Notes from the Field: The Classic Birthday Cupcake

It's no surprise that I love me a good birthday celebration.

I'm all about the birthday signs, the party hats and the crazy nights out. But I reserve a special kind of celebration for my nearest and dearest people. 

It seems like the older I get, the more I value my truest friends. And if the past weeks of chaos in the northeast have taught us anything, it's that these kinds of connections are to be held very dear. 

I'm talking about the kind of friends that don't play games. They are honest, true and direct. They are without expectations and are full of respect. When you meet people like this, you know that you're kindred spirits. Whether introduced by fate, friends or virtual connection. The ones that know your secrets, your passions and your values just by being in your life. And so, these are the people that you look forward to celebrating most.

I think vanilla bean cupcakes with double vanilla buttercream and rainbow sprinkles do it best.

Now, it's not typical that I share my recipes, but I do believe that every baker should have a good classic birthday cake recipe on hand for celebrations such as these. So after the jump, you can find mine.

And so, happy, happy birthday to my sweet and true friend, Silvie. Here's wishing you a new year filled with happiness, love, fortune, wild adventures and much much more. 

Notes from the Field: On turning 28...

Tuesday is my twenty-eighth birthday.   

 

I was going to whip up a nice long post commemorating the end of my twenty-seventh year. It would have been a chronicle of love. It would have talked about going all in, seeing things through and watching hard work pay off. It would have drawn a picture of four seasons in Central Park, helicopter rides to work and getting windblown on the northern California coast. It would have thrown in jokes about crying on New York City subways, a slew of hilarious dates and a one-toothed dog named Ferdinand. It would have told the story of new life, a wild summer and one thousand champagne cocktails. 

 

But instead, I'll tell you about Saturday night, when we gathered around a long harvest table in a tiny uptown pub bathed in candlelight and laughter. Thanks to the storm, it was intimate. There were a few hurricane refugees and the ones who could make the trek uptown. There was flowing champagne, sparkler fires and tiny crown fascinators atop our heads. There was a bar takeover, and we played musical chairs, had a soul shakedown and convinced complete stranger friends to join us for a birthday limbo. It was perfect. 

 

And then there were these: pumpkin cupcakes topped with vanilla buttercream, fresh figs and a gold-flecked caramel drizzle. They were shared with family, friends, random bystanders and a few of our favorite British pub boys in the world. They were divine.

When I think of what really makes a year, I am reminded that it's what we learn from the ups and downs, the experiences, the trials and those moments that we find completeness. Saturday night was a reminder that I so have what I need and more. I'm overwhelmed at what twenty-seven brought. It was everything I could have never even dreamed of, and one hell of a trip around the sun. I can't wait to see how my new year unfolds.  

Case Study 120: "The Ginger Pear Cupcake"

Today is for reunions and it looks like the weather is going to play along.

Days like this always remind me of fall in Bologna. The gray sky, the smell of the coming November rain and the first sights of marzipan in the pasticerria windows.

It reminds me of how we roused late and brewed caffe in our tiny perk before indulging in biscuits and Nutella from the jar. How the light would peek around the corners of the narrow streets, and in the early morning the grates would go up at the Mercato delle Erbe as the statue of Ugo Bassi pointed ahead.  

 

It makes me remember our homemade haircuts and long lasagna lunches. Parties at the house, marked by Nina Simone and hash cigarettes. The long walks up the six hundred and sixty-six portici that led to the sanctuary on the hill. And most of all, it brings memories of long afternoons at Il Cortile Cafe, where the day faded to night and we started every evening with prosecco by candlelight and listening to Django Reinhardt covers played live.
  

And so it's nothing but fitting that on a gray late October day, I'll reunite with my best Bologna people right here in New York. 

Back then we ate. And we ate. And we ate. For fun, for sustenance and really for no reason at all. We always went back for seconds, we never did it with shame. All of our senses and our gastronomical dreams were awakened and brought to life. And so, there's no way in hell that I would welcome friends to America empty-handed without the best that fall could offer. 

Fresh ginger and molasses cupcakes with vanilla-pear buttercream and dark chocolate candied ginger shavings on top. Yes, I think that will do. 

Today we'll stroll arm and arm like we used to. We'll take in an early aperitivi in a dim light cafe before the rest of the working world joins in. We'll drink prosecco, chats about boys and share memories about the dear old days of our adventures abroad nearly eight years ago. And as true friendship always goes, nothing, nothing, will have changed at all.

