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A Piece of Cake
February 2005: First Slice
Newsletter written by Anne Byrn February 02, 2005
A Word from the Doctor
A Word from Workman
Bits & Bytes
Recipe Swap
Do Share
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A Word from the Doctor
The year is off and running, and I've got news to share. No, it's not a boy or a girl, it's a cupcake! I'm pleased to announce my next cookbook, Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor, is out of my hands and should be in stores in April. They say great things come in small packages, and boy is this true about cupcakes. Last year at this time I was in my kitchen scooping batters of all flavors into cupcake tins. The results were fun and phenomenal, because I was obviously one of those cupcake-oppressed kids never exposed to much variation!
This book is all about venturing past white frosting on white cupcakes, and offering kids, parents, grandparents, teachers, any cupcake lover, 100 recipes of variation. You'll find filled cupcakes, meringue-topped cupcakes, cupcakes in shapes other than round, cupcakes for bake sales, cupcakes for dinner parties, muffins, other desserts like mini trifles to make in the cupcake pan, and even a cupcake wedding cake and other structures to build with cupcakes.
What did I learn from this endeavor? That your old cupcake pans work just fine with new adaptations--my favorite pans were handed down from my mom. And I learned I adored an ice cream scoop with a spring mechanism for easily filling the pans. My favorite recipes? The cover cupcake, which I share in this newsletter, a rich, sturdy pound cake-like cupcake made from a butter recipe golden mix with the addition of cream cheese. I also love the red velvet cupcakes with a peppermint cream cheese frosting, the cookie dough cupcakes with a warm chocolate chip cookie inside, the orange marmalade cupcakes to pair with a cup of tea, the malted milk cupcakes, the blackberry muffins, the tie-dye cupcakes, and much more.
Enjoy the cupcake recipe in this issue as well as the wedding cake contributions from our readers. Don't miss how Edna Bautista creates a "birthday in a box" for her military friends overseas, and she shares all her valuable tips for shipping baked goods.
Happy Baking,
Anne
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A Word from Workman
So often the new year is a time for reflection, looking back to see how far we've come. Can you believe the first issue of "A Piece of Cake" came out in January 2000? That first email went out from Anne's personal computer to 100 people, and today there are nearly 40,000 of you enjoying the Cake Mix Doctor secret via "A Piece of Cake."
I joined the team late in 2000, and Anne quickly converted me (not a baker before!) to the wonders of doctoring a cake mix through her first book, The Cake Mix Doctor. Then I was one of the lucky ones who got to eat a slice of the very cake you see on the cover of Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor. (In case you think the Workman office is any different from yours, just picture Anne carrying that huge cake with a trail of us following her straight to the kitchen, acting like we had not eaten in a week!) And now, 5 years later, we're gearing up to share Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor with you all (and I got to eat one of those cupcakes from an early photo shoot, too!).
So Anne and I wanted to stop and say thanks to all of you who have been with us from the beginning, and welcome all of you who have joined us along the way. Going forward, we're always interested in hearing your ideas and learning what we can do to improve the website, the newsletter, the Community Board, and more. Please write to me at info@workman.com with your ideas and thoughts. Thanks for all you've taught me over the past 5 years, and here's to another wonderful 5 (and more) years!
Amy Lewis, info@workman.com
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Bits & Bytes
Treats for the Troops
Edna Bautista of Illinois (but she'll always call Oahu, Hawaii home) has mailed all sorts of little cakes and sheet cakes to Kuwait to support the troops. "I've already sent a Fuzzy Navel cake to my Navy reservist friend, and her shipmates are already requesting more goodies...I'm also planning to make a red velvet cake for Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year (red is an auspicious and lucky color)." Inspired, I asked Edna to share with all of us how she prepares that cake for the travel ahead, as well as tips and suggestions for mailing food overseas. Here are her tips:
- Bake baby Bundts and miniature loaves, wrap them in clear treat bags and tie them with yellow or red-white-and-blue ribbons. They can be sent to each soldier/sailor/airman as individual snacks.
