Though I was not chosen to present, I did make cupcakes for the class. Here's the takeaway: people have really boring cupcake preferences. My survey split up cake preferences and frosting preferences, which dilutes the power of the whole cupcake. Having frosting and cake split like that makes it difficult to convince people of the deliciousness of more unusual cupcakes. Thus, my colleagues chose chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. I dutifully made them, wishing that the mint julep cupcake had won instead.
What I've derived from this assignment is that creativity probably can't be managed by democracy. Whether it's cake, cookies, or art, I suspect that people are open to new things, but only when they are completed. The audience needs to be convinced. If your product is conventional, this process is pretty easy. But if your product is beyond the norm (avant-garde art or sazerac cupcakes), the audience needs to be sold. If I had asked people if they were interested in a mint julep cupcake, I may have gotten more positive responses that I did by asking if people were interested in bourbon cake and mint frosting. My my audience isn't as risk-averse as my survey indicates.
So how do creative people get funding for their work when there's this conventional, risk-averse bias? After all, conventional wisdom is often wrong. Having a whole vision and being able to communicate it definitely helps. Crowd funders like Kickstarter can also funnel cash towards artists whose work wouldn't get funding from traditional sources. But there are artists out there who are doing visionary work, and the crowd's lack of interest doesn't make the work any less great. How can they get support? Will the starving visionary always be with us? How can an artist convince the market to take a risk, especially in our fractured culture?
I don't know. But in the meantime, I can make the best chocolate chocolate cupcake possible. I will save my boozy adventure cupcakes for another day. My recipe follows. The cake is from Orangette, the frosting is the recipe is adapted from inside the Baker's Chocolate box.
Cake Ingredients:
3 oz semisweet chocolate
1 ½ cups hot brewed coffee
3 cups sugar
2 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
1 ¼ tsp salt
3 large eggs
¾ cup canola oil
1 ½ cups buttermilk
¾ tsp pure vanilla extract
Cake Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Pour the hot coffee over the chocolate and stir until melted. Beat the eggs for 3 minutes or so, until they are lemon colored and a little foamy. Slowly add the oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate to the eggs and beat until completely combined. Add all the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder), and beat until smooth. The batter will be quite liquidy.
Fill cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely. Recipe makes 36-40 cupcakes. These came out quite flat on top, and very moist. If you want a more domed cupcake, I would consider raising the oven temperature and cooking for less time.
Frosting Ingredients:
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1/2 to 1 lb powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 t vanilla
Frosting Directions:
Melt the chocolate in a large saucepan on the stove. Let it cool for 5 minutes, then beat in the butter, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer. You need at least half a pound of sugar. If you want sweeter frosting, use more. The more sugar you use, the more frosting you will get. Beat in the milk bit by bit, until you get the desired consistency, which should be smooth and a light brown color. The amount of milk will vary by the amount of sugar.
Cheater's Frosting Directions:
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a saucepan over low heat on the stove. Whisk in the vanilla and sugar, adding milk to thin it out to the right color and smoothness. I like this method because less gets dirty.
Using a knife or a spatula, frost cupcakes. With the half pound version, there will be enough for each cupcake to get nice layer. If you like loads of frosting (I don't), you'll have to make the sweeter version, or more of the semi-sweet version.
And my powerpoint, should you be interested:
