Cupcake contest

As I strolled around the room casually sizing up the competition I was genuinely impressed with the depth and complexity of the cupcakes represented. This was my first experience baking competitively and I must say I learned a lot. It was the Cupcake Camp Columbus cupcake baking competition held at North Market in downtown Columbus. The category I chose to enter was "Best North Market Inspired." The North Market is a local landmark that is basically an indoor collection of ethnic restaurants, dessert and sandwich shops, organic farmers market fare, and seafood shops. It's also the original location of the hometown favorite-turned-national-success story Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. Jeni's has capitalized on using ingredients from local, sustainable farms to create ice cream flavors that are imaginative and so not your everyday vanilla ice cream. So I chose to make a cupcake inspired by one of Jeni's signature flavors, Salty Caramel. It's a chocolate cupcake filled with Salty Caramel with a Salty Caramel frosting lightly sprinkled with Vanilla Sea Salt.

I was proud of the result and came away from the competition with a belly full of many interesting cupcake flavors (including bacon!) and some important lessons learned. I didn't win but I don't feel it was for lack of a tasty cupcake or that the competition was necessarily better tasting than mine. See I overlooked (i.e. ignored) that it was strongly recommended to make mini cupcakes. Because mine were full sized I was told to cut each in fourths. What resulted was a gooey unappealing presentation that was inconvenient to pick up and messy to eat. Being the competitive person I am, I've spent countless hours analyzing what went wrong and this is the reason that is allowing me to sleep at night. I can't imagine that a dry Thai Chili cupcake that I almost needed to spit out it was so gross won (runner up) over my gooey moist perfectly balanced salty and sweet cupcakes. The first place winner in my category was a cupcake called "Berry Stoutstanding" which was a chocolate cupcake made with chocolate stout garnished with a berry compote of sorts and topped with some poured chocolate ganache. It was good but not great and as is a common pitfall of mini cupcakes, the texture was quite dry.

I do plan to try again with the same competition when it's held again in the spring. This time I plan to win with mini cupcakes using some sort of over-the-top edible decoration and crazy weird flavor combo (clearly the judges don't appreciate the subtlety of perfectly balanced salty and sweet flavors=bitter much? :) Lest I continue re-hashing this to death, here is the recipe. As I stated before, it is very good and I wouldn't change a thing about it. I dare say it's the best cupcake I've ever made.

For the cupcakes
Sour Cream Chocolate Cupcakes
adapted from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle
Makes about 24 regular sized cupcakes

• 2 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup natural cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup sour cream, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2/3 cup safflower oil
• 1 1/4 cup ice-cold water

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two cupcake pans with cupcake liners.

Sift together the four, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bow. Whisk to combine, and set aside.

In another medium bow, whisk together the eggs until blended. Whisk in the sour cream and vanilla extract until blended. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, mix the melted butter and oil together at low speed. Add the cold water and mix to blend. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix at medium-low speed for 1 minute. Add the egg mixture and mix for another minute, until well blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, filling each cup 2/3 full.

Bake the cupcakes for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.


Salted Caramel 
via Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit
Makes about 2 1/2 cups

• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon salt, kosher or sea

1. Combine the water, sugar, and the corn syrup in a deep saucepan and cook over medium heat.
2. Stir together with a wooden spoon until the sugar is incorporated.
3. Cover the saucepan and let it cook over medium heat for 3 minutes.
4. After 3 minutes, remove the lid, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil.
5. Do not stir from this point on, but it is important to carefully shake the pan so that one area of the caramel doesn’t burn.
6. Continue to cook until the caramel turns an even amber color then remove from the heat and let stand for about 30 seconds.
7. *** This is the dangerous part *** Pour the heavy cream into the mixture. Wear oven mitts, stand away from the pan, and be careful. The mixture will bubble up significantly.
8. Stir the mixture, again being careful. Add the butter, lemon juice, and salt. Stir until combined.
9. Measure 1 cup into a Pyrex measuring cup. Stirring occasionally, allow to cool until thick like molasses and warm to the touch, about 20 minutes.
10. Reserve any additional caramel (after the 1 cup) for filling the cupcakes

Salted Caramel Frosting
via Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit
makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes

• 2 sticks butter
• 8 ounces or 1 package of Philly cream cheese
• 5 to 6 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup salted caramel

1. Bring butter to room temperature by letting it sit out for 1 or 2 hours.
2. Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy.
3. Sift 3 cups of powdered sugar into the butter/cream cheese mixture and beat to combine.
4. Add 1 cup of the salted caramel and beat to combine.
5. Sift 2-3 cups of powder sugar, in 1 cup increments and beating between each, until you arrive at the thickness and sweetness you desire. I used 6 cups. The frosting wasn’t super thick, but it was starting to get pretty sweet.

Assembly
1. Using a pastry bag loaded with leftover caramel equipped with a small pastry tip (3ish), insert tip into top of cupcake in several places and fill cupcake.
2. Frost cupcakes with a generous amount of frosting.
2. Lightly sprinkle each cupcake with vanilla sea salt (which can be bought or made combining sea salt and the seeds from a vanilla bean).