- I bake sheet cakes in Glad oven containers (available in 8-by 8-inch or 12- by 9-inch sizes). They are more sturdy, airtight and stackable than foil baking pans. Plus, the troops can mail back the empty containers for refills!
- Unfortunately, in my experience, frosted cakes don't arrive well to their destination. So I have sent store-bought frostings along with plastic knives for the troops to spread on the sheet cakes themselves. I've also sent colorful non-pareils in mini-zipper lock bags so they can sprinkle them on the frosting.
- Birthday in a box. These instant party packs include the cake, frosting, and decorations, as well as birthday candles, paper plates, napkins, birthday cone hats and party blowers. And I've bought little banners and streamers that the birthday soldier/sailor/airman can use to decorate his or her bunk or locker area. These are recyclable, so the next person celebrating a birthday gets to use the decorations, too. Make everything as convenient and disposable as possible for the troops.
- Flat boxes marked with "this side up" and "fragile" work well.Fill with popcorn stuffing or bubble wrap to help cushion the treats for the troops.Sometimes frozen icepacks wrapped in old towels and placed in plastic bags will help keep the box cool for a while. (I haven't tried using the insulated bags yet.)
- Check with the post office for sending liquids and perishable items. Cakes and cookies are okay. Customs forms need to be filled out. Send the food priority mail.(When I mailed treats for the troops from Illinois to Kuwait in December, it took more than three weeks during the Christmas rush. So far, it has taken about one and a half weeks for packages to get to the Middle East.)
More treats for the troops? If you've got more ideas on how to bake and ship goodies to the U.S. troops, please send them to anne@cakemixdoctor.com—and as always, we love photos!
Wedding Cake Wonders
The emails from frantic moms are already arriving. They plan on baking their daughters' wedding cake in the next few months. Any suggestions, they ask? Thanks to so many of you who shared your wedding cake ideas when I asked for Wedding Cake Wonders last fall. Here they are.
Our shipping expert Edna Bautista of Illinois has made groom's and anniversary cakes using my Black Russian, Chocolate Kahlua, German Chocolate and Darn Good Chocolate Cake, she says. She admits to getting nervous working with chocolate when the weather is warm. So she refrigerates the cakes, places them in a large box that fits the base of the cake but high enough that she can tape ice packs on the sides to keep the inside of the box cool. For especially moist cakes, she adds liqueurs to the batter. And she enjoys dressing up her cakes:
"My cakes aren't the prettiest, but I learned that it's the way you dress them up that really enhances them. Put them on pedestals, add silk flowers and greenery on the base, and top with decorations and candles or fruit," says Edna. "The cake is not only a dessert but a centerpiece!"
Check out some of Edna's creations.
Georgia D. of Orlando, FL, offered to bake a wedding cake for her older brother and his bride. Here's how that gorgeous cake unfolded:
"As we began to discuss the cake, his bride said their wedding was going to be a bit non-traditional and she had a picture of a cake she liked. When I received the picture, it included brown flowers, and she told me in a previous conversation that she also wanted white calla lilies and lime green along with the brown on the cake. The inside of the cake was up to me. With much planning ahead, I made white calla lilies out of gum paste and brown chrysanthemums out of royal icing. And I had her purchase 1-inch ribbon in the shade of lime green that would match her wedding colors."
Georgia chose the Apricot Nectar Cake from my first book, The Cake Mix Doctor, and here is how she assembled it:
"I prepared two each of the 10-inch, 8-inch, and 6-inch round cakes. I used peach gelatin instead of the orange. I split and filled each set of cakes with the Apricot Buttercream (page 419) using apricot nectar to flavor the frosting." The largest cake was placed on a wooden cake board covered in silver paper, and after the two frosted and fondant-covered smaller cakes were placed on cake rounds, they were stacked one onto the other using dowel rods. She held the lime ribbon in place with buttercream frosting, and decorated the tops and sides of the cake with frosting, calla lilies, and chrysanthemums. Wow.
