More Treats, Less Tricks: Saint Cupcake’s Cupcake Class

Yesterday I attended a Halloween-themed cupcake decorating class taught by Saint Cupcake‘s Jami Curl, which was such a blast!  Jami is so great – very down to earth, funny, personable and a great baker.  She taught us the secret behind Saint Cupcake’s fantastic rich, moist chocolate cupcakes with hot fudge frosting, plus homemade marshmallows.  Once the cupcakes were baked and the hot fudge was prepared, we got down to business – learning to decorate.  While my decorating skills are still a little lacking, I had so much fun and got to bring home some delicious treats to share!

The Chocolate Cupcake recipe is from Jami’s grandma Dot, who provided the recipes for several of Saint Cupcake’s menu items including their Pumpkin Spice cupcakes.  Jami shared that her first experience baking as a little girl was making those Pumpkin Spice cupcakes with her grandma in Ohio (that day was also cemented into her memory due to the fact that she sadly also got bit in the face by a little dachshund dog).  The Saint Cupcake mini cupcakes are even called “Dots” after her. 

Fortunately for the few of us in the class, Jami (and presumably Dot) doesn’t consider her recipes to be secrets so she was ok sharing them with us.  One of the unique differences in her cupcake recipe is hot coffee which doesn’t add any coffee flavor but lots of richness.  The coffee also melts the sugar and slows any gluten development, making the cupcakes extra fluffy and moist.

Once we had the cupcakes ready, Jami and Karla, one of Saint Cupcake’s bakers who was helping out, showed us how to delicately dip the cupcake into the hot fudge frosting.  Just hold the cupcake upside down, dip it into a bowl of hot fudge, circling it to remove any excess frosting without getting the sides dirty.  To top with sprinkles or crushed up graham cracker (which is perfect with the chocolate and marshmallow to make a delicious S’more like cupcake), you just put some topping in your hand and press the sides of the frosting-topped cupcake to coat. It was surprisingly easy! 

We got to decorate about 6 cupcakes each with numerous topping options. My creativity per usual was lacking so I was showed up by the 9-year-old girls in the class, but my little Halloween treats still were pretty cute, if not a little cheesy.

The class was at Sweetwares, a wonderful little baking supply store in SW Portland owned by the same folks over at Baker & Spice.  It is such a great little store filled with everything baking you can want – from beautiful cake stands to high-quality vanilla beans and cocoa powder to just about every kind of sprinkle imaginable.  It is definitely one of those places where I spend too much money (I swear I was pretty good yesterday though…).  They offer lots of fun cooking classes as well – you can find their fall 2011 schedule here.  Definitely worth a visit!