Batter Chatter: Interview with City Down, the NZ Cupcake Queen

Coming across the Cupcake Project was a momentous moment for Cakespy. The project, which had a goal of collecting 100 (or more!) pieces of artwork dedicated to or inspired by cupcakes, was not only a beautiful idea, but it was also how we first came into contact with the lovely Felicity (City) Down, aka the New Zealand Cupcake Queen. City, a graphic designer by day and cupcake maven by night, certainly lives up to this title: in a country that the cupcake trend has barely even hit, she's bringing on a revolution with her adorable cupcakes and proves her sweet street cred with a cool cupcake tattoo. We recently got the chance to chat her up about life and dessert in New Zealand; here's what we learned:

Cakespy: What do you do for a living?
City Down: I'm a Graphic Designer working for a company that produces magazines and newsletters.

CS: You live in New Zealand. What types of baked goods are popular in your area?
CD: Well here in Auckland, the cafe scene is quite big. There are amazing cafes everywhere that sell the usual cafe fare, sweet and savory muffins, fruit tarts, lots of slices, amazing cakes! And you're starting to see the odd cupcake pop up in cafes. But I think anywhere in NZ, if you go to the little local bakeries, that's where you find the things that we all grew up loving. Neenish tarts, custard twists with pink icing, ginger slice, chocolate caramel slice and a big favourite with kids is Lolly Cake. It's a slice that is made from crushed malt biscuits, butter, condensed milk and these funny fruit foam lollies that come in the shape of Eskimos. Its all mixed up, rolled in coconut and then chilled in the fridge. It tastes amazing! I've just started making it again and people love it. My husband can eat a whole log by himself if he gets the chance.

Lolly Cake Recipe

1 pkt malt biscuits
1 packet eskimo lollies/fruit puffs, cut up
115 g butter
1/2 tin condensed milk
coconut to garnish

Directions: Melt butter and condensed milk. Add crushed biscuits and lollies. Mix then
mould into a log and roll in coconut. Wrap tightly in greaseproof paper.
Set in the fridge. Cut into slices when set.

CS: How did your cupcake obsession begin?
CD: It started back in 2004 when I offered to make cupcakes for a little boy's birthday party. I decided to make frog cupcakes and since I hadn't made cupcakes since I was a kid it was a huge learning curve for me. I made a test batch the weekend before and gave them to my workmates for taste testing. It was amazing the way grown adults reacted to cute little cupcakes. I got such a kick out of sharing the cupcake love with them and enjoyed making them. I started baking more and more cupcakes experimenting and people started to comment on how much they loved them. My obsession grew from there and my friends and co workers soon gave me the label of being a cupcake queen. I wanted to try new recipes, new techniques of icing them and being a graphic designer, my favourite part is decorating them with whatever cool lollies I can find! I still have a photo of the very first batch of frog cupcakes. I look at them now and think they are so badly done! I've learnt so much since those frogs!

CS: In the USA, cupcakes are ridiculously popular--there are bakeries that ONLY serve cupcakes here. Are there any cupcake-only bakeries in your area?
CD: We've had NZ's first cupcake only bakery open down in Christchurch a few months ago. It's in the South Island so I haven't made it there yet to try them. I think the girls there are doing a great job and obviously have a passion for cupcakes. I'd love to be the person to bring a cupcake only bakery to Auckland!

CS: What is your favorite cake / cupcake flavor?
CD: Ooooh that's a hard one as it changes regularly. I love my jaffa ones at the moment, but I'm very fond of plain vanilla cupcakes with passion-fruit icing. There is something so simple about the mix of delicate flavours. It's always a winner.

CS: Speaking of Jaffas...what are they, exactly?
CD: Jaffas are very tasty candy we have here in NZ. They are little dark chocolate balls coated with red crunchy candy (kind of like M & M's coating) that is orange flavour. Crushed up and mixed through cupcakes they make lovely chocolatey orange swirls and taste brilliant with orange buttercream frosting! As a kid, Jaffas were popular when you went to the movies, the best bit was dropping one on the wooden floor and making a racket as it bounced down the aisle!

CS: Would you ever be interested in opening your own cupcake bakery?
CD: I would absolutely love to own my own cupcake bakery and share my
cupcake love with more people! I'll keep you posted on that one!

