Sweet of the Week #15, What’s New Cupcake? Cupcakes and Sugar Cookies

(This post grew quite long.  It contains 3 recipes that are related to each other, the story of my first food competition and meeting two of my cupcakes heroes. So much for brevity!)

While at the Giada De Laurentiis book signing hosted by Rainy Day Books (more on this later), I received a flyer about a cupcake workshop and book signing with Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, authors of one of the first cupcake cookbooks I ever bought, Hello, Cupcake!  The flipside of the flyer said there would also be a cupcake competition with creativity being the key.  Hmm….what to do?  Well, it was time to bake up, time to enter my first food competition!  BTFU, if you will.  Oh, I need that on a shirt!

But here’s the thing…I adore Hello, Cupcake! and What’s New Cupcake? because of their focus on decorating cupcakes, because of their quirky and whimsical style decorating cupcakes.  They are very upfront in their use of boxed cake mix and canned frosting.  Me, on the other hand, well…I rarely use a mix and my creativity comes from the use of alternative ingredients.  My frosting is made with local butter, not from a can.  And then there’s that whole lack of gluten thing. I am more likely to use flour made with rice or coconut than wheat.  I avoid artificial flavorings as often as I can, I tend to focus more on natural, full flavor than appearance.  This would be a challenge.

So I decided I would compete.  Then I said I totally would not.  Then I said I would.  My friends were surely tiring of me bouncing ideas off of them in the two days it took me to figure out what I was going to do.  A plan was finally decided over lunch at Crepes on the Square.  I put every cupcake cookbook I own into a bag (a rather large bag it was) and met Em on a warm, sunny day.  We sat at one of the outdoor tables for a long time pouring over recipes and decorating ideas before it finally became clear that I was attempting to emulate someone else’s style in my entry instead of just being true to what I know.

What I know is how to make cupcakes with a gluten-free mix using the amazing sodas from Soda Vie.  What I know is how to make delicious gluten-free sugar cookies.  What I know is where to get any shape cookie cutter I have ever needed by driving across my tiny suburb.  And that’s what I did. But it took me a couple of days to figure out how to mesh what I usually do with what Karen Tack & Alan Richardson present in their books.  That ultimately meant I would use a mix like they do, but add my own twist by making it gluten-free and using local ingredients where I could.

My entry included Strawberry Mint Cupcakes with strawberry frosting topped with a strawberry and a candied mint leaf and Mojito Cupcakes with mint frosting topped with Daisy Cookie Pops.  I made cupcake wrappers using a template from Skip to My Lou and displayed them on a cupcake tray I bought at Sprinkles either in Dallas or Beverly Hills.  I can’t remember which location I bought it at, just that I had trouble stuffing it into a suitcase to get it back to  KC. I remember being convinced I needed that cupcake tray, yet this was the first time I had ever used it. See, I really did need it!

Here are the recipes:

Strawberry Mint Cupcakes

One Betty Crocker white gluten-free cake mix
1 egg white
8 oz. Strawberry Mint Soda Vie soda
1/2 cup chopped fresh strawberries
(if using a regular, not a gluten-free cake mix, you may be able to eliminate the egg white)

Mix those four ingredients together, use the batter to fill 12 cupcake wrappers.  Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.

I used my standard buttercream frosting recipe with the addition of 2 Tablespoons of Soda Vie’s Strawberry Mint soda instead of milk and 1 Tablespoon of Strawberry extract instead of vanilla bean paste. I didn’t add additional coloring, the extract provided enough of a pink tint for me.

To make the candied mint leaves, I used my index finger to lightly brush each side of the mint leaf with egg wash and then sifted extra fine granulated sugar over the leaf.  Let them dry on a cooling rack covered with wax paper for at least 3 hours.  I can’t wait to try these as a garnish to a cold beverage!

Mojito Cupcakes
One Betty Crocker white gluten-free cake mix
1 egg white
8 oz. Mojito Soda Vie soda
(if using a regular, not a gluten-free cake mix, you may be able to eliminate the egg white)

Mix those four ingredients together, use the batter to fill 12 cupcake wrappers.  Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.

I used my standard buttercream frosting recipe with the addition of 2 Tablespoons of Soda Vie’s Mojito soda instead of milk and 1 Tablespoon of finely chopped fresh mint instead of vanilla bean paste.  If I were to make these again, I would back off a bit on the mint.  There were very um….minty fresh.  To frost these cupcakes, I used a large star tip.  It didn’t give that the stringy grass look, but I liked how they turned out.  I added a couple drops of green food coloring, but not too much.  The frosting looked slightly green just with the addition of the mint.

