Tag: cakes

Jewels Hollandaise Sauce, The Happy Culinarian

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jewels

Jewels Hollandaise Sauce here on Foodie Channel Network with my new show, The Happy Culinarian (THC). Today I am interviewing the once rising star in the cake industry, Bae King Powder, who just recently wrote his tell all culinary confesional book, “Batter Up, The Rise and Fall of A Cupcake Empire.” Welcome to the show Mr. Powder. Let me begin with the scandel you recently found yourself in with the purchase of illegal products that authorities gave you such sought after top shelf cupcakes. How did it all go down, what toppled your empire?

BKP… Thanks for having me here Jewels, You’re a sharp interviewer, I see you like to get right to the point. Yes its true, I was busted, Leavening Agents took me from my bakery in handcuffs. Really no knead for that. But they had been watching my bakery for quite a while. Apparently some of my shcmuck competitors tipped them off I was using illegally obtained PH in my batter. The batter accusation hit me hard! They were way off base and it came out of left field. First let me go on the record, I had no idea PH from Thailand was illegal, and yes it’s true I used it. The cost of inflation was rising but my cupcakes weren’t. After the Cupcake Wars ended and it was revealed that no whip pans of mass induction were hidden in rebel bakeries. Aside from the politically aligned bakeries all cupcake makers were left flat, mine included. Mission Accomplished my ass!

JHS. Of course, we all remember the bad intel The Food Channel got from Halliburton Lard Distributors that lead to the Cupcake Wars but lets get back to you. As I remember it you claim you were targeted because of your sudden cupcake rise to fame. Exactly how did your cupcakes rise so much?

BKP. Well yea, my batter was much different than most other bakers. With high quality ingredients and hard work my cupcakes rose to near cult status, some even referring to them as ‘crack cupcakes’ because they were addictive. Most of those other shmucks were using short cuts. That’s the reason we rose, not because of some illegal powders in my recipe. I got a much fluffier and porous product and that made me a target. All my competitors wanted to see my cakes fall so they set me up. Just about everybody jumped on the Baking Soda bandwagon and that made their products all seem like cookie cutter copies of each others product. People couldn’t tell the difference between Crumbies, Mack Nola’s, or that new place, Two Broke Chicks. They all tasted the same, looked the same, nothing special. I tried to keep my secret ingredient under wraps like the sandwich industry, or like Coca Cola or any other product that wants to keep their secrets contained. The brand of PH I used was as much intellectual property as my recipes, I had no idea we had broken ties with the Thai’s on PH trade. I had agents dumpster diving on my property while my bakery was closed but that didn’t work so they snuck a mole into my kitchen. Once they had their mole in place they called the Health Department. Shut me down because of a blind rodent that was planted in the plant! Mission Accopmplished my ass!

JHS. So after the clandestine garbage hunting failed they snuck a mole on your property then called the Health department? That’s a serious allegation Bae.

BKP. Oh its more than an allegation Jewels, its an accusation. The other bakeries wanted me destroyed and they lobbied with the Cupcake Icing Agency as well as the Felonious Bakers Investigation pitting both the CIA and FBI against me. They sent Leavening Agents to me looking to get a rise out of me by offering me bribes. I had it on camera but the government had it erased. Of course now I can’t prove anything but if you really look at my pudding, you’ll find the truth there. That was my mission accomplished.

JHS. Proof in the pudding? Conspiracy by government officilals? I mean really Mr. Powder, you want us to believe that all these people conspired to bring your cupcakes down?

BKP. You can believe what you want but if you read my book I have no doubt you’ll see I speak the truth. No one is outside the reach of our government. My cupcakes got too big, rose too high and they didn’t like that, felt threatened. That’s what my book will tell you, all about the conspiracies that took the wind from my sales. If tearing down The Cupcake Dude was their mission, I suppose it was accomplished. But the Dude won’t go down without a fight, I’ll take my batter and come out swinging, slam them for a grand at least.

JHS. Okay Bae, THC wishes you good luck in your plight. Well you heard that folks, buy Bae King Powders new book, Batter up to find out the truth behind the conspiracies. I have to tell you Bae, I usually have my staph read these books for me but I actually read this book in two days. How you built the empire was riveting, I was fascinated the entire read. Not only by the conspiracy but by the whole story of your rise to cupcake stardom. One last thing before you go, what’s next for the Cupcake Dude?

