicely boozy, and they checked her ID before giving her a large bottle of Bushmills Whiskey for her prize. The vegan group prize was claimed by the excellent lemon-basil entries, though Jen’s Surprises got an honorable mention. The darling honeypot cupcakes led the spring-themed group. The judges said the market-inspired cupcakes had been hard to score. The entries were very competitive with each other.

Then they announced Jim’s name. The Cardamom Sweaters had won.

For his prize, Jim won two necklaces from Wholly Craft, a bright pink t-shirt from Bakery Gingham with “This is How We Roll” and a rolling pin on it, a handmade coffee mug cozy by AmyD and a North Market gift certificate. Jim appreciates the prizes, even if most of them were a bit gender-specific. He needed a way to thank our friend who suggested the name Cardamom Sweater; one of his prizes gave him a way to do this. We want to see pictures of her on Facebook, wearing her new necklace. As for our Twitter friends, a group of us is getting together for drinks soon. There will be some people we haven’t met in person yet there; we’re looking forward to it.

Cardamom Sweater

Ingredients:
2 eggs – room temperature
3 tablespoons vanilla extract
14 ounces 2% Greek yogurt – room temperature
1 ½ sticks salted butter – room temperature
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup granulated white sugar
¾ cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ground cardamom
2 teaspoons ground coriander
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground mace
2 teaspoons Garam Masala
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
¾ cup golden raisins
Lime-Saffron Buttercream – recipe below

Method:

Combine vanilla and eggs into a bowl and reserve for later.
Measure all the spices into a bowl and whisk to combine.
Sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and spice mixture together into a large mixing bowl and reserve for later.
Combine the sugar and brown sugar in a small bowl.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

(I know it’s a lot of prep, but I assure you getting everything mixed and organized will make the cupcakes better.)

Soften the butter with an electric mixer, add 1/3 of the sugar mixture and mix until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and continue mixing in another 1/3 of the sugar mix. When combined, scrape again and add the rest of the sugar mix. Mix for 2 minutes or until sandy and well mixed.

Add the egg/vanilla mixture into the sugar with the mixer running, 1 egg at a time. When both eggs are well combined, add ¼ of the yogurt. Pause the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom the mixing bowl with a spatula. Continue gradually adding yogurt, then pausing and scraping after each addition. Continue mixing for 1 minute to ensure the ingredients are well-combined.

Reserve 2 tablespoons of the flour/spice mixture in a small bowl with the raisins.

Add flour/spice mixture to the batter in thirds. After each addition, scrape the bowl with a spatula. Do not over mix or mix at very high speed. When all of the flour is combined, add the raisin-flour mixture and slowly combine. Refrigerate for 20 minutes while you prep the pans. There will be enough batter for 2 batches of roughly 30 regular-sized cupcakes.

To prep the baking pans, butter the tops of two cupcake pans and add foil wrappers. (Really any wrappers will work here, I just prefer the foil.)

After the batter is chilled, use a ¼ cup scooper to fill each foil wrapper. When all wrappers are filled, return the remaining batter to the refrigerator. Bake the cupcakes for 10 minutes, then turn each pan and bake for another 10 minutes.

Remove each cupcake immediately from the pan and cool on a wire rack. Add more wrappers to the pan, you do no need to rebutter the pan. Fill each wrapper again using a ¼ cup scooper and bake for 10 minutes. Turn the pans and bake another 10 minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans immediately after baking and cool.

When the cupcakes are completely cool, frost them using the Lime-Saffron Buttercream. To frost the cupcakes: cut ¼ inch off a one gallon Ziploc freezer bag and then cut the bag again on a diagonal to remove the zipper creating a pyramid shaped pastry bag. If you have a pastry tip, use it, otherwise, the small hole in the bag will work just fine. Fill the bag with 1 cup of frosting and working quickly to prevent the buttercream from melting, frost each cupcake with either spirals or make petal shapes on the top of the cakes. When the cupcakes are frosted, add an almond to the center of each.

Lime-saffron buttercream

Ingredients:

2 ½ sticks of butter, very soft
4 medium-large limes
2 lbs of powdered sugar – you probably won’t use all 2 lbs but you’ll
need most of it.
¼ teaspoon saffron

Method:

Zest all 4 limes and reserve
Juice the limes, add saffron to juice and bring the mixture to a boil
in a small saucepan. As soon as it bubbles, remove from the heat and
let the saffron steep until the liquid is completely cool.

Soften the butter in a large mixing bowl using an electric hand mixer.
Slowly add 1 cup of the powdered sugar and the lime/saffron juice.
When combined, mix in the powdered sugar ½ cups at a time until the
mixture is soft, fluffy and looks like frosting. Approximately 7/8 of
the bag of powdered sugar will be used.

Refrigerate until needed. Before you frost the cupcakes, mix the
frosting with the hand mixer until soft and fluffy.