Notes from the Field: An anniversary.

 

Four years ago, I started a blog. 

I'm not quite sure what drove me to this madness. Perhaps it was because I was twenty-three, over the top and running with a pack of international Philadelphia foodies that were 8-15 years older than myself. Or maybe it was because I needed a place to diary my travels as a young anthropology major working in the insurance industry and trying to make sense of it all. Journals were never my strong suit, so maybe this could work. Regardless of the reason, "The Cupcaketologist" came to existence in October of 2008. 

It started fast, and I had plenty of tasters. My first posts were lofty. I baked chocolate salted caramel cupcakes, inspired by some odd Marcello Mastroianni dreams. My chef friend approved, but advised that next time I should use Maldon. 

Next came one of my signature and most beloved cupcakes ever made: honey and fig cake topped with goat cheese buttercream and a carmelized fig.  

  La Femme Mediterranenne

  
Now I had everyone's attention. I even created a logo (by hand,using old recipe books that I folded, glued, scanned, and inserted into the blog).

I did bacon before bacon was cool.

 The Heartattack 

I concocted disastrous malted egg cupcakes after a rough day of work and made the epitome of my confectionary dreams come true: the foie gras cupcakes that had me dancing around my kitchen like a fool.

 

The Dauphin 

I featured pets.

 The Peach Pit 

I chronicled my travel diaries through cupcakes. From Newport to Austria, England, France and to Italy more than anyone could even count.

The Cliffwalk 

 The Redheaded Sicilian 

The Bourbon Hot Chocolate 

I baked my way through birthdays, breakups, and more than one career change.

 The Roars

Tender Heart Cupcakes 

Twenty-Seventh Birthday Cupcakes 

I made a lot of cupcakes inspired by New York. From Woody Allen's New York...

The Big Apple Cupcakes  

To the architecture of New York (I was reaching here)...

The Artful Pecan Cupcakes 

To a recent spin around Central Park in the fall.

The Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes

My cupcakes won awards, raised money, and were commissioned for parties, companies and gifts. 

Prizewinning Pumpkin Cupcakes 

 The Long Distance Love 

The Candyshop Quartet 

The Schott Trio

It's funny to think of blogging today and what it was back then. Now people do it for money. They do it for fame. They publish books from their blogs and they travel around the world as marketers for brands. 

I'm not sure that this will ever be like that for me. My blog has introduced me to a lifetime of experiences, and I think those are things more valuable than anything easy to spend. It's opened doors to friends, to conversations and to a whole side of myself that sees baking as a therapy, a passion and an art. A side that bakes to soothe, to make sense of my crazy imagination, to feed my friends and to translate experiences from my past and present into something tangible and good. I also did it for the writing.

This blog has followed me from a tiny Naudain Street galley to my Wall St. apartment with a dishwasher (!!). From kitchens in France and the South Coast of England to nearly every Philadelphia oven I could find. These are the moments, the times and the places that in some wild, whimsical and very strange ways have helped define life in my 20s.

Thank you for being part of my journey so far. 

Case Study 119: "The Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcake"

Good God, it's lovely out there. There's something about autumn in New York that makes it more wonderful than the smell of roasted nuts, burning leaves and cold hayrides together. It's the light. 

Put on your headphones and head to Central Park. Dave Brubeck should come first:"Take Five." There are young women walking arm and arm down Park Avenue in capes and brogues. The church bells at St. Ignatius Cathedral toll 6pm and there are tourists huddling on the stairs of The Met. The street musician dressed like Michael Jackson drops his horn to play their hasty photographer. Head north and a bespectacled gentleman in a navy blazer strolls past Guggenheim, trailing cigar smoke behind him. A Westie in a plaid coat trots leash-less at his side.   

Cross the Rhododendron Mile and take a lap around the Reservoir. Now your song is Duke Elligton's "Take the A Train," but you're still on foot. The sun begins to set and the light on the water is illuminated a sort of yellow tinge under the watchful eyes of The Eldorado's twin peaks. Golden indeed. Head back across the Eighty-Six Street Traverse to the Great Lawn and weave down to the Lake. Put on the Armstrong and Fitzgerald version of "Autumn in New York." Stop to see the way the Weeping Willows cast monster shadows across the water past the Boathouse.  

