One Week Ahead - The Roast and some cupcakes

The decision was made to make Cocoa and Spice Crusted Pork Roast for the main course for the anniversary party.  I've made it a few times, and it is always a hit.  Usually I serve it with roasted vegetables and beet salad, but this time we wanted to keep it a little more casual and easy to eat party-style.  So, I decided we should try serving it on buns.  It is so flavorful and juicy, that it really doesn't require any condiments.  (And that is a bonus right there!!)  I originally got the recipe from epicurious.com.

Here is the recipe:

Spice Rub:

• 1/2 tablespoon whole white peppercorns (I used powdered white pepper)
• 1/2 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoons plus 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt 
• 1 tablespoon plus 2 1/4 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Pork and Onions:

• 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 3/4 to 4 pounds onions, thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 5-pound pork shoulder butt with bone

preparation

For spice rub:
Stir peppercorns and coriander in small skillet over medium heat until spices are darker in color,about 5 minutes. Transfer toasted spices to spice grinder; grind finely. Place in small bowl; mix in remaining ingredients. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.

For pork and onions:
Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Add onions and sage; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté10 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups water; cover and cook until onions are soft, about 15 minutes. Uncover; continue to cook until onions are beginning to brown and water has evaporated, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 300°F. Sprinkle spice rub on large sheet of foil. Roll pork in rub, pressing to coat (some of rub will be leftover). Set pork on rack in large roasting pan. Top pork with 1/3 of onions; scatter remaining onions around pork in pan.

Roast pork and onions until onions are deep brown, stirring occasionally, about 3 hours. Transfer onions from pan to medium bowl. Continue to roast pork until very tender and thermometer inserted into center registers 165°F, about 2 1/2 hours longer. Transfer pork to platter. Rewarm onions in microwave at 10 second intervals and season with salt and pepper; spoon around pork.

Really, the worst part of this process is chopping all those onions.  But I slice them big and they fall apart when you cook them down.  Anyway, about 2AM Brett sliced up the roasts.  (I actually did one 5lb and one 2.5lb roast to be sure we had enough.)  And I separated out all the juices and onions.  We put them in separate sealed containers and put them in the freezer for the week.  On the day of the party I mostly thawed both the onions/drippings and the roast in the microwave and then plopped them together into the crock pot to heat up on low.  I stirred periodically to make sure the onions and roasts were brought back together nicely.

There were 36 whole wheat buns, and the roast to bun ratio turned out perfectly!  We went through all of it.  It really was a success.

CUPCAKES

The last thing I made the week before was the cupcakes.  I decided that since I was making so many other things from scratch I would turn to my friend, Betty Crocker, to help me out with those.  I purchased 2 boxes of red velvet cake mix (ruby anniversary necessity) and two containers of cream cheese frosting. 

Urban and I mixed up the cupcake batter and I distributed it to the white cupcake papers.  I made exactly 4 dozen cupcakes.  Once they were baked, I left them on the counter to cool.  Once cool, I put six to a freezer bag and stuck them in the freezer next to the roast.

24 hours before we planned to frost them, Mom moved them to the refrigerator to thaw.  I had read a blog post on the kitchn about freezing cakes just the week before, and they suggested slowly thawing in the fridge to ensure the cakes stay moist.

The day of the party, Mom and I frosted the cakes with the cream cheese frosting and sprinkled them with red sugar.  But the piece de resistance was the candy rubies I had purchased from Amy's Sweet Dream on etsy.com. We chose watermelon and strawberry dacquiri as our flavors, and she made them in two shades of red.  We topped each cupcake with 3 rubies.  They were delicious and fabulous!

And no cupcake presentation is complete without a cupcake tree, so that's what we did.  After a little trial and error, we picked the most perfect cupcakes we had and stacked them up in a pretty little pyramid.  It became a lovely centerpiece on the table.

Next up, salads!