To top the Mojito cupcakes, I made gluten-free sugar cookie pops which were inspired by the ones in the What’s New Cupcake? cookbook. I first tried making sugar cookies last Christmas and after five different recipes/failures, I have come up with a gluten-free sugar cookie recipe that is preferred to any other I have ever tried.  This may be my favorite gluten-free recipe that I have shared with you.  These cookies retain the shape of the cookie cutter, no spreading or misshapen cookies.  Plus it’s delicious.  Seriously delicious.

First, before the recipe, here’s the deal with making the cookie pops.  Get yourself some cookie sticks or use wooden kabob skewers.  Leave the cookie dough thick when you roll it out, almost 1/2″ thick.  Insert the stick prior to baking and insert it into the middle of the dough, not too low so that it will show thru on the back after baking.  This leads to spinning cookies or cookies that break when you lift them off of the cookie sheet.  Voice of experience…

Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies
2 cups white rice flour
2 cups brown rice flour
1 1/3 cups potato starch (not potato flour)
2/3 cup tapioca starch
1 T. guar gum
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
2 cups butter or Earth Balance (4 sticks)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla

Cream sugar and butter until fluffy using an electric mixer, about 3 or 4 minutes.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix dry ingredients separately, adding to the butter mixture one cup at a time.  mix well.

Split the dough into two equal parts.  Place one part on top of a piece of plastic wrap and flatten into a disc.  Place another piece of plastic wrap on top, roll the edges up and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.  Repeat with other half of dough.  Instead of turning the dough out onto a floured surface, you can now roll it out between the pieces of plastic wrap and not add any additional flour to the already-perfect dough!

Cut the cookies out and bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes.  If you use this recipe with a standard thin cookie, it only takes 8 to 10 minutes to bake but since we are making cookie pops, they will be thick and require a few more minutes in the oven.  Make sure you insert the cookie pop stick before baking.

Here’s a tip for cutout cookies:  If you are using a cookie cutter shape that is difficult to cut and then move to the cookie sheet, roll your dough out directly on the cookie sheet, then remove the excess from around the cookie shape.  No more moving the cookies to get them to the sheet.  (Obviously you can’t use this technique and the plastic wrap technique together.)

To frost the cookies, I used this royal icing recipe.  I use a number 2 Wilton icing tip to create the outline with a thick mix of the frosting, then use a larger open tip with a thinned frosting to fill in between the lines.  Martha Stewart has a really good video explaining the flooding frosting technique on the same page as the recipe.

I was nervous to take my entry to the cupcake workshop, but was warmly greeted by the always-awesome staff at the Webster House.  (I had lunch at the Webster House the same day and the chef prepared one of the best gluten-free vegetarian meals I have ever had.  Yes, all it takes is Brussels sprouts to make me grin, but he really went overboard creating a gorgeous dish for me.) One other cupcake entry was already on display, this amazing sushi grouping, and I hoped there would be many others.  Alas, there would not be any other entries but there were nearly a dozen incredible design ideas shared by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.  The workshop was so packed full of ideas that my head is still spinning.  I will never look at the candy aisle the same way again–because who knew circus peanuts could be turned into a koi fish on top of a cupcake?

This week’s Sweet Friends are Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.  Perhaps this is a stretch of the definition of friend, but this week I shared my sweets with two of my cupcake heroes.  Instead of feeling like my baking and decorating skills were lesser, I was warmly welcomed by two very kind souls who truly adore cupcakes as much as I do, even if not for exactly the same reasons.  After the workshop, we were comparing ingredients, talking about local candies, sharing sources for ingredients and accessories. It was an easy conversation between baking friends.  From them, I learned  I want to find more balance between flavor and appearance, that the two are not exclusive of each other.  I am inspired by them to create more visually appealing cupcakes that are also tasty and gluten-free! I am in awe of how absolutely kind they both are, how easy and approachable they made the art of cupcake decorating for everyone attending the workshop.  If there were such a thing as Ambassadors of the Cupcake Kingdom, Karen and Alan deserve the title.

And about that baking competition…both of us girls who were brave enough to enter received lovely prize packages.  I got a gift certificate to the Webster House, Ziploc bags, vanilla extract, a box of the crazy new neon food coloring and some of those snazzy new cupcake wrappers that are foiled lined so the pretty paper stays pretty even after it is filled with batter.  The wrappers I won were green with a daisy imprint, perfectly matching my contest entry. I guess now I am award-winning baker, or prize-winning or something.  I’m not sure what to call it, except a really great experience. Here’s a link to Karen and Alan’s blog entry featuring my contest entry.

In closing, here are a few photos of the cupcake designs demonstrated in the workshop.  I adore the yellow duck cupcakes because the head is actually a donut hole.  Ah, two of my favorites together, cupcakes and donuts!