OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for party cupcakes to celebrate Superabundant’s 100th newsletter.

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It’s been a little over two years since I joined the “Superabundant” team and 100 newsletters and 100 recipes later, we are ready to celebrate with cake. Party cupcakes with sprinkles and strawberry frosting, to be specific. These cheerful, festal cupcakes have not one but two Oregon connections — do you know what they are? Read on to find out!

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Note from Heather: One of the goodies in the gift basket will be from my own garden!

Favorite recipes from the past 100 newsletters

Sometimes OPB staffers try the recipes from the newsletter, and because I’m a sentimental sap with a heart made of treacle, I wanted to share a few of the highlights.

“Superabundant” narrator Crystal Ligori enjoyed this classic, comforting Greek chicken soup avgolemono, saying “I would not have ever thought to make it before (too intimidating) but your recipe really gave me confidence.” ( 👩‍🦱 ← my proud mama face) Series co-creator MacGregor Campbell also tried a soup recipe — he made Der Rheinlander’s Frankfurter-lentil soup the day it hit the website (he even sent me a photo of the TWO full pots of it on his stove).

Breaking news editor Jeff Thompson tried the grilled peach and chicken flatbread pizza. “I spotted the recipe in First Look on a mid-summer day when I had been trying to find something different to cook on the grill,” he said. “And my son had been asking for more chicken in our collective diet. This one was simple, delicious, and exactly what I was looking for. I was able to whip it up quickly and the family loved it. Also it’s pretty healthy for a pizza!”

When it comes to sweets, both the buttermilk chocolate cake and Oregon’s centennial birthday cake got some love from colleagues in the finance (Karen Bedolla) and philanthropy (Nick Warren) departments, and Arts and Culture video producer Prakruti Bhatt gave me the best compliment in the entire world when she said my hazelnut and rose petal suji ka halwa (a Diwali confection) tasted like her mom’s. “It reminded me of home and family,” she said. (😭 SHUT UP I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING)

The autumn equinox is Sunday

…and that means that for the second time this year, the daylight hours will be equal to the hours of darkness. Rather than dreading the ever-shrinking photoperiod, try to enjoy these waning days — drink some hot apple cider, collect some acorns and chestnuts to decorate your table and ready yourself for cozy season.

National Hispanic Heritage Month

Celebrate the cultural legacy of Latinx Americans with Hispanic Heritage Month (from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15), which starts with the independence days of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica (Mexico’s, Chile’s, and Belize’s are the 16th, 18th and 21st, respectively). A couple years ago, NPR published a story about the history of the heritage month and how then-President Johnson decided on the name, but if you want to find ways to celebrate, OregonLive put out a handy list of events happening around the state.

Creative ways to cut food waste

NPR’s Climate Solutions Week is over, but they sent us off with some creative ways that folks are reducing food waste around the country. This includes one urban farmer in Tacoma who founded Food Is Free Washington, a program to produce food in underutilized land like residential yards and urban hellstrips and then give it to people who need it.

Though apples and pears have joined the ranks of plums, figs and table grapes, decorative gourd season is also off to the races. Hazelnuts and walnuts are fresh and plump, and wetter days mean the fungi are out to play — chanterelles are peeking their sunny yellow (and white! And blue!) faces out of forest soils and fat little forest hogs (porcini or boletes) are streaming through my Instagram feed.

My cucumbers, tomatoes, tomatillos and hobak are making their last attempts at producing before the season turns too cold and wet, and I’ve been picking Schwartzbeeren pretty much every day, stashing them in the freezer for later.

Lately, in the ‘Superabundant’ kitchen

✨I made a nice big pot of vegetarian haleem — a stew of hulled wheat berries, various legumes and lots of spices (it usually includes mutton but in this case, I added fried eggplant and chiles from the garden instead). It’s a great way to use a lot of different pulses — I used urad dal (black matpe beans), chana dal (split chickpeas), hara chana (green chickpeas) and sabut masoor (brown lentils). Eaten around the Middle East, South Asia and Central Asia, the dish is often eaten during Ramadan; though it’s calorie-dense, it’s high in protein and fiber.

✨I baked a fig upside-down cake with lots of almond and cardamom, and after giving half of it away to neighbors, my family ate it for breakfast for a few days. I cooked another batch of figs down into a thick paste to fill mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival (but then got too busy to actually make the mooncakes).

✨On the last nice day (Monday), I grilled some juicy hamburgers over a crackly wood fire, but since I only had min banh mi rolls instead of hamburger buns, I shaped the burgers into long ovals instead of round patties. They were delicious with roasted red potato jojos (my trick is to steam the potatoes first and then season them with ranch powder before roasting).

Recipe: Party cupcakes with strawberry frosting

When I was chatting with Crystal Ligori at an OPB picnic last week (to meet our new CEO Rachel Smolkin — I gave her a jar of homemade blackberry jam to welcome her because I’m a huge suck-up), I mentioned wanting to make something special to celebrate the 100th newsletter. Without taking a beat, she said “cake.” Yes. And if cake with sprinkles looks like a party, cupcakes are a platter of tiny parties.

I don’t make cupcakes often, but for those times when only a cupcake will do, I am prepared. I keep a stash of fun muffin tin liners, colorful sprinkles, edible sparkle-dust and a bottle of Watkins clear, artificial vanilla flavor that’s only trotted out for white cake with funfetti. (I also love that Watkins has an Oregon connection — franchisee Bill Porter was a successful door-to-door Watkins salesman in the Portland area despite having cerebral palsy; the TV movie about his life, “Door to Door,” won an Emmy. The original franchise office was located on Southeast Division Street, where the Woodsman Tavern sits today.)

These party cupcakes have another Oregon connection. Albany-based Oregon Freeze Dry (OFD) got its start dehydrating Oregon strawberries for Post Corn Flakes & Strawberries breakfast cereal in 1963 before switching to Long Range Patrol rations (“lurps”) for the Vietnam War and then launching their brand Mountain House in 1969. The dehydrated prepper/camp food side of the biz has endured, and now freeze-dried fruits (including Oregon strawberries) are pretty widely available for snacking or adding to recipes. I especially love the lurid pink color and laser-bright flavor that freeze-dried strawberries bring to a regular buttercream frosting.

Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

½ cup unsalted butter, softened

¼ cup neutral cooking oil

2 eggs

½ cup sour cream

½ cup whole milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

½ cup sprinkles

Strawberry frosting

1 ounce freeze-dried strawberries

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

4 cups confectioner’s (powdered) sugar

3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream, half-and-half or whole milk

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

More sprinkles for decorating

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and line two muffin tins with cupcake papers.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another mixing bowl, beat together the butter, oil, eggs, sour cream, milk and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Form a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients, stirring until just combined. Fold in the sprinkles and divide the batter evenly among the 24 cupcake papers. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes, then transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack.
3. While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting: Powder the freeze-dried strawberries in a clean spice grinder or mortar and pestle and then sift through a fine-mesh sieve to remove seeds. With an electric mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, then beat in the powdered sugar, cream or milk, salt and powdered strawberries until thick and spreadable. If you need to thin it a little, add a little more cream, or if you need to thicken it more, add a little more powdered sugar.
4. When the cupcakes have completely cooled, pipe or spread the frosting on top however you think is fun, then top with more sprinkles. (Note: you can freeze the unfrosted cupcakes and frosting separately if you want to make these ahead of time; just thaw the frosting before spreading.)

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