BKP. First of all Jewels, my cupcakes will rise again, like The Phoenix. No breads, I don’t knead the dough, but I am working on a new line of alcohol based cupcakes and deep fried mini cupcakes. People today are all concerned about all the GMO crap so it’s a perfect time to sneak the fried foods craze on them. Also, suddenly half the world thinks it has gluten allergies so I’m developing a cupcake made exclusevily with edible plastics. My first attempt was a C4 cupcake which blew up in my face, but edible plastic is the next wave of the future. I’ll be launching a line of cupcakes with Polyunsaturated Urethane Styrene as well as a number of other substances people won’t even be able to pronounce. Plastics are the future and edible plastics will take over the entire culinary industry once everyone realizes what a brilliant concept filling people full of plastic pleasure truly is. Thanks for having me Jewels, and remember, Never Underestimate The Power Of A Cupcake….Peace

Where Has All The Flour Gone? (Dealing with post baking blues)

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where

Where has all the flour gone ,long time passing?
Where has all the flour gone, long time sifting?
Where have all my bakers gone
Scooped the bins everyone
Oh when will they ever learn
Oven makes the flour burn
(Pedro, Paula, and Marty, by bakers)

Finished the annual turkey an fixins, polished off all the Beaujolais Nouveau, had some leftovers, an checked the highlights from the traditional Thanksgiving sport, Mixed Martial Arts Shopping. Since Tueay morning we have been baking our asses off. Pumpkin breads, a variety of pies and cakes, a few thousand cupcakes and the list went on. A marathon of mixing, rolling, scaling, and baking for near about 38 of the 48 hours and now I’m exhausted. And I have post bakematic stress syndrome because all the flour bins and sugar bins have been depleted along with my spirit. The week before thanksgiving had me amped up with so much extra baking that I was on an adrenaline high. But now…..where has all the flour gone?

There’s a huge void in the cupcakery. True I can take a breath before getting re-stoked for the holiday rush still tom come but this day, this black Friday I a blue Friday for me. Bummed that the bakery looks like a war worn battlefield to organize fore the bake off for the holiday. The Hell with holiday, I’m gonna call it what it is for me, PC be damned. Getting ready for the Festivus rush! I should be happy because the airing of grievances, the feats of strength, and all the other peoples holiday rituals will be asking for more cupcakes an baked goods. But something’s wrong! No pumping, no jamming, no looking forward, the Thanksgiving rush has left not only me empty but the containers previously filled with that white powdery gluten riddled product. Where has all the flour gone?

I know, I know, careful what you wish for, when its slow I wish it was buy and when busy slow, and when its cold out I wish it was hot but when its hot and humid I wish it was….Not cold, Hell no! Maybe I wish it was cooler but nothing to do and cold weather sucks way more then too busy or too hot! So I’m miserable now. Not only a flourless kitchen but on top of all that it’s friggen cold as Hell. South Hell Pole to be accurate, which is so cold it makes a guy gonads hibernate in his intestines promising to return only once the heat gets turned on. South Hell Pole is that part of hell often refered to as “A special place in. There’s a special place in hell for him and that’s South Hell Pole. Oh yea it burns like a mother humper in regular hell, near unbearable heat every second of every day, but in South Hell Pole you shiver constantly until your goosebumps have goosebumps and every breath you inhale gives you brain freeze. That’s a special place! On the brighter side, there is flour there.
Therefore I will end all my bitching about how miserable I am and focus on how happy I’ll bee in the next few weeks when I’m sweating off my old ass while breaking in a new one in the kitchen that’s as hot as regular Hell. No more feeling sorry for myself, get up an fill those bins, get those pans ready, and get back to what I do best, baking. I am looking around my beat up kitchen with promise and hope as I head to the storeroom to grab a bag of …..wait…what? No more bags?
Oh woe is me, where has all the flour gone……PEACE

Cupcake Tops With Peeps?? Off With Their Heads

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Watch Me Pull An Easter Bunny Out Of My Hat

