Hey Cupcake!

Specialty baking in a hurry

This started when I got a phone call from a friend, saying “Cedar, I forgot completely about a dessert for tonight…”

I looked at my watch. “I have two hours. No sweat, no, I don’t need to go buy something!”

I walked into the house, as I’d been caught out playing in the garden, and looked in the pantry. You should know two things: I always keep cake mixes in the pantry. I never make them straight.

“You won’t have time to bake, cool, and frost, will you?” My husband eyed the yellow cake mix box in my hand.

“Oh, sure,” I grabbed the open bottle of wine, eyeballed the baking cupboard, and started stacking things next to the stand mixer. “This isn’t the first cake in a hurry I’ve made. This is fun!”

Days of Wine and Oranges Cake

Preheat oven to 350F.

If making cupcakes, put 19-20 liners into pans (the box says it makes 24. It lies, unless you have smaller than average muffin tins).

• 1 box yellow cake mix

• 3 eggs

• 1 c white wine (dry is likely better, but whatever you need to use up)

• 1 tbsp dried orange peel, finely minced

• 1/2 tsp ginger, ground

• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

• 1/4 tsp ground mace

Put all the wet ingredients into a bowl and beat together with the spice and orange peel. Beat in the cake mix until completely combined.

Spoon batter into cupcake liners, filling 2/3 to 1/2 full. Bake at 350F for 20-24 minutes, until a tester into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, and the edges are golden brown.

If you are in a hurry, you can cool cake or cupcakes by sliding them into the refrigerator or freezer, or if it’s very cold outside and you have an unheated garage, you can set them out onto the chest freezer. After about half an hour or 45 minutes they will be cool enough to frost.

I used a can of cream cheese frosting, loaded into a piping bag with a large star tip. There’s a reason you should have certain things in the pantry at all times: a yellow, white, and chocolate cake mix. Chocolate, cream cheese, and pecan-coconut frostings. But I digress.

I have these really large syringes which are fun for fancy plating, or for injecting something into donuts or cupcakes. If you take about 4 oz of jelly (I used prickly-pear, something nice and tart is ideal, but not grape unless you’re lucky enough to have wild grape jelly on hand), and draw it up into the syringe, you can fill each cupcake with about a teaspoonful (5mL on the syringe barrel) of jelly. If your jelly is chilled or very firm, microwave it for 20-30 seconds, it won’t liquify and if it did, will set up again in the cupcake.

Finish up with a large star-dollop of frosting to hide the filling hole.

I didn’t fill a few of the cupcakes, as my husband was not sold on the idea of sweets in his sweet-topped sweet. I also opted not to fully frost the cupcakes, because sweet and we all are old enough to not have the digestion of children. The ones without filling got a light dusting of blackberry fruit powder for a touch of tartness like the jelly filling gave the others.

These went over quite well. Adding more flavor to a box mix elevates it to something unusual and interesting, and allows for a quick ‘oops!’ baking session to be playful and not take a lot of time. Two hours from start to finish on these, and some of that was passive time for the baking and cooling periods. There are so many variations you can make here! Simply start thinking about ways to add flavor, without upsetting the delicate chemical balance: something other than water for the liquid. A different kind of oil, olive oil is lovely in cake and you can taste it. Adding spices, espresso powder to chocolate cake, dried fruit, nuts, a pinch of chili powder. Play with harmonious flavors and enjoy the moment of creativity!