Cupcakes anyone?

I spent my Saturday baking cupcakes. I can’t explain why other than cupcakes are in fashion again – since  Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw and Miranda Hobbes made NYC’s Magnolia Bakery cupcakes world famous. 

There should be a disclaimer in kitchen stores:

‘Danger – expensive kitchen gadgets you will never use will meet sudden death by credit card.”

Kitchen stores are as dangerous for me as shoe stores, stationary and book stores.  It is impossible to go in without making a purchase. Among my favourites? Williams & Sonoma, Crate & Barrel and Sur la Table. To my delight, a Charleston, South Carolina dinner at Slightly North of Broad, led me to its Maverick Southern Kitchens store on East Bay Street. 

My eye immediately caught the colourful cupcake window display featuring the cookbook, Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans. Leafing through it, I was pleasantly surprised to see the book featured recipes for homemade yellow and chocolate cake batter, rather than the usual references to Duncan Hines ready-made cake mix. An important detail, because Belgium is not big on ready-made cake mixes and they are difficult to find and not very good. The recipes looked easy enough. As much as I love to cook and bake, cakes have always brought out my insecurity. Would they be dry like cardboard? Heavy as a brick? The fear of baking failure led me to avoid baking cakes altogether. For the first time, I looked at these recipes and a little voice told me, I could do this! But first, Le Crueset’s re-usable silicon cupcake wraps…(in red)

Cupcakes in 30 minutes? (10 minutes to mix the batter, 20 minutes to bake). This was NOT the case. What about the minor detail of homemade frosting! That said, I have to hand it to Mrs. Klivans. A couple hours later, I was the proud chef of 30 chocolate and vanilla cupcakes! They didn’t rise in the middle to form a peak (like in the pictures) but they were still light and flavourful. No ready-made mixes, just fresh ingredients and a little patience.

The thrill and the possibilities! With THE bakery frosting recipe from my aunt and a little more practice, I see a cupcake future with flowers and leaves! Add coloured sprinkles, lemon zest, chocolate mousse filling and I’ll become a cupcake and birthday cake queen!

The test of a true chef is to taste test but not over-indulge. I admit to only eating one cupcake (in addition to licking the spoons from the batter of course.) 

Errrr …. and then there was the white shirt. Regrettably, it did not fare as well. Using an apron truly never entered my mind. Unfortunately the chocolate stains and neon blue food colouring left a couple permanent marks on what was otherwise, a very satisfying cupcake day.

In the kitchen with a two-star Michelin chef

Having survived the 5.00 AM food market on Tuesday, I woke Friday with a mixed sense of excitement and trepidation.  What if I would be in the way in the kitchen?  What if I accidentally knocked over a bowl of truffles or a piece of strawberry blonde hair landed on a plate destined for the dining room?

I arrived at 9 AM as ordered by the chef to a kitchen of curious stares and wary smiles.  What was this woman doing and why was she here?  Fortunately I had brought an apron with me, dressed discreetly in black trousers and a white shirt and made a purposeful attempt to wear comfortable shoes.  (I’m a desk rat in financial services, my feet are not used to standing all day, let’s face it.)

Cherry tomato flowers

No one seemed sure if I was going to stand around and watch over their shoulders or actually lend a hand. It took peeling a good 25 cherry tomatoes and twirling the skin around the stem to make it look like a cherry? or a flower? to prove I was serious. Despite a couple tomato casualties (that would surely end up in soup or tomato puree later), my new kitchen colleagues (all male) suddenly each needed my help.

Coconut macaroons, too many mussels and scallop towers

I rolled coconut macaroons and pistachio balls.  I shelled at least three kilos of mussels and after proudly bragging I was finished, was laughingly told to remove the suction foot from each.  I made scallop hor d’oeuvres – lots of them (supposedly for 50 people), containing truffle and cabbage stuffing between each of the five layers  (careful to keep the shiny side up or it will slip).  The sous-chef asked me to put lentils around the artichoke fois gras mousse – “but not too much” and “don’t forget to add a little sauce.”  Mashed potatoes – the secret: “they should be from baked potatoes, not boiled, add creme fraiche, butter and lots of chives.”  Mousse au canard – you know why it’s a mousse? Because it has been personally hand pressed through a screen to remove all pieces of carrots, celery and spices to create a smooth texture in your little serving glass.  Homemade ice cream: vanilla, coffee, pistachio…  cream, eggs (lots!) and BTW, cleaning the machine is a pain in the …!