Another holiday another challenge. It doesn’t matter your culture, your religion, or your nationality, if it’s a holiday and your in the food business in any form, you need to know all about it. That’s how an existentialist baker ends up being challenged with tapping into the cultural aspects of holidays like the one facing me now, Easter. Yea, yea, yea, I get it. Palm Sunday Jesus came to town on his ass (I have to admit hearing this as a kid made me chuckle). Him and a dozen compadres ate together for the last time and it was a feast fit for a vampire. All body and blood. One of the twelve dudes dropped a dime on the J man and Roman guards whipped him and then crucified him. A few days later his ghost rose from the dead and they proclaimed it a holiday. Celebrating his death seems counter-intuitive but religious obsevervances have always befuddle me a bit.
No matter, I’m not making a cupcake that rises from the dead nor am I making one out of wafers or wine. I am tapping in to the cultural aspects of Eater. The happy stuff, like the candy part. So what do I have to work with? Chocolate bunnies are too old school and besides, they already have a stronghold just being themselves. Jelly bean are a must, I can do something with those classic favorites. What else? Peeps! Now there a tradition worth raising some insulin levels over. A marshmallowy ball of cooked sugar coated in……more sugar of course. Only colored sugar.
Not just yellow anymore, these stretchy marshmallow treats shaped like little chicks come in array of color these days. Pink, Green, Blue, purple, and the old standby, yellow. And not just little chicks, these Easter basket must haves can be either a chick or a bunny. Gender appropriate candy, amazing how much we have evolved. Evolutionary advances aside, I plan to stick to the original. Well original shape anyway. So I’m set. I will use jelly beans for one and Peeps for the other.
Just making a jellybean cupcake or a marshmallow cupcake is not much of a challenge for The Existential Baker. I need to dig deep own into my creative culinary depths and so something different. So not cupcakes for this holiday, but Cake Sliders. Or maybe I’ll call them stuffed cupcake tops!? Elaine made it work with muffins on Seinfeld so WTH?
The first one will be Stuffed Jellybean Cupcake Tops. Now I am somewhat of a jellybean aficionado. Gourmet, No name, spiced, Jelly Belly, all brands, all types. I’ve tried them all. (with the exception of the jelly bean featured in Harry Potter. However, if they were available to me…..) But The Existential Baker can’t just make what he like best, I need to make what works the best for my cupcakateers. After careful sampling of a number of easily available jellybeans it hit me like a sugar rush. A stomach ache. After a few Zantacs and some Pepto, I went back to my notes and discovered that the winning bean contestant was the “LifeSaver” brand jellybeans. Why them? None of them singularly overpowers the others, the coloring and size is perfect, and the flavors blend effortlessly. Since there are apparently no beans left from the testing I went out and got ssome more.
My first attempt was a bit of a disaster. I placed some vanilla cake batter in the whoopee pans, topped them each in an artistically arranged collage of jellybeans and popped them in the oven. Cooking time is about 12 minutes so I checked them after about six. To my dismay the designs had sunk to the bottom and seemingly disappeared. No worries, I’ll flip them over when they finish and cool. Uh uh..No, no, no! Thee delectable cute innocent jellybeans refused to let go of pan. The cake part had no such attachment and instead of having my base I had to carefully clean the mess and start again.
Once bitten twice shy I settle on the same theme with a new approach. This time I filled the pans with vanilla cake batter and right into the oven. After six minutes I removed the pans, sprinkled them with jellybeans in a totally random pattern and back into the oven. It had to be done quickly and efficiently, and I felt like the Jason Bourne of cupcakery. Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum. The most perfect looking cupcake tops ever. Randomly arranged and barely beginning to show signs of melting they were a masterpiece. Now to cool and fill.
A variety of flavors began dancing in my mind. What best to fill these beauties? I settled on a strawberry custard and chopped up the remaining jellybeans and folded then inside. The result was a pleasing pastel pink custard dotted with an assortment of tiny bright-colored jellybean segments. I placed a scoop of the delish filling on top of half my cupcake tops, reserving the prettiest ones for the toppers. Another success for the EB’s guests at Jarets Stuffed Cupcakes this weekend. But I’m not done there, I need to do something with the Peeps.
“Peeps for my Peeps” cake sliders take center stage to the cupcake tops understudies. This time I used a heart shaped pan, because I love my peeps. Not the candy, my peeps. Yea, I have peeps! A few anyway. But I digest, lets move on. This was a bit more of a challenge for a few reasons. First those cute little chickies are hard to cut up, and if you put them in a bowl together they begin to re-knit into a glob of marshmallow madness. The other challenge was the presentation. What I wanted to do was top each heart shape slider with a head of the Peep. Just the head, the whole Peep would look messy. But will the EB look like a murdering marauder who hangs the heads of his prey like a trophy on the wall? A game hunter proudly displaying his kill for all to see atop a cake slider? Will it cause lasting scars on the hearts of my little peeps? Will my peeps children forever view me as the villain that slew packets upon packets of sugary chicks removing their heads? Profound quandary. I mean after all I am a lifelong pacifist. I admit to killing more than one lobster during my days of restaurant life. That lobster scream still ways on my conscience. But these Peeps are not and never have been alive. So I can move forward with eight inch chef knife in hand and remove the heads of my peeps. The candy, not the people.
There it is. Heart shaped chocolate and vanilla sliders waiting patiently to morph into a treat. I had reluctantly beheaded all the colored Peeps and set them aside. What to do with the bodies? Wrap them up in blankets and toss them in the sink? No, no way. I want the short temporary lives of those seasonal marshmallow favorites to mean something. So I cut them into pieces. This created another problem. As I mentioned they have an uncanny ability to reform into larger pieces of themselves in various shapes. My solution was to cut and mix in small batches using some marshmallow fluff to keep them bound . Success! Next I took said mixture of mallows and folded them into some vanilla mousses. The result was a bowl of marshmallow mouse dotted with pastel pieces of Peeps. A scoop on a heart shaped cake, topped with another heart happed cake, then adorned with a small dollop of buttercream. Then the prized peep head went on top. Cute, but I feel like they are all looking at me now. Menacingly!! How I suffer for my art!!
Happy whatever you celebrate. If you don’t celebrate any specific occasion, then Happy Life.. What better to celebrate than that???….Peace

