Tomorrow is Purim, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from Haman's murderous plot. To celebrate the foiling of Haman's plans by Mordecai, customs include drinking wine, wearing masks, reciting the Scroll of Esther, giving to the poor, and exchanging foods and drink. According to Chabad.org, "It is a mitzvah to drink, and drink to excess, on Purim...the concept of becoming intoxicated on Purim to the point that one’s reason is totally incapacitated is a legitimate Halachic position."
Tomorrow, the bf and I were already heading to Solvang and Santa Barbara to go wine tasting, so that's perfect timing!
And, while I'm not Jewish, my bf is and I love celebrating the customs of all faiths. So, in honor of Purim this year, I picked up some fun masks for us and made one of the traditional desserts: Hamantaschen ("Haman's pockets"). It's a triangular-shaped shortbread-esque (or non-dairy) cookie filled with poppy or fruit filling. I'm surprising him with them tomorrow on the drive up to wine country.
For the filling, I relied on this recipe from the New York Times. After all, the article claims it makes "perfect Hamantaschen!" The recipe makes an insane amo...
Right now, I'm in the weeds. And I love it.
Days before a big order or event, my mornings, nights, and weekends are spent planning, ordering, baking, packaging...I'm a petite, one-woman cyclone that seems to never stop whirling between my day job and Secret Marmalade. But, it's in these moments that I am so grateful. Two years ago, this was a mere hobby. As soon as I stepped into the world, I knew it wouldn't be a mere fling - I found that I could talk about technique, and ingredients, and chemistry, and chefs, and innovation, and brainstorm with others for hours. When I'm not baking, I'm reading about cooking, admiring the work of other chefs I admire, or watching a show about food...and often, this leisure leads to new ideas.
Lately, there hasn't been a lot of time to do much other than work on the orders. And, that's ok. I've worked hard this year to take my company to the next level and I'm proud of where we've come in just a year's time. In 2012 alone, we've revamped the website, overhauled the menu, been involved in one Unique LA (and are about to do our second on December 1 and 2), appeared on Cupcake Wars, been a part of the Beats for Boobs charity event in Hollywood, are participating in the upcoming
Then, I made the peanut butter filling. Doesn't it look like snow?
Wow. I can’t believe I just wrote that, but it’s true! This past Sunday night, the “LA Marathon” episode aired starring 4 teams of bakers – including Secret Marmalade (even though the show accidentally named us Sweet Marmalade).
Doing the show was such an experience and I love the cupcakes that we made: Sweet Pea Cupcakes brushed with stout beer and topped with a whipped Goat Cheese frosting, Banana Cupcakes topped with a Peanut Butter Mousse frosting, Watermelon Cupcakes topped with a Lime Buttercream, and Chocolate Cupcakes topped with Coconut Buttercream.
In fact, Secret Marmalade’s Sweet Pea Cupcake is now one of my favorite cupcakes!
Did you watch the show Sunday night? Let us know what you thought of Secret Marmalade – or is it Sweet Marmalade?
xoxo
Rebecca
The four lemons
For the second year, Secret Marmalade was requested to bake cupcakes for one of the best Oscar parties in Los Angeles. It isn't an "official" Oscar party, but trust us, this is one party you want to be on the list for.
It's also an event we look forward to as the gracious host allows us to flex our creativity and play with designs and flavors. Last year, we brought three different flavors of cupcakes. Vanilla cupcakes wrapped in a red liner and topped with a gold star, Red velvet cupcakes topped with cream cheese icing for 127 Hours, and chocolate cupcakes topped with vanilla icing and a hand-piped dark chocolate swan for The Black Swan.
This year, we had a little more fun with the flavors and designs. It's hard to do too much design work on mini cupcakes, but we were happy with the results. So without further adieu, here were this year's four cupcakes:
"Drive"
A cherry-infused cupcake with vanilla frosting topped with a stenciled gold scorpion from the Driver's iconic jacket. (We selected cherry to pay homage to the Eighties.)
