The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 42

The Boston E4 Food Globe WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2007 Opening her own business is icing on the cupcake PHOTOS BY WENDY MAEDAGLOBE STAFF Jr 1 -mta i I ij i I i i I iii ii mm Sara Ross, a transplanted Southern California pastry chef, recently opened a cupcake-only shop in Davis Square. By Darry Madden GLOBE CORRESPONDENT A mysterious sign appeared in Somerville's Davis Square over the summer. A throbbing red neon cartoon cupcake, it seemed to beat for naught, as the business it announced, Kickass Cupcakes, never materialized. But after a few weeks, the lights came on in the little storefront and suddenly it was bursting with cupcakes and customers. Sara Ross hung the neon red cartoon-cupcake shingle.

Ross, a pastry chef who recently moved from California, reels off half a dozen cupcake bakeries in the Santa Monica area she went to all the time, including one called "Le Cupcake" which opened last fall and prompted one food blogger to ask, "Are we cupcaked out? Is there room for yet another cupcake shop in Southern California?" "They're everywhere but here," says Ross. Which is not to say one can't find a good cupcake in Boston. Lulu's Bakery in the North End and Petsi Pies in Somerville, for example, both bake cupcakes daily. But Ross's is Boston's first cupcake-only business. Her all-natural cupcakes are baked fresh every day and contain no trans fats and no preservatives.

Many of her sprinkles are dyed using plant extracts, and all the milk and cream for baking, frosting, and whipping comes from Shaw Farm in Dracut. And that, says Ross, is the difference between a grocery store cupcake that retails for about Dorchester, but didn't think the location was right. She looked in the South End, but rents were too high. Davis, with its mix of college students and families, felt more appropriate, and, says Ross, "It just seemed to go with the name." Maybe she read the situation right. After a successful opening, she didn't have a single leftover cupcake to show (or to re-create into cupcake biscotti).

Hundreds of them went out the door on Saturday and Sunday, and the little storefront, which is still just a takeout business with no tables or chairs, was colorless and bare on Monday, save a small container of bright red birthday candles, for sale individually, next to the cash register. Time to bake some more. 378 Highland Somerville, 617-628-2877. food cake. A special flavor is offered daily.

Wednesday's, for instance, is peanut butter with chocolate chips topped with milk chocolate and roasted peanuts. The shop offers minis ($1.50) and XLs This is such serious business. When did cupcakes go from being a small-scale fund-raising sweet to a confection you can build shops around? Ross explains that a New York cupcake shop called Magnolia started it all in the 1990s. Loyal fans speak of the high cake-to-frosting ratio, and the wonders of forkless eating. There is a nostalgic component when adults consume this childhood treat.

The real appeal might be the kitschy novelty of it all. Ross believes that her company has found its proper home in Davis Square. She thought about opening up shop near her home in cake begins with a buttery batter. Strawberry shortcake vanilla batter uses buttermilk for a more country flavor and a slight tangi-ness. Likewise, there are two different chocolate recipes.

Super chocolate cupcakes are first cousins to the brownie, and are made with real chocolate that has a very high fat content. The traditional chocolate cupcakes, made with cocoa, are a close relative to devil's $1.50, and one of hers, which start at $2.75. There are other differences. Grocery stores don't usually soak their cupcakes in rum (the mojito also features sugar cane lime frosting and mint) or make them entirely vegan (java jolt, born from many requests). "Think about cupcakes in new ways," writes Ross on her website.

"Cupcakes with shooters. Cup-cakes-a-Go-Go. Deep fried cup cakes. Looking for a cool alternative to a birthday or wedding cake? Try a cupcake tower." The deep-fried cupcakes she's referring to come stuffed with cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup. Leftover cupcakes are reborn as cupcake crisps, a take on biscotti.

Ross is using a few different recipes for the basic cupcake foundation. The standard vanilla cup rV Keep Manhattan, just give them that countryside tr V-''A yJKl- i 3i, "i "THE YEAR OF THE GOAT" Continuedfrom Page El journey to learn all she could about goats. "That's how Karl remembers it," she says, sitting in her dining room, which overlooks a large vegetable garden and an overgrown apple orchard. Schatz, 37, joined Hathaway on her crosscountry adventure and took the photos for "The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese." Their own goats were purchased to make cheese, but so far the goats haven't produced any milk. What the young couple agree on is that after living for a few years in Brooklyn, they both began to pine for an agricultural life.