Gloria Ayars has been decorating cakes for more than 30 years, and she most often uses
the basic white and buttermilk devil's food cake recipes from my first and second books. Her advice is to watch the baking time carefully and not overbake the cakes. You want them to be moist!
Kim Woods of Amory, MS, recommends frosting groom's cakes with the Fluffy Chocolate Frosting from my books. She uses less cocoa in the frosting, but in the frosting that is piped on for decoration she uses a little more cocoa so that it appears darker and contrasts nicely with the frosting on the cake.
Chocolate seems to be a favorite flavor for groom's cakes, for it makes a nice visual partner for the typically white wedding cake. Jessica Brown recently turned my German chocolate recipe into a golf groom's cake for her sister's wedding. The golf clubs were cookies on cookie-pop sticks, covered in a grey fondant. She made a golf ball out of green fondant, and added dimples to the ball with a dental tool. "Dad came up with the idea for the sand trap, hole marker, and to have grass covering the ball." And what did it taste like? "The groom's cake was devoured soon after the newlyweds cut the cake. My sister was upset because neither she nor her husband got a piece of cake."
Both groom's and wedding cakes are what Dottie Brown of Columbus, OH, specializes in, and she has been most successful at adapting various Cake Mix Doctor recipes for her business, Cake Dot's Wedding Cakes. She makes Almond Cream Cheese, Italian Cream, Pina Colada, Fuzzy Navel, and Darn Good Chocolate cakes into magnificent wedding creations. Check out her Web site for ideas on just how glorious good cake can appear.
And finally, Jill Keppeler of Buffalo, NY, baked a cake for a cake-decorating class exam last year, and she says it would be a perfect wedding cake. She used the Chocolate Midnight Cake recipe from my Chocolate book with buttercream frosting. Her advice is to prepare the pans properly. "Nothing is quite as depressing as trying to remove the special cake you are making for someone and having globs of cake left on the inside of the pan." (Jill doesn't say what she uses, but I'll recommend vegetable shortening and flour.) And she says to not be afraid to bake a cake in a different size pan. Just keep the oven light on and watch the cake as it bakes. (I'll add that any layers larger than 9 inches across need to be baked at 325 degrees.)
On the charts: I found an excellent cake baking chart online that should help those of you wanting to bake my cakes in larger pans. Go to http://www.wilton.com and click on the Wedding Cake Data chart. You will find the amount of servings, cups of batter, right baking temperature, baking time, and amount of frosting needed for all sorts of round, sheet, square, heart, petal, hexagon, and oval pans.
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Recipe Swap
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The Best Birthday Cupcakes with Two Frostings
(from the soon to be released Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor) |
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This cupcake is featured on the cover of Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor. It is sturdy and inviting. Delicious on its own, it is wonderful spread with a lip-smacking-good creamy chocolate frosting made with the birthday boy or girl's favorite chocolate syrup. Should your child tend to favor pastels, or if it is springtime, opt for a cream cheese frosting crammed with fresh berries. Either way, you can't lose. And, happy birthday!
Makes 22 to 24 cupcakes (2 1/2 inches each)
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 24 to 27 minutes
Assembly time: 10 minutes
24 paper liners for cupcake pans (2 1/2-inch size)
1 package (18.5 ounces) plain butter recipe golden cake mix
1 package (8 ounces) reduced-fat cream cheese, at room temperature (see "The Cupcake Doctor says")
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Chocolate Syrup Frosting or Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Colored sprinkles or candy cake docorations, for garnish
Birthday candle and candle holder
1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 cupcake cups with paper liners. Set the pans aside.
2. Place the cake mix, cream cheese, sugar, oil, water, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend on low speed with an electric mixer for 30 seconds, until the ingredients are well blended, then stop the machine and scrape down the sides. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed. The batter should be smooth and thickened. Spoon or scoop 1/4 cup batter into each lined muffin cup, filling it two-thirds of the way full. (You will get between 22 and 24 cupcakes; remove the empty liners, if any.) Place the pans in the oven.
