Brown Sugar Pound Cupcakes with Brown Butter Glaze

My cousin Stephanie and I were baking this weekend, and I let her choose the recipe. These cupcakes are ones I probably would never have tried. I'm not a huge fan of pound cake (or a lot of cake in general, honestly) and thought these would be pretty plain. The results? They're fantastic! Lesson learned. I think I'm going to start making more "I'd never make that" recipes. How else will I find new and wonderful things?


Recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Ingredients- Brown Sugar Pound Cupcakes

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup buttermilk
Brown-Butter Glaze


Line a cupcake tin with paper liners and pre-heat oven to 325.

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients together and set aside. Cream butter and brown sugar until light brown and fluffy (using your mixer, about 3 minutes on high).

Add eggs, one at a time. Beat thoroughly between additions.

With your mixer on low, add buttermilk and flour intermittently, starting with the flour, the flour in 3 parts. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue mixing until the dry mixture is completely incorporated.

Pour batter into cupcake liners until about 2/3 full and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.When the cupcakes are out of the oven, make your glaze.

Look at that shrimp on the top left!

Ingredients- Brown Butter Glaze

1/2 Cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 to 4 tablespoons whole milk

In a small saucepan or pot, melt the butter for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. It should have a slightly nutty scent. Pour into your mixer's bowl, leaving any burn bits in the pot.

Mix in sugar and vanilla and beat well.

Now, add milk gradually until the glaze is the desired consitency. *Use the glaze immediately, as it might begin to separate.

Glaze your cupcakes and enjoy!

Happy baking!

Strawberry Cupcakes

Ever since I took my cake decorating class, I've been wanting to do more decorating. I was going to show Sara some of the fun techniques I learned and since I didn't want to make two cakes, we made cupcakes instead. I broke about every rule I learned in class but still got some practice in and we had a lot of fun.

This Martha Stewart strawberry cupcake recipe called for a Strawberry Meringue buttercream, but I went with the swiss meringue buttercream instead, since we wanted to color the icing. They were very good, but a tad too sweet for me. (As you might remember, I'm a salt and butter kind of gal.)

Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients

2 3/4 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup cake flour (not self-rising)
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Cup unsalted butter
2 1/4 Cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs + 1 egg white
1 Cup milk
2 Cups finely chopped strawberries (about 20)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line your muffin tin with paper liners. (Recipe makes about 34 cupcakes.)

Sift together flours, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In your standing mixer, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and finally the egg white, beating well after each addition and scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.

Reduce speed to low and add flour in two batch, alternating with the milk, beating well until combined.

Fold in chopped strawberries.

Divide batter evenly between cups, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes (toothpick should come out clean) and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Allow cupcakes to site overnight, or cool thoroughly before icing. You should really use a crumb topping if you want to make these fancy, but we skipped that part, partially because we were afraid we didn't have enough (it turned out we had PLENTY of icing) and partly because it was 9:30 PM and we wanted to decorate them and not wait for them to chill. Oh, and our fridge is packed and a total mess. Fitting something in there wasn't exactly something I wanted to do.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients

5 large egg whites
1 Cup + 2 Tbs sugar
Pinch of salt
1 lb (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Combine the egg whites, sugar and salt in your standing mixer's bowl and put it in a pot of simmering water. Whisk constantly by hand until the mixture is warm and the sugar is completely dissolved. (The mixture will feel smooth between your fingers.)

Attach the bowl to your mixer with the whisk attachment, and mix on low, gradually increasing to medium-high speed. Martha says stiff, dry peaks will form, and then you will go for a more fluffy and glossy effect. you'll mix until the bowl has cooled, about 10 minutes.

A few quick notes:
1) I have never, ever been able to form "peaks" with anything I make.
2) It has never mattered before.
3) It didn't matter here.

On medium-low speed, add the butter a few Tbs at a time, beating well after each addition. Once the butter has been added, mix in the vanilla. Switch to the paddle attachment and beat until the buttercream is smooth. This took us about 10 more minutes of beating. The buttercream looked like a wet cottage cheese for quite awhile which had me nervous, but we let it go and it came together quite nicely.

Gross.

