Cupcake Camp and the Smoked Fruit

Yellow everyone,
Back again!
This time to talk about the 2nd annual Cupcake Camp Montreal. I was at last year's and while it was very successful, nothing could have prepared me for this year's success. I cautiously agreed to participate this year because it took place November 21st, 6 days before my due date, thankfully the kid didn't come early and I was able to honour my commitment. Although I REALLY REALLY wanted to help out and be part of the organization, I thought it would be smarter if I waited until next year. So hit me up for any kind of help you need next year guys! I WILL be bugging you... but this year I stuck to baking only. My submission was Smoked Apple Cupcakes with Maple Cardamom Buttercream. So here goes, the recipe....

The cupcake recipe is partially pilfered from... um... well, uh *sigh* Martha Stewart. 
I'm sorry, I know, I know she's built of pure evil, but I'm sure she had nothing to do with it!!! I know A LOT of good people who went on to work for her. It's okay right?

Right?

Initially, I smoked the apples whole, but then I realized that peeling them was hell. So, word of advice, peel, core and cut your apples into 8ths or 6ths. It's much easier than trying to peel a smoked apple.


•2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
•2 teaspoons baking soda
•1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
•1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
•1 teaspoon salt
•1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
•1 cups sugar
•1/2 cup demerara sugar
•1/4 cup demerara sugar
•2 large eggs
•1 inch vanilla bean scraped to death
•8 apples (4 yellow delicious, 4 MacIntosh, if possible) peeled, cored, and cut

Start off by putting your apples in a disposable pie pan (or 2) and sprinkle the 1/4 cup of demerara sugar on top. Smoke for 1.5 hours at about 220 degrees. It's best if you do it a few days before because some liquid leaches out of the apples and has a very strong smoky sweet flavour. When you first take the apples out of the smoker, a lot of the smoky flavour is caught in the sugar residue that you won't be able to get into the batter. The apple juices that leach out sort of wash the sugar off the pie plate and you get a smokier flavour in your batter.

(pssst. these are Martha's instructions slightly adapted)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 standard muffin tins with paper liners; set aside. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Put butter and both sugars (1/2 cup demerara, 1 cup regular white) into a bowl and mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Coarsely chop apples in a food processo and mix in apples to the wet mixture. Add flour mixture; mix, scraping down sides of bowl as needed, until just combined.

Divide batter among lined cups, filling halfway; bake until tops are springy to the touch, 18 to 20 minutes. Remove cupcakes from tins; transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely. (makes 24)

For the icing, I will try to give you the recipe but I really winged it

•1 cup room temperature unsalted butter
•2 1/2 cups sifted icing sugar
•1/4 cup + 2 tbsp REAL maple syrup
•1 tbsp ground cardamom

Whip up the butter with an electric mixer pouring in the maple syrup slowly.  It will be clumpy and weird looking. As you sift in the sugar (I did it 1/2  a cup at a time because my hand was getting tired) it will become smoother.

About halfway through, I added the cardamom, mixing on medium speed. Once all your sugar is in and you're satisfied with the consistency, then you can ice your cupcakes.

If you want a stiffer icing, simply add more icing sugar.

Also, something that I will share with you.... I made a test batch... and I didn't find them smoky enough, so I added 1 or 2 dashes of liquid smoke to the icing.  It was only for the test batch, but I feel guilty divulging that fact. Anyways, if you need it, liquid smoke will help you out and won't ask for anything in return.

So here's the picture of my finished cakes. Next year I think I'll spend more time on the beauty aspect.  But they were tasty : )

So once these were iced and packed up, we brought them downtown to Cupcake Camp Montreal 2010!!
And even though I had a panic attack there, I take that as a good sign. THERE WERE TOO MANY PEOPLE -- bad for sensitive wimps like me, good for the organizers and the charities (Kids Help Phone and La Tablée des Chefs). This year they raised $34,500!!!!

