I think I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say it again...I work a lot of music festivals. Furthermore, I work with food vendors at a lot of the music festivals I do work and I gotta say, I’m surprised there aren’t more cupcakes being sold at music festivals. Ok, so maybe cupcakes aren’t as trendy as they were at the beginning of the millennium but they’re still out there. As far as festival foods go cupcakes are right on the money: you can hold it in one hand (leaving the other hand free for a food selfie or to hold your totem), doesn’t take long to eat, relatively no mess and cupcakes don’t cost much. Plus, they’re a perfect sugar rush to pick you up anytime of day or night.
Electric Forest is a magical festival that takes place in Rothbury Michigan, it is easily one of the best fests I get to work.
This was the 9th year that "Forest" has brought brought strangers together with the magical wonders of music, art, community and food. Over 60 food vendors nourished attendees and workers over the 4 day camping festival including 3 unique specialty food activations:
- Cereal Sundae, offering sundaes made with your choice of classic cereal flavors, toppings and type of milk (ice cream optional).
- Burger Planet, a 50's style themed burger stand with mouth watering add ons for burgers like thick strips of bacon or fried egg (or both), fresh cut steak fresh and milk shakes.
- Shakes, a newbie this year served up hand-crafted, caffeinated concoctions.
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cupcakes from Morat's Bakery
photo by Nikki DeMartini |
Though no food vendors had cupcakes on their menu, something magical happened during load-in.
Morat's Bakery, which is local to those parts came early and brought fresh baked pastries as a thanks. The assortment they brought our team had whoopie pies, cake and half a dozen cupcakes. Each of the 6 cupcakes were different flavors. One looked like cherry, one looked like lemon, another looked like it might be toasted coconut. I went with the one that looked like it was pistachio flavored. The one with green frosting sprinkled with what looked like little pieces of pistachios. I had never had a pistachio cupcake and I've been on a pistachio flavored sweets kick lately (which I attribute to Italians love for Spumone). I also thought that the green frosting was fitting for The Forest (green, forest...get it?)
There were traces of the green "nut", indeed making this otherwise vanilla cupcake a pistachio cupcake. The frosting, whipped to a light and fluffy consistency, was sugary and fresh, melting in my mouth with each bite. The cake was light, and fluffy, and fresh too. The vanilla cake had a touch of green coloring and I couldn't tell if there was any pistachio flavor added to it or if it was just some green food dye. It was a good, standard, cupcake but I do wish that it tasted as much like pistachio as it looked like it would. I think a little re-vamping of this exotic flavor could go a long way: instead of a vanilla cake do a flour less chocolate cake (because flour
less chocolate cake is the best kind of chocolate cake) with chunks of pistachios and a pistachio buttercream frosting. Throw some edible green glitter or confetti stars on top and give it a festive name like the Forest cupcake and all the festival kids will want cupcakes.