CS: Has there ever been a batch of cupcakes that you made that you were particularly proud of?
CD: I'm quite proud of the pink ones I made for my friend's baby shower, mainly because they came out so pink and delicate and cute-- a miracle considering I was still icing and decorating them while the 25 women attending the shower arrived at my house! I was a tad stressed.

CS: What is the most important aspect in making a great cupcake?
CD: It sounds really cheesey, but I truly believe its using good quality ingredients and putting lots of love and care into your baking. I hate to just throw a batch together and slap some icing on, I prefer to enjoy the whole process and take care with my baking and decorating. I think that loving touch is what makes a great cupcake. Oh and mixing crushed jaffas through the mix is pretty great too!

CS: What makes a bad cupcake?
CD: Well from personal experience, ignoring my comment above and rushing my baking once led to me forgetting a crucial ingredient like baking powder. That's a great way to make a bad cupcake. That and badly done icing. No matter how amazing a cupcake may taste, I think runny icing whacked on top kind of takes away from the whole cupcake experience. I'm a sucker for
beautiful icing! Its a work of art as well as yummy food!

CS: Other than cupcakes, what are some of your other favorite desserts?
CD: I have an amazing recipe for chocolate brownies with white chocolate chunks in them that is pretty much a no fail! I have a weakness for baked cheesecakes (which is why I make mini cupcake sized ones!) and I love most chocolate things.

CS: What are some of your favorite cookbooks or bakers that inspire you?
CD: 2 of my favourites that I've used a lot are 500 Cupcakes by Fergal Connolly and Cupcakes by Susannah Blake. I have so many cupcake cookbooks that people keep giving me and I love them all. In the online world, I love the baking Natalie from Bake & Destroy does and the handmade cupcake toppers she creates, Melissa from The Urban Housewife is another fave blog of mine to keep up with all her baking and food adventures. I get so much inspiration just from cruising blogs like Cupcakes Take The Cake and looking at what people post on Flickr.

CS: You have a cupcake tattoo. To us, this is proof that you're a hardcore lover of sweets (yea!). What have some reactions been to the tattoo?
CD: Most reactions have been really positive. I've had so many comments on my Flickr page about my cupcake tattoo and how colourful it is. And all my family and friends who know me well can understand why that tattoo was perfect for me. I went into my favourite baking supplies shop called Milly's on the weekend and the ladies there all loved my cupcake tattoo!

CS: If cupcakes went out of style would you get your tattoo changed?
CD: No way! Cupcakes are not a fad with me, I truly love them and having that tattoo is a really fun way to celebrate my love of cupcakes. I fell in love with them before they became as popular as they are now, and if people move onto the next fad (which I hope they don't!) I will still
love my cupcakes and my tattoo :-)

CS: What will be your next cupcake adventure?
CD: I will be selling my cupcakes for the first time at Craftwerk, a craft, art and music night here in Auckland. It's my first time having a stall there. I was encouraged by my tattooist Karla (who did my lovely cupcake tat) who sells her plushies there. She said she'd seen cupcakes at the last one and they didn't even come close to mine. She and her husband are big fans of my cupcakes.

For more information on the Cupcake Project, visit thecupcakeproject.blogspot.com.

To learn more about City, visit her blog at nzcupcakequeen.blogspot.com and check out her photos at flickr.com.

It's So Cold In Alaska: A History of Baked Alaska

How many of you know what Baked Alaska is?

An article in Cooks Illustrated puts it nicely: "Baked Alaska is what the French call a bombe, or a layered assemblage of ice cream and cake. Instead of being served cold, it is slathered with a thick layer of sweet meringue and baked until golden. In a bit of kitchen wizardry, the fluffy whipped egg whites insulate the ice cream and protect it from melting despite the oven's withering heat."