Kyle and I got some phenomenal cupakes, there was the Double Chocolate with sugar cookie on top from Macchi Inc. (Make sure you read The Mrs Macchi Blog and follow her on twitter), there was the Double Cupcake: Mini chocolate on the top, vanilla on the bottom with a lovely snowflake detail from Montreal Confections (who incidentally did our wedding cake last year and she's super nice).  There was the ridiculously poufy and decadent Oreo cupcake with some sort of cream cheese icing covered in oreo dust from RawSugr. And unfortunately we don't know where the other three came from: another Oreo creation, Cookie Dough cupcake with a wee cookie on top, and a caramel fleur de sel. 

Oh right, the one in the middle. That was the raspberry truffle ice cream cupcake from Bilboquet. That one didn't make it home - partially because it was awesome and partially because of the melt factor.  Here's a bad picture of a 'cross section' (AKA after we bit into it) of the ice cream one :)

So that was Cupcake Camp Montreal 2010. Now my next task is to spit out a person.  She's supposed to arrive this saturday, but you never know what can happen. I guess that's all for now. Thanks again for taking the time to browse the aisles of the Cheese and Olive Superstore. 

xoxo

-Candace

Not Porchetta

Hello again! First off, I would like to thank all the people involved in Cupcake Camp Montreal. It was so much fun and it looks like it was really really successful: 700 cupcake nibblers and $8000 raised for Kids Help Phone. For those of you who don’t already know about it, Cupcake Camp Montreal took place on November 22, 2009 at Bitoque in Montreal. Amateurs (me!) and professionals donated cupcakes en masse. To gain entry to the event there was a suggested donation of $10 that got you 3 cupcakes and a coffee. All proceeds went to the Kids Help Phone. Go to their website and their Flickr album to find out more about the winners of the competitions and the judges (The Youppie cupcake was phenomenal!)
It was a fantastic way to spend a Sunday.


This was my cupcake, not too popular I don't think but I tried...

and these are the ones we picked to eat (yum yum yum)


I’ve been wanting to do some sort of ‘mock porchetta’ for a while, however I don’t have a piglet with all of his bones removed (a ‘pig cape’, as I’ve heard it described). But I did have a center rib loin roast. I figured I could make a vague approximation of the porcine treat. When it came to actually assembling it and cooking it, I was woefully short on time so let’s just toss the whole idea of it resembling a porchetta out the window. Basically it was pig, and it was rolled, and that’s where the similarities end. We made the rolled roast with Risotto-style orzo in parmesan broth and caramelized onions, porcini butter sautéed asparagus, and the roasting vegetables.
Recently I was told that my recipes are a little hard to follow since they’re more in story format than in regular recipe format. So I will try to remedy that by listing the ingredients like a real grown-up recipe (Thanks Julie for the constructive suggestions! Always looking to improve. p.s. check out her blog at http://www.metricjulie.com/)

1, 2-3 lb Center rib loin roast (Pork)
¼ - ½ cup coarse salt (not fine, the coarser the better, that way it doesn’t dissolve as it draws out the moisture in the meat)

1 bulb fennel (fronds trimmed and base removed 1/3 of bulb is needed for this stage)
1 tbsp capers
¼ cup or 1 small bunch flat leaf parsley
1 anchovy (optional)
1 sprig rosemary (1 tbsp fresh or ½ tbsp dry)
4 cloves of garlic
½ tsp ground sage (or 1 tsp fresh chopped sage)
¼ cup white wine (preferably one with a strong flavour)
1 tsp chopped or grated lemon zest
Salt and pepper (not much salt is needed as the meat will be salted)

Additional Materials:
Aluminum foil
Kitchen twine (natural fibers like cotton) 5 -6 lengths pre-cut, you don’t want to be messing around trying to find scissors with your hands covered in pork.