A team profession for the strong and resilient

The kitchen was one well-oiled machine.  Everyone had a ’station’, yet everyone pitched in.  The morning was an impressive assembly line of preparation followed by an 11.30 lunch for a team of 17 that seemed to appear out of no where.  20 minutes later, the restaurant’s doors opened and the machine was back in action at a furious pace.  The ‘hot area’ was reserved for those that could handle the high pressure and every plate was personally scrutinized by the chef before it went to the dining room.

2:00 PM – Dessert time, everyone began to breathe a sigh of relief because with a little luck, the clients would leave and we could be out of there at 3:00 PM.  We took the opportunity to check the stock of prepared vegetables and peeled carrots, shallots and onions as the last plates were whisked away.

“Are you coming back tonight?” they asked.  Another round – 6.00 PM until midnight if they were lucky…

I was secretly glad I had plans as my feet and back were killing me, but slightly guilty I was not able to pull a full day with this talented team of hard-working individuals.  ”To work in the culinary profession you have to be passionate about your work,” one of the guys explained to me.  ”It is your life.  It is your weekends.  You have to love it.”

“My dream is to work in a restaurant in Las Vegas,” another said.  (Alain Ducasse has a fabulous restaurant in Las Vegas, so why not?!)

As for me, back to the desk job in January, but never taking the beauty, creativity and complexity of food in such fabulous restaurants for granted – ever again.

The 5:00 AM food market

The hobby of cooking

I recently discovered I have a hobby.  In the past I would stare blankly at surveys asking about personal hobbies and hesitate between abseiling or basket weaving… I’ve been a ‘wine lover and foodie’ for some time now, but somehow along the way, I realised I really enjoy the art of cooking itself.  It’s relaxing and a great way to escape the pressures of the modern world when navigating through preparation, timing and a maze of dull and exotic ingredients.

Learning from the best

This new found pleasure led me to ask a very well-respected chef in Brussels if he ever lets amateurs in his kitchen to observe the secrets of his  two star Michelin restaurant.  He was incredibly generous and said I was welcome to spend a day with his team and added that to have the full experience, I should go to the morning market, at 5:00 AM with him!  

Last Tuesday, my alarm woke me from a restless sleep – at 3.15 AM! to meet the chef’s challenge and prove to him I really wanted to learn.  I knew this would be a memorable experience.  It was so early, the lights were still off on the motorway as I drove the hour haul to Brussels through dense soup-like fog.  At 5.02 AM, we set off for the ‘marche matinal’ – a food paradise for fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat and seafood, vinegars, oils and truffles!  (I had always wondered who was actually awake at this hour – and now I knew.)

It was clear how much the chef is admired by merchants with whom he has been doing business with for years.  They greeted us with warm smiles, offered apple cake to celebrate a colleague’s birthday, mused about the state of the economy, the dilemma of finding employees willing to work their early morning hours and decided the ‘ris de veau’ was not as fresh as it could be.  As we made our rounds, the chef explained how the food market had changed over the years.  Tight European food regulations mean that all imported meat must be pre-packaged with date and origin.  When choosing fresh meat, one learns to rely heavily on your local merchant’s reputation and suppliers of origin.

Supermarket produce has been sitting around awhile…

One merchant took us to his unloading dock and explained how he imported fresh herbs from around the world.  In short, the average imported fruit or vegetable we buy in the supermarket has been in the country for at least four days since it arrived at the unloading dock.  Exhibit A: Chives from Israel.  Reality is the produce was actually picked and exported within 24 hours from a number of co-operatives.  The produce arrives in large pallets and must then be sorted by co-operative and is finally re-packaged in quantities ordered by supermarket chains and restaurants.  I suddenly realised why the quality of produce on our supermarket shelves pales in comparison to the fresh quality available to professionals in the food business!

We got a cup of coffee somewhere around 6.30 AM and closed the place down at 7.00 AM with the first rays of morning light and sounds of rush hour traffic.  

A morning wake-up well worth the journey.