At Cakespy, we'd always had a vague romantic notion of this dessert without actually knowing what it was. But after recently trying it for the first time at Papa Haydn, in Portland, OR, we were hooked; we wanted to know everything about this unusual dessert. So we put on our sleuthing clothes, and here's what we found out:

Turns out, the lineage of this lovely dessert does not begin in France as we had originally thought, but in China, where the idea of cooking a cold dessert encased with pastry seems to have originated. The concept came to France when Chinese delegates made a visit to Paris and the concept was passed off to a pastry chef. the addition of the meringue layer in the early 1800s is credited to Benjamin Thompson, an American physicist living in Europe, who realized that while pastry would conduct much of the heat and protect the cold core, a layer of meringue would do so to even greater a degree. Due to its snowy appearance and chilly core, it was dubbed the "omelette á la norvégienne". Its popularity caught on during the Victorian era, and these elaborate confections were made in various fancy shapes and were frequently called "Bombes".

In 1876 it made its stateside debut via Delmonico's Restaurant in NYC, where Charles Ranhofer made the dessert in celebration of the newly acquired Alaska Territory. Originally called "Alaska-Florida" (the whole hot-cold thing, we think) it was eventually shortened to "Baked Alaska". Now, this recipe is not only ingredient but time intensive; it doesn't really have a "downmarket" version, which seems to have been a big factor in its popularity. It became known as a dessert for the privileged, and was served and popularized by chefs like Jean Giroix of the Hotel de Paris Monte Carlo. It was undoubtedly this fancy-dessert status which led the confection to be featured in several important American cookbooks of the era, perhaps most notably the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, which ultimately sealed its place in American culture.

It grew to be a popular hostess dessert and piece de resistance during 60's and 70's, but went the way of bell bottoms and disco clothes in the 80's and was absent from the dessert scene for many years. And on one level we can see why; of course, other than tastes changing, it is a draining dessert to make and rather daunting a project to take on.

Nonetheless, like so many things that must be worked for, once you've tasted a good Baked Alaska, you'll know it can be worth the journey.

Cakespy Note: This post would not have been possible without references from What's Cooking America, Wikipedia, Foodreference.com, Cooks Illustrated, Hub-uk.com,

A note on Recipes: in our journeys, we found several recipes for Baked Alaska; we found the most user-friendly one to be in this year's special holiday baking issue of Cooks Illustrated, in the article entitled "Demystifying Baked Alaska". We also found this cute one online at the Food Network.

Baked Alaska Trivia (Sources: Wikipedia, What's Cooking America)

A variation called Bombe Alaska calls for some dark rum to be splashed over the Baked Alaska. Lights are then turned down and the whole dessert is flambéed while being served.

In 1969, the recently invented microwave oven enabled Hungarian physicist and molecular gastronomist Nicholas Kurti to produce a "reverse Baked Alaska", aka Frozen Florida (hot on the inside and cold on the outside).

Thomas Jefferson was a fan of the dish, and served it at his dinner parties: from the web site The Home of Thomas Jefferson, one visitor reportedly commented: "Among other things, ice-creams were produced in the form of balls of the frozen material enclosed in covers of warm pastry, exhibiting a curious contrast, as if the ice had just been taken from the oven."

Memoirs of a Forbidden Cookie

It was a dull Monday, this past one. Until they arrived. None of us even saw them coming, until there they were, in an unassuming priority mail box from somewhere in Texas.

We opened the box, and there they were: the cookies of our dreams.

We were first drawn to these cookies via the seller's Etsy store, where the photo kind of made them look like a cross between a slab of cookie dough and a scoop of ice cream. Intriguing. A bag cost $12.99 for 8 cookies, and came to about $20 after shipping charges. Were they really worth it?

Resoundingly, yes. These cookies were somewhere between cookie dough and cookie, a wonderfully moist and dense cookie that had a wonderful "toothfeel": not so sweet as to make your teeth hurt, and with a gorgeously yielding texture. The cherry and chocolate chips were subtle but identifiable, and one of our spies actually closed their eyes while eating; they were that good.

The one downfall? When we emailed to inquire about featuring a photo from their Etsy site, we were told that they did not like to have their photos put up on blogs. Fair enough, we reasoned--so we took our own photo. But we wouldn't be so brash as to tell you that all you'd need to do to buy these cookies is go to a web site that has letters contained in the phrase Full Jasper but with no space, followed by etsy.com.

Because that would be giving away the forbidden secret.

Black Forest cherry cookies are available somewhere on the internet.

You Like Us, You Really Like Us!: Thank you from Cakespy

Well, Thanksgiving is over, but it appears it's high time for the Cakespy crew to give thanks.

