…it’s also about the candy.
This recipe is very compatible with vegan substitutions - a little soy milk, sweetener, and egg replacer and they turn out beautifully. They’re also particularly tasty if you’re using organic and fair trade ingredients. An organic fair trade cupcake is an empowered cupcake.
Hallowe‘en Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup soft butter or margarine
1 & 1/3 cup sugar (divided)
3 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
chocolate chips
* combine flour and cocoa
* add baking powder and salt
* in a separate bowl, cream butter and gradually beat in 1 cup of the sugar
* beat in 1 egg and add remaining 1/3 cup sugar
* add remaining 2 eggs one at a time — beat well after each
* sift dry ingredients into wet; alternate with milk
* combine lightly after each addition (about 3-4 mixings)
* include vanilla with the last of the milk
* divide batter among lined muffin pans (1 recipe == approx. 12 large cupcakes)
* bake at 375 for 15-22 minutes (until done)
* cool completely
* frost 1/2 with ‘fudgey’ icing and 1/2 with orange (recipes below)
* decorate to your liking with chocolate chips
Fudgey Frosting
3 tbsp soft butter or margarine
4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup milk
* melt butter
* stir in cocoa, salt and vanilla
* alternately mix in the icing sugar and the milk
* beat well
Creamy Orange Frosting
4 tbsp soft butter or margarine
2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp orange juice, mixed with
1 tsp grated orange rind
* add 1/3 of the icing sugar to the butter
* alternate mixing in the remaining icing sugar and the orange juice
Devour cupcakes with friends and loved ones. Repeat until full of cupcakey goodness.
And if you are doing something more on the ghoulish end of the spectrum, remember, it’s Vatican approved!:
“Most Christians ascribe no doctrinal significance to Halloween, treating it as a purely secular entity devoted to celebrating imaginary spooks and handing out candy. Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the senior exorcist of Vatican City, said in an interview with London’s The Sunday Telegraph, ‘if children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that.’”
~from wikipedia
Happy Hallowe’en!!
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five comments
If you live in any province or state with cows in it, try your hardest to find LOCAL butter and LOCAL milk.
If you live in any province or state with farms in it--nearly all of which have chickens--try your hardest to find LOCAL eggs (or at least from no farther than 1 province/state away!)
If you live in any province or state with food still growing, consider replacing orange juice with the juice of some local sour fruit. If it's a fruit that can be packaged or juiced and sold year-round, all the better. Cranberries are a good northern example.
If you live in or near any province or state that grows and/or processes wheat, see if you can find local flour. Hey, maybe there're still even small-time mills in operation! (Probably not, but you never know.) Believe it or not, Washington State makes flour, now. They took over from Minnesota a few years ago. You could also consider going for locally grown & ground alternative grains that work, chemically in baking, like flour.
Check out what my friend the chef wrote on another bulletin board:
"That pretty much coveres it, although you'll want to add sustaniably produced (read: not the same as organic) too. A sustainable product is one that is grown in harmony with the environment ... local fruit and veggies is much more sustainable than, say, California produce (did you know that for every one calorie of California lettuce that someone gets on the East Coast it takes 45+ calories in fossil fuel to ship it there?)"
In the end, you should make this recipe now with whatever you can get your hands on to satisfy whatever craving this recipe gave you, but before you make them a second time, do your research on each ingredient. Think about whether "organic but from faraway" or "local but conventionally grown" is really the more SUSTAINABLE option for each ingredient. It varies from ingredient to ingredient. One more word of wisdom from my chef friend:
"But buying sustainably doesn't necessarily mean buying local. If I lived in California near an industrial feedlot and I had the choice between a grass-fed free range steak from, say, South Dakota and a steak from the feedlot, I'd choose the grass-fed steak. Although more fuel may have been spent in transporting the steak to me, a lot more fossil fuel was used to raise the corn (and fertilize the corn) that was used to feed the cow that became the steak than the fuel used to transport the grass-fed steak to me."
Posted by Katie
October 31, 2006, 11:43 AM
Thanks Katie. I completely agree.
In this world, with these options, any food choice is complicated and you will almost always be making trade-offs and compromises. For instance, if you are making chocolate anything, it's worth considering when the last time was you saw a field of cocoa pods in your area. Locally-produced, organic, seasonal, sustainable, small-scale, independent (and the often complicated definitions of each).
However, I think it is important not to be paralyzed by trying to get it perfect. One of my favourite professors in university (Environmental Ethics) commented once on how people give him a hard time because he is a vegetarian, who sometimes wears a leather belt. As he said, every change you make in a positive direction is an important one, and not doing everything perfectly doesn't negate all the good choices you're making. You've just got to keep trying, learning, applying, adjusting...
Thank you for the addendum.
Posted by catherine
October 31, 2006, 1:07 PM
Oh, absolutely! (On imperfect actions being important)
I just thought I'd leave behind some extra knowledge about other imperfect actions that can either get a baker closer to perfection or that can provide a cheaper/easier way to bake imperfect brownies. (Though, y'know, it seemed I was wrong when I assumed 2 months ago that local would be easier & cheaper to find than organic out in America's small towns. Nationalized organic brands were available in the supermarkets, but all I could find besides dairy & meat for local things--in PRIME HARVEST SEASON FOR THAT PART OF THE COUNTRY--was a pack of dried mushrooms & some packs of dried herbs.)
Heh. So maybe the "local but conventional" option is the cheaper & easier one in cities, surprisingly.
Posted by Katie
October 31, 2006, 3:35 PM
[...] Okay, cheesy tactics aside, I want to say that it’s been real inspiring to hear the reports of so many folks in the Shameless community on how they’re try to make conscientious consumer choices, whether it’s organic local food, sweatshop-free clothing or cruelty-free makeup (or the choice not to buy at all). In a society where dollars speak louder than most things, I think there is definitely a lot that’s worthwhile in basing your decisions on what to buy on how to tread lightest on the world, environmentally and labour-wise. [...]
Posted by Shameless Magazine - for girls who get it » karl
November 4, 2006, 2:22 PM
Just thought I'd tell you guys abut a company that uses only organic ingredients and sources them only from fair trade companies. It's Sweet Debbie's Organic Cupcakes. They sell organic cupcakes, cookies, brownies, muffins and granola. The stuff is pretty amazing.
Happy New Year!
Eva Glaser
Posted by Eva Glaser
January 1, 2007, 12:55 PM
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