now, i am not the competitive type. i would never last five minutes on masterchef because i would be far too interested and excited by what everyone else was doing to focus on trying to trash the competition. but if you throw in the opportunity to eat lots of cake, drink lots of wine, and spend an evening talking to people as interested in baking as i am, well, you've got yourself a competitor. throw in the fact i'm always moaning about there being fuck all to do in northampton, and it becomes very clear as to why i always make sure to get off my arse and do something whenever i am able to attend the monthly iron cupcake competition, at the nook arts cafe in northampton's fishmarket gallery.
anyway, the rules of an iron cupcake are very simple. there is a theme, which you can interpret in any way you see fit. you must make twelve cupcakes (so everyone can try some), and other than doing your utmost to make sure your cupcakes also look and taste lovely, that's basically it. there are prizes for first, second, and third place, and as much tea and/or coffee as you can drink (or, if you're anything like me, an admirably stocked bar that is open for business). you try all the cupcakes, and vote for your favourite three. basically, it's a recipe for an enjoyable sugar rush of an evening.
the theme this month was fine art cupcakes. i have to admit, it left me a little bit stumped. in terms of the visual arts world i'm a little bit of an uncultured swine, having succumbed to the love of the written word at an age early enough to ensure my head's been in a book that doesn't contain pictures for most of my adult life. so it took me ages to come up with anything approaching an idea coherent to the theme. this may also have had something to do with the fact i also like the flavours i include in my cupcake to be coherent with the idea i have chosen to work with. it isn't really enough for something to look cool for me; it has to taste amazing too. i eventually settled on frida kahlo as my inspiration, although i have to admit i played pretty fast and loose with it; citing her preoccupation with mexicana as my visual inspiration, and drawing my flavour ideas from that, settling on a chilli chocolate and dulce de leche combo.
so, let's get onto the constructing of my little beauties (which basically took an afternoon):
dulce de leche
right, first thing's first, you need to get your dulce de leche on the go, because this takes a long-ass time to make, even if it is a fairly hands-off job. all you need for this is a tin of condensed milk. there are quite a few ways to make it, but honestly, i choose the wimpy way, being quite afraid of either trashing the kitchen or ending up with some hardcore caramel burns. i use a tin opener to poke two holes in the tin at the top, and set it in a very large saucepan, which i fill up with water almost to the top of the tin. the water needs to be boiling gently for 2-3 hours, topped up regularly so that it doesn't boil dry. then you leave it to cool a little, pour out the contents of the tin into a bowl, and stir it all up til you get something that looks like this, which you leave to cool:
trying to avoid eating it with a spoon as it is is the hard part here people, trust me.
since your dulce de leche will happily putter away on the stove doing its thing with minimal demand on your attention, you can use this time to crack on with everything else. now, for the actual cake part of my cupcake i played it pretty simple. i knew it would have to play merely a supporting role to the dulce de leche and ganache combo i was planning, so i reached for the turquoise covered beginner's coobook by rosemary wadey that belonged to my mother, that i have been making sponge cakes from since i was tall enough to reach the kitchen counter stood on a chair. in hindsight i probably would have ramped up the levels of cocoa in the sponge to make the cake slightly more bitter and intense, but at the time i was on the autopilot the recipe sends me into. so here is your basic go-to chocolate sponge recipe, and it makes a few more than twelve which gives you leeway for mistakes:
basic chocolate sponge recipe
150g butter
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
125g self raising flour
25g cocoa
vanilla essence
few tablespoonfuls of milk
preheat the oven to 190 degrees c. put the butter and sugar into a large bowl and cream together untl the mixture is light and fluffy.
beat in the vanilla essence, and the eggs, one at a time, followed by a tablespoon of the flour to stabilize the mixture.
sift the remaining flour and cocoa, and fold into the mixture lightly. loosen the mixture to a soft dropping consistency with a little milk.
spoon into a 12-hole muffin tin lined with cases, and bake for about 10-15 minutes. you'll have enough to do an extra half batch or so. perfect if you worry about fuck ups the way i do.