Sins Not Tragedies

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What’s In A Name?

When I am at the bakery creating my edible poetry in the form of cupcakes they call me “The Cupcake Dude.” The name is indicative of what I appear to be. I am 6-4 and look like an overbearing biker dude, who actually did frighten many in my younger days. Just by the nature of that look. But that’s just a look, it’s not what I am. I have always worn my hair long (when I had it), I have tattoos, and I am a pretty large dude. But I’m a pussycat, a teddy bear of a dude. I am actually a lifelong pacifist and I’m a lover not a fighter. Basically I am way more harmless than my appearance.
Buddy the Cake Boss was doing a charity for epilepsy and asked me and Jarets Stuffed Cupcakes to join with five other bakeries to help raise money. Of course being a tree hugger and self proclaimed lover not fighter I seldom pass up an opportunity to help out a charity. The color theme for epilepsy is purple, so we made purple people eater cupcakes for the event A vanilla grenadine cupcake topped with plum icing and blueberry custard filling. During the event two teenage girls were nearby our display and I heard, “Look.. There he is. He was just on TV last night.” Of course I assumed they were talking about The Cake Boss but when I looked Buddy wasn’t around. One of the young girls pointed to me and said, “Hey Cupcake Dude, can we take a picture with you?” Humble yet bursting with excitement I told them of course, and their Moms took several photo’s. I had just been on a segment of Unique Eats on the cooking channel and they recognized me by my trademark bandana. I was blown away. I gotta say it felt really good.
A week and a half later one of the moms came into my shop to talk about a party in which she wanted our cupcakes. She thanked me for being so nice to the girls and I let her now it was my pleasure, which was an understatement. The she said, “You know my daughter has put up the picture with them and you in her locker at school and they brag to all their friends that they hung out with the cupcake dude.” I was red with anger….Wait, no! Not anger, I was enbarssed as hell, which I assume is what caued the red. Part of me thought that it was a tad creepy being a high school and all, but that was washed away quickly by the part of me that felt as though I had attained rock tar status, if only for my fifteen minutes. More a pebble star than a rock star, but still, it felt great. A nickname was born and it has stuck.
But here in the world of word lovers I call myself The Existential Baker. It’s here where I put my creative juices to a keyboard instead of a bakers board and use words instead of flour eggs an milk to express myself. Here is where I share my dementia, my memories (if somewhat foggy) and random thoughts. Not knowing me, the name tells you a little about me. First that I am an existentialist. I’m not the “I was existential before it was cool” sort, but a lifelong existentialist. It doesn’t make me intelligent, I don’t hang out drinking happening beverages and talking world politics, and quote philosophers verbatim all day. Its just my philosophic belief. Second it indicates that I either enjoy baking or am a professional baker. So thats what you learn from just the name. The reason for this drawn out ramble is this. Names are important. Names are a coat rack to hang our personalities on. That’s why I take great pains to give my cupcakes a name they deserve.
There are times I spend as much effort naming them as I do cooking and eating them. Some names are pretty obvious like “Strawberry Alarm Clock”, or “A Clockwork Orange”. Some a bit more complicated like the Fandango. it’s a cupcake with a caramel mousse. I made the mousse and abbreviated the name “Cara-mousse”. My wife seeing that thought it said Scaramouch and stating sing the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the line ends with will you do the Fandango. That’s the name right there. Then we have The Godfather part I and Godfather part II, both obviously very Italian oriented or more like Soprano-ish..So you see, pop culture and rock and roll play a vital role in the naming of our cupcakes.
This leads me to today’s edition, Sins Not Tragedies. I have always loved rock and it’s assisted me in bridging generation gaps because I refuse to tell kids that their music sucks. I may not like it, but its not supposed to resonate with me, it for them. But sometime a tune comes along that could have fit into any generation, and one such tune is by Panic At The Disco. This is one of the rare times my teen daughter and I agree on musical excellence. The song “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” is a great tune from way back in 2006. Its essentially about a best man and bride being caught having “benefits”. Haven’t they heard of keeping the god damn door shut??!! ..Anyway, before we became bakers we did full scale catering for weddings and parties. One such party was supposed to have a grooms cake of cheesecake. I never caught it on the function sheet, and the night before the wedding I needed to come up with a cheesecake on the spot. Using what I had around I through together a cheesecake made with Roc N Rye. I didn’t even have a recipe, it was straight from my head.
As luck would have it, the groom thought it was the best cheesecake ever. My wife said you better save that recipe. I gulped hard, an confessed there is no such recipe. She politely told me to write it down now if I ever want to see my scrotum again. I was appalled! The3 indignity, the nerve, the……I wrote it down. To this day its on a scrap of paper titled “The I think this is it cheesecake.” True story. So the cupcake….cheesecake batter and vanilla cake batter mixed, its stuffed with Rock N Rye custard, and topped with chocolate icing. Believe me when I tell you its delicious. I’d be willing to gamble my scrotum on it…….PEACE

