Constructing the Hipster Cupcake

Hipster, noun/adjective- A subculture of generally younger middle class urban adults characterized by independent thinking, progressive politics, embracement of Indie music and Art, and health conscience pan-global dining habits. In “poser” circles it has come to be a pretentious Starbucks swilling, Urban outfit wearing group of upper middle class “artsy” clique of kids that eat healthy in order to say that they eat healthy. Such is the fate of being hip, once too many people jump on the bandwagon the wheels stop spinning and it becomes just another faux trend. But for the sake of the few true hipsters, and for the sake of my self serving post I will focus on the hip new eating trends of new and healthy foods as they apply to the construction of my hipster cupcake.
I have a burning need to constantly challenge myself culinarilly and since I have turned my sights to becoming one of the worlds best cupcake engineers I decided to create the ultimate “Today” cupcake. The Hipster cupcake. A cupcake that will be talked about on pod casts and will “blow their wings.” A cupcake that delights the “crumb crushers“, is “totally mezz and copasetic” and won’t cost over a “nickel note.” That my unhip friends would be “off the cob,” and not worth the “tar under your ground grippers.” But at my age how does one relate to a hipster? Hip I was many years ago but it’s a different world, different culture today. In my era to be hip you needed only know the latest rock band, the ground shearing word twisting folkies, and only smoke the best pot around. No dirt weed for a hipster, only gold or red grass, or when available hash. And if you were fortunate enough to smoke hash it was important where it came from. Don’t be puffing any domestic shit, only the good shit from Lebanon and Afghanistan. That’s where they used real camel or emu shit to bind it The pipe of choice was important too. Any old hitter could smoke from a chamber pipe, but a hipster used pipes like Chillums, un upright funnel pipe from India , or a meerschaum, a soapstone Turkish sailor pipe that colored with age. Today to be hip its more about listening to Indie bands with foreign names (complete with accent) or hip names like The bright Orange Overall Sunslingers. You need to be self aware and self assured and dress that way. You know, that unique style everyone wears, scarves, sunglasses, any inappropriate footwear, (boots when sneakers should be worn and vice versa). They eat things like tofu, or veggie burgers and spice it up with sauces like Sirachi or Harrissa. Essentially you need to appear to be completely different while fitting into the mainstream culture of being aware. So this is no simple challenge I give myself. My first step was research.
The best place to study the habits of a hipster is while they are engaging in social activity. Facebook is out because its been taken over by the mainstream, including dinosaurs like myself. Using the younger social interest sties will make look and feel like a stalker, and probably end up getting me on a pervert list. So I was left with scouring through the blogosphere in search of what a hipster is. Here then is some of what I learned about the young hipsters. Back in my day the cliché pick up line was “what’s your sign?”, an allusion to the fact that horoscopes and the zodiac were very “in”. It worked really good if the other person was so drunk he or she didn’t care what you were saying. Many of us used it anyway because frankly we lacked the self confidence to engage in meaningful conversation. The line was used mostly by Scorpios, Taurans, and Leo’s, but that’s a generalization isn’t it? Today it seems the hipster culture centers more around how young kids perceive health and well being and not so much on astrologic categorizations.. Nothing spotlights how hip a hipster is as by loudly proclaiming (to anyone and everyone) that “I’m a vegan” while slurping down a small glass of organic tigers milk. What bands do you like has been replaced with which type of yoga do you practice. Really, what type? Well shit, there is Anusara, Bikram, Hatha, Kripalu, and Lynegar just to name a few. Yoga poses like downward dog, upward frog, cobra, tree, camel, and Lord of the Dance. TMI to need to have to conversate about, but luckily for the kids they can just reach into their pocket, take out their phones, and Google it. Not so easy being a hipster, is it?
But back to the cupcake. Nothing can be more hip than being the first to know the next trend as its happening. Food trends can be overwhelming sometimes. It gets really hard to keep up with new products and the benefit claims. Foods or food supplements that will strengthen your organs, build your bones, shred the fat from your body and of course, a plethora of things to enhance the sexual appetite an stamina. They’re popping up like cornstalks in a cornfield. So before I can create a health maximizing hipster cupcake let me sort through some of the new additions to the already saturated, or should I say poly unsaturated market of “health” foods.
To begin I am assuming the liberty afforded the scribe of setting my own parameters of what does or does not constitute a health oriented hipster cupcake. Otherwise I jut may end up going off on such a far out tangent that we’ll need to create a new and even more pretentious category of eager diners. I will be looking new and hip foods that are not only organic and free (or low) of additives and preservative, but also high in fiber, anti-oxidants, amino acids, omega acids, and vitamins, yet low in bad cholesterol, sodium, and sugars. As of right now, all I have is a Fava bean flour cupcake stuffed with soy bean curd and topped with pureed carrot icing . As tasty as that may sound, I promise you it will never be sold at Jarets Stuffed Cupcakes. But you have to start somewhere. Now lets find some more pleasing options.
First the cupcake itself. A mixture of flours is in order as the bleached flours of yesterday are laced with the evil destroyer, gluten. Without getting to technical gluten is a protein if things like flour that add a “glue” like te3xture to a product. That’s what allows hot air to stretch a dough during cooking to give breads and the like a porous favorable product. But the cupcake doesn’t rely on yeast to create the air so we have some latitude. I will use almond flour, combined with a little rice flour, organic eggs, and hemp milk (that’s right, not just a cool name its high in omega 3 and 6!)…Sweetened up with stevia and fructose, and leavened with xanthium gum. Add some ground Dutch chocolate cocoa and viola, a hip chocolate cupcake.
Now to stuff it.
Normally I stuff my cupcakes with a variety of custards, mousses, jams, and fruit purees, but as yet I haven’t used tapioca. That would be the hip thing to do, so I made some raspberry tapioca an allowed it to cool. Cool, get it? Anyway, now we have the base. A hip chocolate cupcake stuffed with raspberry tapioca that is begging for a complimentary topping. What could possibly be more hip than a Greek yogurt icing? So there it is, some pomegranate Greek yogurt, a little grenadine syrup, and a touch of powdered sugar. It may not be the number one seller here at Jarets Stuffed Cupcakes, but nary a true hipster around could deny its authenticity…….Peace