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

Mom, Dad, & the Smoked Pork

My parents were in town last weekend. They’ve lived in Ontario since 1996 or 1997 (taking a 5 year break to live in Vancouver). They decided to come for a visit because we wouldn’t really have time to see them before the wedding so they came to us. (By the way, this Saturday, August 8th, it was 4 weeks until the big day.) Well anyhoo, the first night we made braised lamb shanks and beef ribs with a puréed zucchini / leek soup and a version of Caesar salad with Kyle’s home made Caesar dressing and ciabatta croutons. That was a lovely dinner, but not interesting enough for the C & O. The bigger adventure was the smoked pork the next night. That was excellent! There were a few hiccups along the way, we were late getting back from my grandfather’s house and weren’t sure that we would have enough time in the smoker. Also, I’m afraid we did brine it for too long. It should have been in there for probably 8-10 hours, not overnight. I don’t understand why you can take a turkey, put it in a brine for 24h and have it turn out fine, but a 4” x 10” x 17” piece of pork absorbs too much salt? The meat on the turkey certainly isn’t that thick! There’s a giant cavern inside! This definitely calls for some internet research; or perhaps a letter to Ted Allen and his Detectives. Ok back on track, the final meal was Smoked Pork (some sort of giant rib / loin cut), celery root purée, and roasted broccoli, courtesy of The Amateur Gourmet, (It’s the only way Kyle will eat broccoli)

ON TO THE PICTURES!




Starting Saturday, we cleaned out the cooler, then lined it with as much ice and cool packs as we could find. We took out massive piece of pork and put it in two garbage bags (I still kind of felt like the cooler was dirty) and filled it with brine. 2 cups kosher salt, 1 cup brown sugar, equal parts onion powder and garlic powder, it probably amounted to about 2 – 3 tbsp each, but that’s really up to you.

There it stayed for 24h, but like I said, it probably should have been in there for less time.


Sunday, afternoon, we took it out and rinsed it, patting it dry with paper towels and then let it air dry for about ½ an hour. Then we applied the rub. Unfortunately my mother was in the shower at the time so I had to sit around with my hands caked in rub until she finished….
The rub consisted of Paprika, chilli powder, garlic powder, coriander, a bit of brown sugar, a bit of salt, and black pepper. After that, the meat went in the fridge and we went out.


When we returned a few hours later, the pork was removed from the fridge and left out to come to room temperature (otherwise it lowers the temperature in the smoker or the oven too much.)
It went in for 2 hours at 220°C.
In the meantime, a large celery root (or celeriac) was being hacked to little uniform ½” bits. Its cries went unanswered.


I also roughly chopped about 6 cloves of garlic. Don’t be afraid of the garlic, oddly enough we’ll boil the whole thing so the garlic will lose its potency.


In a pot of boiling water, add the celery root, and most of the garlic,
reserving 4 or 5 good chunks, or more. Cook for about
8 minutes or until the celery root is tender but not mushy.
And drain.


Heat a little olive oil in the bottom of the pot that you boiled the celery root and garlic in and fry the chunks until there is the tiniest bit of browning. Then remove from the heat and add the reserved uncooked garlic chunks, a splash of cream or milk and some butter (about 1 tbsp of butter, cream quantity depends on the consistency you desire). Either blend it with an immersion blender (easiest solution) or pour the mixture in batches into a blender or food processor and purée smooth. Add salt and white pepper (or black if you don’t mind the little black specks).


The last thing we did was the roasted broccoli. It was something that I originally spotted on the Amateur Gourmet blog, but apparently it should originally be credited to Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa. It’s amazing; I didn’t think you could roast broccoli (Borkly) but it ends up nutty and not overcooked and sucks up so much flavour from whatever else you put in it. I cut up 2 heads of broccoli (florets only, for Kyle) and put into a roasting pan along with a few tablespoons of oil (enough to coat the Borkly) 6-8 cloves of garlic, sliced; the zest of 2 lemons, either shaved on a microplane or zested and then chopped, and some salt and pepper.
A few years ago in an Indian market I wandered over to the produce department to my simultaneous delight and horror, I saw that ‘Borkly’ was on sale that week. Borkly bears an uncanny resemblance to broccoli. So from that day on, broccoli became borkly in the SnookRoussel residence.


The borkly went into the oven at 350°F for 25 minutes.
Half way through, stir it around and turn the pan.
After 25 minutes, remove from oven and toss with the juice of one lemon and as much parmesan as you want. In the picture you can see we covered it in tinfoil, but that was just to keep it warm, you do not have to.


Once the meat came out of the smoker, we let it rest for about 15 minutes covered in foil, and then sliced it thinly.


There was still a giant chunk left over that we have since eaten for lunch and added to pea soup in place of bacon, and even turned into tiny appetizer-sized souvlaki / pork shish taouks.

Kyle made a quick barbeque sauce to accompany the meat (I’ll let him tell you that recipe), and we’re off to the races.


Actually we nearly forgot to take a final picture. Everyone had gobbled their food down so quickly that we had to remake the plate for the picture. So it is a touch on the messy side.
(The food stylist will be fired)

Upcoming projects include: Steamed pork buns, homemade orecchiette with mushroom herb sauce, and 1000 gallons of sage parmesan butternut soup. Ok maybe not 1000 gallons, but it’s for the wedding (3 ½ weeks away) so it’s going to be huge!
Thanks everyone! Remember, suggestions always welcome.

The world’s saltiest short ribs

Oh what a disaster. First off, I have to tell you, I cried. The goal was to try out a ‘cure’ what I estimated would be equal to a dry brine, but it would let me get more spices in contact with the meat. More like more salt in contact with the meat. On the up side, the grilled asparagus and Vidalia onion risotto was highly successful. I ruined, I mean ‘cured’ the short ribs in kosher salt, celery salt, coriander, black pepper, and crushed juniper berries for 24h. Rinsed them, and threw them in the smoker for 2 hours over hickory chips with a water bath of cola and allspice berries. We keep experimenting with different water baths, but I have yet to taste a difference.
The ribs came out beautifully, to the eye. But they were tough and almost inedibly salty. I think we may have made beef bacon…
What is the lesson here? Kyle says that it is not to cure them so long. I don’t disagree, but maybe dry brines are something I leave for another day. I also think that maybe my salt was too fine. I should have used a coarser salt so that it wouldn’t have broken down so easily


Fresh from the cure, it looked so promising. Rinsed and air dried...



The asparagus and onions seasoned, oiled, and ready for the grill



Nothing but the finest generic cola for us.



We floated allspice berries in cola as our water bath... don't know if it did anything



There they go, into the smoker. Hi Kyle!



After the arborio rice gets sautéed in olive oil for a bit, I add the broth about half a cup at a time (home made turkey broth made from a turkey we did in the smoker *drool*)



Stirring until the liquid is absorbed and then add some more broth. Everything is steaming up!
Until all the little rice ladies have softened.
But not mush, Al Dente as they say.



It appears that the veggies are finished with their purgatory on the grill.
Into the risotto they go!


Look how lovely they looked coming out of the smoker. Looks can be so deceiving.



And the final plating, again, prettier than it tasted. Apologies go out to the cow that this came from and to Kyle for having to eat this.
We are not salt deficient this week.


Any thoughts? Suggestions?