cupcake extravaganza

Today was Cupcake Camp in Ottawa, a crazy smorgasbord of something like 3,000 cupcakes. The room was packed, with a line out the door and down the stairs. Trays of cupcakes were brought out in fifteen minute intervals and quickly devoured. One participant came prepared with a camelbak full of milk. Kudos to all of the event organizers, volunteers, bakers, and of course all the eaters.

In preparing for my contribution for the event, I changed my mind every few days about what I would bake. I finally settled on four flavors.

The Maple Bacon has made an appearance on the site before. It's a simple cupcake, lightly flavored with maple sugar and cinnamon, topped with maple buttercream. I added bacon directly to the batter and topped the cupcakes with a bit of fleur de sel. I think bacon in sweets is a hard sell for most people, but I really liked the sweet-salty flavor of these.

I also played around with lavender, one of my favorite flavors in baked goods. I originally tried to do a lavender cupcake with honey buttercream, but I the flavors clashed a bit. W., my official tastetester, recommended a lemon buttercream, so I settled on Lemon Lavender. Both flavors were light, and I thought it made a good spring combination.

W's favorite was the Pistachio Rhubarb. I loved making the cake, a fluffy egg-white based batter with ground pistachios replacing some of the flour and pistachio-infused milk. The rhubarb buttercream is coming along, with this version finally achieving the tartness I was hoping for. I am still tweaking the recipe, but once it's perfected I'll post it--I know you can't wait!

My favorite was the Black-pepper Chocolate, with a whiskey glaze and vanilla buttercream. The basic recipe was based on a buttermilk chocolate cake that my mom used to bake. It turned out just how I wanted it--rich, moist, a good mix of dense and light crumb. The black pepper/ whiskey combination was inspired by my favorite dessert at Hell's Backbone Grill: a chocolate black pepper bread pudding with whiskey sauce. W. and I got married at Hell's Backbone and the bread pudding was served at our welcome dinner. It's the restaurant's 10th anniversary, so happy birthday! Since I couldn't make it to the party, I guess this cupcake is my way of celebrating.

I'm all cupcaked out! Now, I've got to go find something savory in my fridge full of buttercream.

If you want to see more photos from the day, check out this flickr set.