The Next Great Cupcake

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Kiss Me, I’m a Cupcake
It was once said that a cupcake poets work is never done. Okay so it was me that said it, but its not without some inkling of truth. No sooner has the satisfied sweet treats of Valentines specials been fully consumed when the question comes. “What’s up for St. Patrick’s day chef?” After a few hyper-ventilating breaths, a fair amount of Pinot Noir, and a meditative clearing of the creative chasm in my head I am ready. A very successful array of valentine treats have been digested by my cupcake foodies and now I look towards what will be coming up in the next few weeks here.
I know, I know, its not until March 17th, but around here in Jersey the parade celebrations start early. Apparently its hard to engage a good bagpipe band around St. Patty’s day because everyone needs one in their town parade. Due to the scarcity of good pipers the demand is high and it has become necessary to hire the bands on alternative Saturdays in different towns. I call bullshit! Sounds to me its all about having a four weekend celebration of partying in various towns in the area. Regardless, I take on my normal challenge of coming up with something special for the extended celebration as serious as the consumers of corned beef and green beer take theirs. So today I begin working on my 2013 St. Patrick Day Cupcake.
To begin with I will remind you of our regular specials which have become standard fare due to popularity. We presently have four cupcakes that will be making cameo appearances over the next few weeks. “The Screaming Banshee, a chocolate Guinness cupcake with whisky custard and whipped cream topping (my fave), “The Danny Boy” , an Irish cream vanilla cupcake with Irish cream custardf an whipped cream, “The Shamrock and Roll,” chocolate cupcake with clover honey whiskey custard and cream cheese icing. And “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” vanilla cupcake with oatmeal cookie bottom orange mousse an vanilla icing. Those are the four horseman of St. Patrick’s treats. But as a cupcake engineer its my responsibility to have something more 2013-ish.
Creating the proper cupcake isn’t done in one sitting. It begins with a concept and continues as a work in progress. First the working title. This year I want to pay homage to the great Irish population of Boston. Loud and Proud the Bostonian Irish community have a strong voice in pop culture, and our cupcakes are largely inspired by pop culture, especially the music. So the name. House of Pain is a terrible name for a cupcake as is Dropkick Murphy’s. The dropkicks do however have one song that I absolutely love! Ergo, my working title is “Shipping Off To Boston”. The finished product hasn’t been determined yet but to reflect this wonderful communities culture the cupcake will be filled with Indian Pudding, a staple at Boston’s most famous restaurants. Of course this too can change, but for now it sounds really promising to me. It sounds so damn good it makes me wanna…..Jump Around, jump up, jump up, and get down! Stay tuned….PEACE