Cupcakes!

I generally hate cupcakes. They're sugar bombs, lacking flavor or interest. Not enough chocolate. Not enough flavor. Shallow.

So of course I was assigned as Cupcake Chef in advanced baking. My task: invent a cupcake that I would love madly, passionately, without reservation.

Mission impossible? Perhaps. Cupcakes can't be savory, or they'd be muffins. So no hot wing bacon fat pork bombs. Not sweet. No duck fat cracklins, either.

If we can't do savory, how about alcoholic? I've never seen a rum baba cupcake before... is this allowed? Yes, if you boil down the rum.

So, away we went. A yeasted dough to accept a rum-sugar syrup. Rum-raisin buttercream (Swiss, for more fat). A tuille cup that you can pour flaming rum into once you've taken the cupcake home (!).

Was it worth it? Yes. Not especially sweet, but enough to qualify as a cupcake. As a plated dessert, impressive. Flaming rum descends wrapped in blue flames into the cup, from where it sinks slowly into the cake, impregnating it with enough rum to make this something you can't eat before driving. The raisins add a note of complexity and sweetness, and the tuille brings its own brief chocolate note to the concerto.

Were these something that the general public would go gaga over? I don't know. Maybe a bit extreme with the rum. Maybe nobody wants to get carded just to buy a cupcake. I don't care. They're my cupcakes and I like them the way they are.