Hathaway, who had spent a year V1- 4: working in cookbook publishing, was a manager at Manhattan's Magnolia Bakery. Schatz was an online photo editor at Time magazine. Before they met, both had lived abroad: Hathaway as a Ful-bright scholar in Tunisia, and Schatz as a documentary photographer in Russia and Poland. "We've seen that the world isn't so wasteful," says Hathaway. "Goats seemed so versatile and useful.

We loved that they could make do anywhere." There was only one problem. Beyond their love of goat cheese, they had little experience with goats, or farming for that matter. But somehow goats continued to capture their imaginations, and cosmic signs pointed them toward a life beyond Manhattan's skyline. The most auspicious of these was that 2003 happened to be the year of the goat in the Chinese zodiac. Thus -the decision to leave the city and their jobs, and spend the year crisscrossing 43 states in their Hyundai Santa Fe "The Goat Mobile" with their dog, Godfrey, to figure out if goats were in their stars.

"Luckily, when we met our first goat, we liked it," Hathaway says. The couple witnessed a Halal goat slaughter in Maine, milked All Day PHOIOS BY EVAN RICHMANULOBfc STAtF Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz left jobs in New York City to pursue their dream of starting a dairy and learning everything they could about goats. "Goats seemed so versatile and useful," Hathaway said. "We loved that they could make do anywhere." rXx n'' 1. Extra Toe Room 5 Colors Hugs Heel N-X Wide, 5-12 pv EDWIN CASE M-' COMFORT SHOES J) 1388 Beacon St Brookline 617-277-6577 goats in Washington, ate goat BBQ in Tennessee, and watched meat goat auctions in Texas.

And, of course, nibbled lots of goat cheese. Hathaway and Schatz blogged about these experiences arid more on their website, yearofthegoat "We started out thinking of it as a Web documentary' says Hathaway. "We had the idea of educating people about goats," adds Schatz. "We were learning so many amazing things about these animals, and the website was one way to pull all that information together." After the couple married in 2004, Hathaway wrote a book proposal, which sold when they settled into their farmhouse. Today there's a Subaru Outback state car," jokes Hathaway) parked next to the Goat Mobile in front of their house.

The four goats are Eyrod, Chansonet-ta, Percival Baxter, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, named after historic Maine figures. Godfrey the dog is still with them, and Charlotte, 14 months, has joined the crew. Hathaway and Schatz are founding members of Portland's Slow Food convivium, and the couple keeps in touch with other like-minded local farmers through the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners' Association. They're raising chickens and ducks on the four acres that are cleared. They had planned to make goat cheese, but sparks didn't fly when they introduced a buck to their two female goats this fall, which means no goat milk.

Instead, they'll spend this year trying to live off the meat and eggs from their chickens, as well as the produce from their garden. Maybe someday they'll run a community- I HIT I TAD lUSRcutal. 1 niLLluriVl saigas BUTCHERSHOP "Hr; REGIONAL GOLD WinnER fj Lottery Thank You Food Stamps Fresh Split Ground Fresh Daily CHICKEN BREASTS SIM1SI11M 99. I ft BONELESS SIRLOIN I COUNTRYSTYIE I OVENSTUFFER TIP STEAKS PUB PERDUE ROASTER I I 99c Boneless $AQQ Deli Sliced $OQt TOP STEAK 7 IB GENOASALAHl IB lLb.Pac CAQQ Deli Sliced (A 00 PLUMROSE BACON A PROME CHEESE tV 18 Loose flflf! 20 Oi.Pte. Peeled BAKIHG POTATOES 49 LB BUTTERhUT SQUASH 1 Ell 991B loCCOLICMS (Mi J.J, I ill' i iiiiiinn-ii.

iil diiiHii.n mil iiiiiiIii i imif hi NittBta feC SMI ktr-: '1 was a senior at Wellesley, so no, I wasn't thinking about living on a farm. But this," she says, standing among the apple trees, "this feels right and whole to me." supported agricultural group or way, with her tumble of brown sell cheese at the local farmers' curls held back in a bandana, markets. That is, if Flyrod and thinks carefully when asked if she Chansonetta get lucky. could have imagined this life 10 Later, In the orchard, Hatha- years ago. 1.