We've gotten some very nice mentions lately, and it's time to give props to all the cool people who seem to love dessert as much as we do (listed alphabetically):

All Things Cupcake: We'll readily admit, they're even more cupcake-crazy than us. Naturally though, they loved the Cakespy artwork! See the sweet mention here.

Cachibachis: Impressed by the Cakespy Etsy store, this artist and illustrator couldn't resist mentioning us. Here's what she said!

Chow Bella by Michelle Laudig in the Phoenix New Times: They think we're super cute, and we think they are too! See what they loved about Cakespy here.

Cupcakes Take The Cake: Once again: in a cupcake face off, we might have to wave the white flag with these saucy girls in NYC. They gave Head Spy Jessie's artwork a lovely mention here.

Editorial *ss: This clever little writer has given us mentions a few times, and whoever hasn't visited her website really should; it's hilarious. Check out her recent mention here.

Everybody Likes Sandwiches: A wonderful blog featuring hearty fare, recipes and an intense artistic flair featured both Cakespy artwork and our newest obsession, Lobstersquad. Read the writeup here!

Fred: What a compliment; the coolest product design company, like, ever, loves Cakespy and what we do; see what they said here.

The Grinder (on Chow): A writer named Tea Austen Weaver on Chow came across our doughnut guide; all we can say is doughnut stop believin', Tea. Here's the writeup.

Have Cake Will Travel: Celine is probably one of the greatest people we've ever met. Need a recipe for white-bean spread for your sandwich? She's got your back. And she loves the Cakespy to boot: see what she said about us here.

Kristin Johnson at the Seattle PI: Her job is finding the coolest stuff on the web; naturally, she found Cakespy. Here's the writeup!

Leslie Kelly at the Seattle PI: What can we say, we give good tips on hot chocolate, and she was listening with ears wide open. See her mention above, or here.

Not Martha: Megan at Not Martha came across our doughnut guide to Seattle, and liked what she saw. Just Donut! See her mention here.

Serious Eats: Robyn Lee, like us, ponders the question of what happens when cupcakes face off with muffins: who wins? Here's her sweet writeup. Don't forget to visit her awesome blog, entitled The Girl Who Ate Everything (brownie points to those who get the reference).

The Color of Blushing Apples: A great blog about design and interiors, and they just so happen to like Head Spy Jessie's artwork; see what they said here.

Theo Chocolates: Some of the best chocolate we've ever tasted, not just in Seattle! They love Cakespy too!

So, before they cue the music on us: thank you everyone, for appreciating us and keeping our lives so sweet.

The Walls Come Crumbling Down: Crumb Cake by Hahn's

Something interesting happened the other day while we (Mr. and Mrs. Cakespy) were attending a birthday brunch: we found ourselves standing next to a group of former East-Coasters. Since Head Spy Jessie is originally a Jersey girl herself, it was inevitable that the conversation would turn to that age-old question of the relocated: "What do you miss most about the East Coast?". Just as inevitably, many of the things that former East Coasters will miss are food related: Dunkin' Donuts, black and white cookies, decent pizza...and crumb cake.

Really, it surprises us that crumb cake isn't the same phenomenon in the west that it is in the Mid-Atlantic region. While yes, it does exist in Seattle and on the West Coast, rarely is it quite the same as those huge, deli-style hunks, individually wrapped in plastic, that we recall so fondly from the other coast. Moreover, the west coast crumb cake seems to be more like a pound cake with a light layer of brown sugar topping; none of those knobby, walnut-sized, buttery crumbs that we so love.

Happily, a heavenly voice recently called to us (OK, the NPR announcer) with a solution for this heartache: Hahn's Old-Fashioned Cake Company, a Long Island-based company that ships their authentic crumb cakes nationwide. The cake, which starts with a pleasingly yellow butter cake base, bears a sweet burden indeed: a mountaintop of perfect, extra-large brown sugar crumbs, all dusted with sweet powdered sugar. The ratio of cake to crumb is perfect; the taste is even more so. Buttery, dense and with just the right touch of saltiness, these cakes are like a taste of the East Coast, even so far out west.

It's enough to bring a tear to the eye.

Available online at crumbcake.net. One classic crumb cake is $22.50, and shipping is $17 to the West Coast. Not cheap, but can you really put a price on happiness?