My father is a fabulous amateur chef. He can create meals that would rival the finest restaurants. He's taken classes with Jacques Pepin as well as other renown chefs. He finds recipes that intrigue him and follows them at least once. Then he may doctor, adjust, or tweak to his liking. 99.9% of the time it is a wonderful and delectable improvement. I think that's where I got this habit of playing with my food.
It's a running joke in our house that if you like some thing I've made for dinner enjoy it, because it will never happen exactly that way again. My intent is to follow the recipe - but I just can't help myself. I wonder what will happen if I add a pinch of this, or some of that instead of this. Usually, it's a win. Sometimes, it's at least edible and won't kill anyone. Always - without question - it is fun and educational for everyone.
One of my recent forays into food play was with cupcakes. My lovely daughter has moved out to California. We had a very festive party to send her on her way. Somehow, we went from me making a traditional family cake to baking over 120 cupcakes. And on those cupcakes we wrote our well wishes. I couldn't, I just couldn't bake simple and plain cupcakes from a mix. Oh no, not I. The mix might be used - but only as a base for my baking madness. That's how we wound up with this interesting selection:
- Funfetti with Chocolate or Vanilla Frosting (OK, these were the one exception to the rule, but only because it was requested.)
- Chocolate Stout with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cappuccino Stout with Mocha Cream Cheese Frosting
- Red Velvet (from scratch using mashed beets and beet juice)with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Aztec Fire Chocolate with Whipped & Zipped Frosting
- Apple Butter with Cinnamon Maple Frosting
What's particularly scary is I had about 6 other recipes waiting in the wings - but I ran out of time, and cupcake liners.
How did I play? Well, the Funfetti, as I said, was made as a special request for a guests birthday, so there was no playing there.
The Chocolate Stout Cupcake recipe I found here at the FoodNetwork site. I used Vanilla infused sugar and added a touch of chocolate extract. For the Cream Cheese Frosting, I took about 1/2 cup of Guinness and reduced it down to about 1/2 cup. Then I whipped that into the frosting.
The Cappuccino Stout Cupcakes use the same basic recipe, but I used Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout and blended some instant cappuccino mix into the heavy cream before making the frosting.
I have a recipe for Red Velvet cake from scratch. Admittedly, I don't know where I got it from, but most scratch recipes are similar. Instead of oil, I used boiled and mashed beets. I use powdered buttermilk - you add the powder to the dry components and the liquid to the wet components to make the buttermilk. So I used the beet juice instead of plain water.
The Azteca Fire Chocolate was interesting to create. It was simply a box of devil's food cake mix. But instead of just adding water, I made a strong tea using Teavana's Azteca Fire Tea, which uses chocolate and chili's (this is also a great tea to blend in with chai). I added an additional pinch of cayenne pepper (just a little pinch). For the frosting, I warmed the cream with some Azteca Fire Tea and added some powdered chocolate chai mix before whipping.
These were all BIG hits. But the surprising star of the evening was a last minute addition. I had thought I picked up a box of store brand yellow cake mix, but it was actually a butter flavor cake mix. Hmmm, what to do? Well, I chopped up some lovely dried apple slices I'd picked up at Target and tossed them with some cinnamon and sugar and added them to the packaged mix. Then I found a recipe for Maple Frosting and added a dash of cinnamon to that as well.
Next time you're baking or cooking, take a look at the recipe. Does it include water? What juice or tea can you use instead? Are there any dried fruits or even veggies you can add? Maybe some herbs or spices? Go ahead! It really is OK to play with your food!