I also used
2 carrots chopped into chunks
2/3 of the fennel bulb sliced to ¼” thickness
2 shallots, peeled and quartered
A light dusting of onion powder, salt, and pepper
3 tbsp oil (canola or vegetable)

First I placed the meat in a small tightly fitting dish and covered on all sides with the coarse salt. It only needs to be in the refrigerator for a few hours like this. Overnight will yield a really salty meat. After 2-4 hours remove and rinse thoroughly.






Then take a long chef’s knife or boning knife and start cutting into the side of the meat at about 1 – 1 ½” thickness. Don’t cut all the way through. When you reach 1 – 1 ½” from the edge, open the meat up like a book and cut into the thicker flap so that it is also 1 – 1 ½” thick. Basically we are making a jelly roll out of our meat. I think this site might describe it better, if you don’t understand my horrendous description. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eCpL6cj7Rw

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Then, take 1/3 of the fennel bulb, the capers, parsley, sage, rosemary, anchovy and lemon zest and put in a small food processor. Chop or grind until it forms a rough, chunky paste. Then add the white wine and whizz it a little longer. Season if necessary. Make sure you line your working surface with tin foil because it will juice all over the place. And YOU WANT TO SAVE THOSE JUICES! Spread the filling over the inside of the meat and roll up the meat as tight as possible. It will be smaller in width than the original piece of meat. Tie it up tightly with the string and put into roasting pan. The green juices that have spilled into the foil can be poured onto the meat. If you’re using roasting vegetables put them in the pan and dust with salt, pepper, and onion powder then pour some oil (2-3 tbsp canola or veg, not motor oil) over everything.

Place the roasting pan in the oven (450°F) for 20 minutes or until it has browned on top, then turn the heat down to 325°F for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let it rest for at least 20 -25 minutes. Feel free to shorten cooking times if you have a smaller piece of meat or if it looks like it is cooking more quickly. The last thing we want is sawdust pork. That's the #1 reason why people say that they don't like pork. Don't fear the medium rare pork, changes in swine farming in feeding habits and keeping have made sure that not cooking pork to the point of sawdust is perfectly healthy. (That being said, do NOT take the same attitude for pork sausage as the meat comes from all over the animal and can be subject to some contaminants -- cook sausages well)

Our accompaniments included asparagus sautéed in porcini butter (I bought that, but regular butter works too) and Risotto style orzo with caramelized onions.
For that you will need
½ cup orzo
1 ½ cups chicken stock
Water to add
Olive oil
1 chunk of Parmesan rind that has been cut into smaller chunks. Most places who grate their own Parmesan will sell the rind cheaply you can add it to stocks or sauces to add that cheesy flavour.
2 red onions
Put the chicken stock and parmesan chunks into a saucepan and simmer for about 20 minutes to infuse with the cheesy flavour

In separate pan heat olive oil and sautée pasta for about 30 seconds. Add to saucepan and turn up the heat to bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the orzo begins to be a little dry. You can add some water to prevent it from sticking if the pasta is not full cooked. Once most of the liquid is absorbed remove from heat and let it rest for about 5 minutes. The result will be starchy and gloopy. You can remove the parmesan chunks and discard, or you can chop them really small (they will be a lot softer at this point) and return them to the orzo.

Add to that, thinly sliced onions that have been caramelized in a separate skillet. (Cook over medium low heat until the onions are brown and jammy, you can add a little water now and then to recuperate the browned bits in the pan) Sorry about the picture, apparently it’s not very appetizing, but I didn’t have a chance to re-take the picture. Suffer bitches! : )

So then we cut the pork into ½” slices, after the appropriate rest period.
(about 20 -25 minutes, cover with foil if you're afraid of it going cold or drying out)

And the final product :)

I’m trying to do less meat based things, Kyle and I have resolved to thin down a little bit, so you can look forward to a few more healthful selections. But a person’s got to live a little too…
Thanks guys! And tell your friends (whatever that means)
Xoxo