Take off your headphones as you climb the steps at Bethesda Terrace. A lone trumpeter stands where the shade meets the sun through the arching elms on The Mall, and he wails a dirty wah-wah version of "Summertime." In memorium, you think, but you carry on. Under statues of literary greats, an accordionist plays Edith Piaf's standard "Autumn Leaves." Your heart aches a little every time you hear it, but it's in the way that only fall can cause an ache, by juxtaposing warm sentimental feelings with a time of year when everything dies. Turn on Coltrane's "Central Park West" and make your way back uptown. 

Back in my kitchen, I can't help but keep things cozy. Candles are lit, windows are cracked open, and I throw on wool socks and flannel while my oven heats up. I bake and I bake and I end up with these deliciously airy pumpkin cupcakes topped with coffee and vanilla bean buttercream and a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie on top. I eat them for breakfast, I deliver them to friends and on my way back home, I head back to the park.

This is how I dreamed it up. As a child, I imagined New York as a sort of love affair, and it always took place in the fall. We'd hide away in the dark of Bemelman's while the sun set gold outside, secretly wishing and praying that on any other day but Monday, Woody Allen would stroll right into The Carlyle and fill the air with a clarinet sound even moodier than the clinking of ice cubes in Scotch and the quick swishing of white-coat waiters.

I'd smooth out my skirt and he'd straighten his tie. We'd throw on our trenches and slip outside - skipping first across Fifth to the Ramble, where we'd make a dash for the steps of the Museum of Natural History. We'd ascend, step by step by step, until he stopped. And time would slow, nothing else would exist and the chilling city would whirl at a million light years' speed around us, just as is does on every other day of any other year.

If you come to the city and open your eyes and ears, you'll find it. There's romance all around, and there is no season and no city that reminds you of that quite like autumn in New York. 

Notes from the Field: What's more American than apple pie?

This morning I woke up - refreshed, bright eyed, ready for a long day of fun around the city - and prepared to make cupcakes for a bon voyage party. When you're a cupcake baker, the answer to "what's more American than apple pie?" is always "apple cupcakes." And so, I put on some moody music to match the gray sky outside and set to coarsely chopping my apples from the farmers' market.
 
My favorite apple cupcake is adapted from a fail proof cake recipe passed down from an orchard that my family used to pick-our-own at in New Jersey thirty years ago. It's hearty and spicy and chock full of fresh fruit. This time I topped it with a plain vanilla buttercream and called it a day.... 

Or did I?

  

Well shit. I thought. Am I satisfied by that? Sure, there's nothing more "American" than apple pie, but I've never set out to be average. This is AMERICA, for Christs' sake, we've never been like anybody else. 
 
And so I got back into the kitchen, pumped up my tunes and churned out a batch of baked pumpkin donuts. And then I dipped them in butter. And then I rolled them in cinnamon and maple sugar and put them on top of the cupcakes. And I looked at my masterpiece and decided it was good. 
  

Being full of opportunity and equality means being more national than Old Hollywood, a Ford Buick and a Georgia peach combined. I believe that innovation and freedom are better than Monticello, the redwood forest and the entire state of Texas all at once. And on a cloudy September afternoon in Manhattan, you can bet that New York state apple cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and pumpkin cinnamon sugar donuts on top are much more Americana than that that plain old patriotic pie.   

And like a third grader at the end of a presentation, I can say, that's what being American means to me.

Notes from the Field: 21 days to Fall and Maple Pumpkin Fig Cupcakes

On the first of September, I put on my bikini and took a trip to the boat. The water was cold and the sun was weak. I cancelled my plans, a trip and a date, and relaxed in anticipation of what would come next.

On the fourth I slept late. I worked in my pajamas and made sense of my closet. I ran in the park and caught up with friends. On the fifth, there were butterflies. There was rose' and sidewalk pizza and a late night neighborhood bar. There was a kiss. Maybe two. On the eighth, I painted my nails one last coat of Clambake. A late summer storm rolled in and when it broke, we ate pulled pork and watermelon in the backyard. On the twelfth, I woke up and the air was cool. I got news, or what one could be a certain kind of gift, and I packed my bags and headed north to see what it was all about.

On the fifteenth I hopped the jitney east. The air was perfect and the sun was warm. I wore boots below bare knees and frolicked in sun scorched vineyards. We drank too much wine and donned captains' hats for dinner. We drank rum, lit sparklers and talked for hours at the table under the backyard tree strewn with streamers and lights. We slept with the windows open; we wore towels for warmth. 