Yum!

Dye with gel coloring and use as desired. Here are our less-than masterpieces but still fun cupcakes! (I think we spent more time laughing than anything.)

We had too much leftover icing to waste, so we mixed it all together and froze it. The color is sort of a gross desert rose, but might make a great crumb topping frosting at a later date.

Happy baking!

St Patrick's Day Cupcakes!

Guinness and chocolate cupcakes, filled with Bailey's ganache and topped with a Bailey's buttercream frosting.

Oh. My.

I'd been thinking of what to make for St Patty's Day, and since I already tried soda bread last year, I was having trouble coming up with ideas on my own. (A blog about carrots, potatoes and cabbage just didn't sound all that exciting.) I was at Michael's buying some magnets and ran across these shamrock cupcake paper liners. I took it as a sign and snatched them up.

I wasn't planning on doing anything too "Irish" with the cupcakes other than a green and white theme, but one Google search later and I'd found the most delicious recipe! Guinness and Bailey's Irish Cupcakes. These babies were an absolute hit with everyone who tried them, so although they took a bit of work to make, it was worth every minute of it! Dense and rich chocolate, booze, cream, I mean really... how is that not a win?

Ingredients
*Makes about 25 cupcakes

Cupcakes:
1 Cup Guinness
16 Tbsp Butter (2 sticks)
3/4 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Cups all-purpose flour
2 Cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2/3 Cup sour cream

Ganache:
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate (either chips, or finely chopped)
2/3 Cup heavy cream
2 Tbs butter
2 tsp Bailey's

Frosting:
8 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 stick) at room temp
3 Cups confectioners sugar, sifted
4-8 tbsp Bailey's (I used about 7)

Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners and preheat oven to 350. Combine Guinness and butter in a medium sauce pan and heat until the butter is melted.

Meanwhile, drink the remaining Guiness. (It's bad business to waste.)

After the butter melts, add the cocoa powder, whisking until you have a smooth consistency. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt and baking soda together.

In another bowl beat the eggs and sour cream together until well blended.

Once the Guinness mix has cooled a bit, add it to the egg mixture and blend until just combined.

Now, gradually add the flour mixture while blender is on low and continue blending until it is thoroughly incorporated and you have a smooth batter.

Not the best picture, but man, was that batter gorgeous. It also smelled heavenly!

Fill the cupcake liners to 1/2 - 3/4 full and bake for 17-20 minutes. (Make sure a toothpick comes out clean before you remove these from the oven.)

Allow the cupcakes to stand in the tin about 5 minutes, and then take them out to finish cooling.

While the cupcakes are cooking/cooling, make your ganache filling. (My personal favorite... yum!)

Place  your chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering, and pour over the chocolate. Allow to sit for a few moments and then mix until the chocolate is melted. You can put it in the microwave for a few seconds as well, if needed. Add butter and Bailey's and stir well. Cutting the butter into small pieces will help it melt faster.

Set the ganache aside to cool and thicken a bit. You can put it in the refrigerator but make sure to stir it frequently so it doesn't start to harden.

Time to prepare the cupcakes for the filling. Take a paring knife and cut out the upper 1/2 - 3/4 of the cupcake. Now, cut a small bit off the bottom piece you just removed. There will now be room for your filling! (And you can eat those bottom pieces, too! They're rich, so you'll get full fast... trust me!)

When the ganache has cooled, use a spoon or piping bag to fill the holes about 1/2 way and replace the cupcake "tops".

It's time to make the icing! using your blender, beat the butter on high until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add the sifted powdered sugar and blend well.

 Finally, add the Bailey's 1 Tbs at a time with your blender on low speed. Stop as soon as it starts to look like icing. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix a bit more... add more Bailey's if neccessary.

Now frost them! (Note: I am taking a cake decorating class soon, so my creations won't be this... Picasso-esque forever...)

The middle is my favorite part, for sure. Although you can definitely taste the alcohol in these, it isn't overwhelming and is very complimentary to the chocolate (which is SO nice and moist!).


I could go on for days about how delicious these are, but why don't you just make some and tell me all about it? (I kid, I kid!)

Happy (early) St Patty's Day!