and it's as easy as that. i didn't bother taking a picture here because you all know what chocolate sponge cakes look like, and it's not like i could take an awesome photo of them that you'd all be amazed by, so who cares right? anyway, with my cakes cooling and my dulce de leche still doing it's thing, i got on with my icing:
chilli chocolate ganache
okay, so i love ganache. i love it so much i'd find any excuse to make it, and i consequently pretty much autopilot it whenever i do these days. to start this chilli one i put two dried red chillies and a cinnamon stick in a saucepan with 250ml, or thereabouts, of double cream. on a low heat i bought it almost to the boil, then took it off the heat and left it to infuse for about a half hour. i fished out the chillies and cinnamon, broke up about 250g of the darkest chocolate i could get my hands on (ordinarily i'd choose green and blacks, but lindt's 85 percent was packing the biggest heat at my hideously huge local supermarket, so i went with that) and added it to the pan, along with a small knob of butter (just whatever i chipped off with a teaspoon. i bunged the pan back on the heat, stirring continuously until i got myself a sleek glossy dark brown situation going on. if i'd have wanted something semi-solid, like truffles, or an icing with structure and bite, i'd have left it there, but i was in the mood for something a bit lighter in texture, so i let it cool a little in a bowl, then whipped it a couple of shades lighter in colour and texture. i also let it cool at room temperature, as this gives a softer set to play with, like so:
and now we come on to assembly, folks. there are many ways to fill a cupcake, but to those of us not in possession of a piping bag, the options are limited. i should probably get one at some point, but why do things properly when you can botch them together like i do? while i love cooking i absolutely detest kitchen gadgets, not to mention kitchen gadget people. it's probably down to spending my formative years in a suburban housing estate that makes stepford look rough, but if i go round someone's house and they want to show me their new cherry stoner or milk frother? well ladies and gentlemen, the friendship is over. if i ever start talking to you about a new blender or something, this is me giving you permission to stick my hand in it. anyway, tangent. what do you do if you're filling cupcakes sans unnecessary equipment? fall back on the old butterfly method. with a small sharp knife cut out as deep a cone as you can from the top of the cake. fill the hole with dulce de leche, a la:
cut off the pointed end of the cone, and stick your cake top back on, like so:
(you might notice a touch of ooze there, but these badboys are getting iced, so who gives a fuck?). what comes next? ganache icing, obviously. and then (and this is where i always reveal my icarus tendencies in cake decorating) fondant icing decorations.
i made up a basic fondant icing, (which is just eggwhite, icing sugar, and liquid glucose; my proportions on it being 450g sugar and 50g glucose to every one white, although it varies depending on who you talk to) and i made some sugar skulls (which looked amateur but not horrendous):
and some cacti complete with cactus roses (which were epic fail, and also sort of melted in the car ride over):
presentation is never, ever my strong point. ever. and never has it been more clear than here. but i usually pull back a lot of votes on my taste points at an iron cupcake, and i have to say this time it was no different.
ladies and gentlemen, i, according officially to the photo album on facebook, was a whisker away from placing. i'll take that to mean fourth, and be damn proud of it given a) my hilarious decoration attempts, and b) the fact that the winning three lots of cakes were so ridiculously amazing. i got some pictures to show you of the winners from the official facebook gallery; not that i need to tell you these pictures aren't mine, because you can actually see what they're of.
i mean, this is number three; a totally beautiful gustav klimt themed set of cakes that was cinnamony and chestnutty and let's be frank here, downright stunning to look at as well. they were made by a lovely lady called gabi who i was sat with, who definitely seemed to be my partner in crime in the 'let's get more cake' stakes:
number two were these stunning 'monet's garden' cakes by a lady called caro, which, although you can't really tell from the picture, were also amazingly sparkly. they were apple and maple, which pleased me, as i'm a bit of a sucker for maple syrup, and i counted them as one of my five a day along with the grapes in my wine:
and number one, which actually were my favourite cakes of the evening, were these super yellow andy warhol's banana cakes, made by another lady i had the privilege of being at table with called polly. i voted these top place, because the icing was totally fucking awesome. it tasted like those foam banana sweets i'm not allowed to eat anymore cos they have gelatine in, so i got really excited and ate a whole other one after i'd finished tasting all 10+ cakes that were in the competition. i found out later from polly that she used banana milkshake to flavour the icing, which made me like them even more, cos while she was angsting on an aesthetic level about her cakes, she used a 'pop' food substance in 'em, which i think the man himself would have been proud of (don't know if you've noticed, but my degree has bent my brain into thinking that incorporating ideas about art into technique is the best thing ever)
anyway, i don't feel i've sullied pot tossery's name conceding to these brilliant art cakes, but i will definitely be back for the next round, in which the theme is 'cupcakes in disguise'. i already have what i think might be a brilliant idea. who's coming with me??
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