On the sixteenth, the beach past the Swordfish Club was dotted with hundreds of monarch butterflies. Where they were going, we had no idea, but they pushed past the wind down the beach and stopped for nobody. The water was warm and the waves crashed tall as we drank mimosas in our rolled up jeans. 

On the seventeenth, I hopped the shuttle and took my next step. I worked hard during the day and settled into a new pace at night. I drank cold white wine and shame danced my way through a few good miles on a hotel treadmill in the middle of New England suburban slum. 

Yesterday I woke up and cancelled my plans. I boarded the helicopter home, and as we approached New York, the clouds turned dark. We flew low and fast, as did my cab uptown, where I dropped my bags, strapped on my sneakers and bee-lined it to Central Park. I crossed Lexington to Park, and caught the wind of three ladies in bobs and Chanel No. 5 by the Met. The 86th street Hot Dog man donned a yellow plaid scarf. I skipped up to the reservoir and ran a lap. The perfect song came on, and I thought of you. I ran another half, past the brown water reeds and was reminded that you can only really welcome a season by ending another first.

I went to the store for figs and came out with pumpkin as well, which in the end might just be the perfect pair as we start to tilt a little further from the sun. From here, on the cusp, I think pumpkin cupcakes with a maple buttercream topped with fresh figs, candied pecans and maple sugar will help celebrate the both seasons just fine.  

I'm not sure what will happen this fall. Maybe I'll hit it big at work, make strides and shake hands. Maybe I'll pick apples and pumpkins and make a batch of Christmas limoncello much better than the last. Maybe I'll spend my birthday abroad. Maybe I'll fall in love again.

For now, all I know is that today is September 21st. I know that this weekend will be for dinner parties, dark cocktails bars and Sunday football. I know that I'll watch the leaves turn gold each week in Massachusetts and when Thursday arrives, I'll watch the New York City skyline approach and get that same feeling of love for the city I've now called home for two years. I know that I'll have expectations, and things might turn out differently, but I'll be ready for whatever comes at me because that's what new seasons give you. Another chance. 

So are you ready? Here we go...

Notes from the field: On a very special 30th birthday...

We met on the internet. 

It started with a few mutual interests - namely the sea, the sun and a little South Coast English town called Brighton. Our first date was at The Mermaid, where we shared a silver tower of shellfish big enough for a party of grandpas in the Catskills. And we resolved, no matter the distance, to stay in touch. From there, the rest was history. 

We ate lobster rolls and reminisced about Bills. I showered her in champagne, confetti and sparkler fire as she finished her 29th lap around the sun. She dried my breakup tears with a wild weekend away and a crazy night at a beachside bar with rum punch, handsome young men and late night lifesaving egg sandwiches. 

There are some people that you meet and feel like you already know, and that right there is where the connection lies. 

Not long after that first sip of wine, you're gifting each other rainy day bouquets and finishing each others' sentences. You're sharing burgers and Bloodies at J.G. Melon and throwing back champers cocktails at your local pub. You are turning random Manhattan weeknights into spectacularly good shows - what with the endless bottles of champagne, back garden chats and dessert on the house - and the entire bar joins in to celebrate the nuttiness of life around you. You are touching base from Germany, from Vegas, from San Diego, from Philadelphia, from New York. You're talking about boys, work, lighthouses and travel dreams. About life, loss and the middle place in between it all.
 

Some people came into your life at the right time, even though I think that somehow they've been there all along. See, I believe that there are many types of soulmates. Past what we already know, we find soulmates in those that we are attached to forever, usually family, whose souls are as complexly entwined with ours as the double helix strands that tie us together. We can find soulmates in people that we attach onto, for however brief a time, and no matter what, they leave a lasting mark on us as they drift away. 

But then there are those people that were meant to be with you. They respect everything about you and expect nothing from you all at once. They think about you just when you think about them. They tell you you've "nailed it" even when you haven't because they know that sometimes life's failures are just too good to have a laugh about. They stand up for you, they challenge you and for Christ's sake, they just get you.

And so, when they tell you that their favorite flavors are banana, Nutella and sea salt, you make it work and whip up fluffy banana cupcakes in a HobNob crust with Nutella filling and fleur de sel caramel buttercream and hand painted Belgian chocolate seashell on top.
 

Happy 30th birthday, my sweet sweet Suze. You are a wonder and a joy, and this shines true in the people and the love around you. I'm so happy to get to share a brain, a thousand bottles of champagne and a little piece of my soul with you. To this weekend, and to many many more.