3. Bake the cupcakes until they are lightly golden and spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 24 to 27 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 5 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edges of the cupcake liners, lift the cupcakes up from the bottoms of the cups using the end of the knife, and pick them out of the cups carefully with your fingertips. Place them on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes before frosting.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the Chocolate Syrup Frosting or the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting.
5. Place a heaping tablespoon of frosting on each cupcake and swirl to spread it out with a short metal spatula or spoon, taking care to cover the tops completely. Sprinkle the sprinkles over the frosting and place a birthday candle in a candle holder in a cupcake for the birthday boy or girl. (If using the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting, place the cupcakes, uncovered or in a cake saver, in the refrigerator until the frosting sets, 20 minutes.) The cupcakes are ready to serve.
Store either the strawberry-frosted cupcakes or the chocolate frosted cupcakes, in a cake saver or under a glass dome, at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Or freeze them, wrapped in aluminum foil or in a cake saver for up to 6 months. Thaw the cupcakes overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
The Cupcake Doctor says: Be sure that the cream cheese has softened to room temperature before you begin blending it into the cake mix. If it's not soft, unwrap it and place it on a microwave-safe plate. Place it in the microwave oven on high power for 20 seconds or until soft, repeating for another 10 seconds more if needed. Have fun selecting the candle, as there are so many choices these days. Look for a bright neon color or a wavy candle.
Chocolate Syrup Frosting
Makes 3 1/2 cups, enough to generously frost 24 cupcakes (2 1/2-inch size)
Preparation time: 10 minutes
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup chocolate syrup
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1. Place the butter, cocoa powder, and chocolate syrup in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until just combined, 30 seconds. Stop the machine and add the sugar, milk, and vanilla. Blend with the mixer on low speed until the sugar is incorporated, 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 1 minute more.
2. Use this frosting to frost the Best Birthday Cupcakes or the cupcakes of your choice.
The Cupcake Doctor says: This recipe is looser textured than some of
the other buttercream frostings because of the chocolate syrup. Be sure that you measure the confectioners' sugar first, then sift it so that you have enough sugar in this recipe.
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes 3 cups, enough to generously frost 24 cupcakes (2 1/2-inch size)
Preparation time: 10 minutes
1 package (8 ounces) reduced-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, at room temperature
3 to 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 cup mashed, drained, fresh strawberries (see "The Cupcake Doctor says")
1. Place the cream cheese and butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until combined, 30 seconds. Stop the machine. Add 3 cups of the confectioners' sugar and the drained strawberries. Blend the frosting on low until the sugar is incorporated, 1 minute. Increase the mixer speed to medium and blend the frosting until fluffy, 30 to 45 seconds longer. Add more sugar as needed to stiffen the frosting for spreading.
2. Use this frosting to frost the Pretty in Pink Strawberry Cupcakes, the Best Birthday Cupcakes, or the cupcakes of your choice.
The Cupcake Doctor says: It takes about 3/4 cup rinsed, well drained, and capped strawberries to make 1/2 cup mashed. Take care to drain out as much juice as you can and reserve this. If you need liquid to pull the frosting together, add a dribble of the fresh reserved juice.
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Do Share
Spring Bake Sale: We've been through cold weather before, and we know warm weather will follow, but when? Until it arrives, let's turn our thoughts to warmer months and bake sales. If you've been baking and selling cakes and other goodies in your community to benefit the tsunami relief in Southeast Asia, or to help a charity in your area, send suggestions for your top sellers with Spring Bake Sale in the subject line to me: anne@cakemixdoctor.com
We'll share thoughts, ideas, and possibly recipes, just as we have with the wedding cake ideas this month.
Trish Gaskin of Sarasota, FL, writes that her grandmother in Ohio used to make a cherry chip angel food cake for her birthdays in the 1950s and 60s. She thinks it began with a mix. And, her grandmother made a frosting called Cherry Fluff. Does anyone have these recipes? Anything close? "Any suggestions are welcome," says Trish. Please send them to anne@cakemixdoctor.com
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Next Issue: April 2005
Spring bake sales. Cupcakes on the road.
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