It's a cupcakes kind of world for this Huntley cook
Lately, Jane Sinnett McMullen, our Cook of the Week from Huntley, has found herself surrounded by cupcakes.
“It seems that this is what I do, I basically bake cupcakes!” she laughs. Still, it's not all she does. As the music director for a Lutheran church in Huntley, Jane directs multiple choirs and hand bell groups and was a violinist for years. But, it is true that sometimes her two passions combine. Witness a recent church fundraiser for the annual youth mission trip that found Jane in her kitchen baking more than 400 cupcakes.
“That's a lot of cupcakes! I had a couple of the high school girls helping. They were master frosting pipers — I couldn't make the frosting fast enough. Then we had to haul them to other people's refrigerators; I tripped on a downspout, the cupcakes went flying, but they landed right side up. It was a comedy of errors.” The bake sale raised more than $1,000 however, so all's well that ends well.
Jane caught the bug to bake from her grandmother.
“Grandma was a really fine baker. I've finally mastered her pie crust. Her pies were award winners. She made kolaski's and Danish pastry. She had golden fingers when it came to baking.” Jane remembers making plum preserves with her grandmother who was of French and German descent.
“Grandma and Grandpa had a farm in Barrington. In her era, she had to make everything — including the bread.” Jane has some of her grandmother's old recipes, but they are challenging. “She never really did any measuring!”
As a wife and mother of two grown children, (one of whom is a professional chef) she also enjoys cooking, of course. She particularly likes to make German food. She shares recipes for Sauerbraten and Pflaumen Kuchen at dailyherald.com/lifestyle/food.
“I like to use really good ingredients and make them shine. I grill a lot or roast. I like to make fish with lemon and fresh herbs,” she says. Jane has a herb garden where she grows tarragon, basil, parsley and thyme among others.
“The chives are coming up already with a vengeance!” she laughs. Today Jane is sharing her
Sauerbraten recipe with us, a classic German dish that slowly roasts beef using a rich marinade.
Jane's real love, however, is baking cupcakes. Her approach to making cupcakes is straightforward.
“I like simple. I don't like a lot of glop! I make one I call Citrus Burst that I top with a fresh slice of orange or lemon. Or I make one that is chocolate and coffee flavored, so I top it with a chocolate-covered coffee bean, and my peanut-butter-chocolate cupcake is topped with a little Reese's cup — so you can see a hint of what's inside, you know what you're getting. What you won't find on one of my cupcakes is a rose made with shortening in the frosting.”
If Jane sounds particular and exacting, well perhaps she is. Though she has sampled cupcakes all over the country, she has found only one place, a bakery in Frankenmuth, Michigan, that can compare to hers.
“That was the first cupcake I've ever bought that was as good as mine … I say that humbly because my mother would want me to be humble.” We have the chance to try Jane's Black Forest Cupcakes — luscious chocolate cake filled with cherries and topped with chocolate shavings.
Jane finds her recipes everywhere, many on the Internet.
“The first time I always do what the recipes says, but then I try to make it my own. I have to change something. It's an obsession of mine!”
Jane is often enlisted to bake for showers, birthdays, graduations and even weddings. Up next? An event of her planning, a reunion of former high school handbell ensemble members, back from college.
“I'll be baking cupcakes that week! And then it's on to the next adventure!”
Does that include cupcakes?
“I have to assume so — all the signs are pointing that way!” she laughs.
• To suggest someone to be profiled here, send the cook's name, address and phone number to food@dailyherald.com.