It’s Iron Cupcake time, and I actually made the deadline this month! This month’s theme was to come up with a savory cupcake. All I could think of was bagels. And what is more NY than a bagel that has a dream of becoming a cupcake. NY being the place where impossible dreams can come true. But I didn’t want a plain old bagel. I envisioned an parmesan cheese and olive spiked “cupcake” of delectable doughy goodness…but would it work?

Our May ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:

• A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5021935
• something sweet and dangly from CHERRYCREEKCHARMS at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6686445.
• a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Cupcakery, http://www.acupcakery.com/
• PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice – sweet!

Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .

Voting will begin no later than Saturday, May 30 at 8 p.m. at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER, http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com and will be open through Friday, June 5 at 12 noon.

Thanks to my local library, I’ve been examining the book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Along with that, I checked out another Peter Reinhart book, Crust and Crumb, to see which one I liked better. After surveying each book, I think I’d get The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. In his own words, the bagel recipe included in the new book is “an improvement on the formula given in Crust and Crumb,” so that’s what ended up being my blueprint for these “cupcakes”.

This was another month of waffling about, not being confident in whether my hair-brained idea would even fly, or boil as the case may be. Can you actually boil a cupcake? Thinking about it, I figured if you can boil a ring of dough, then a cupcake-shaped blob of dough should be fine.

Some of you may be saying, “But why I ♥ NY?” To get at the reason behind that we need to look at the history of the bagel, as well as myself. The bagel, like so many other beloved foodstuffs with a long history, has a debatable background. The only thing that seems to be consistent in all the tales is the country of origin, Poland. One legend tells of another Polish King, Jan III Sobieski, and his successful campaign against the Ottoman Turkish empire in 1683 as the inspiration for the bagel. Apparently Polish bakers modeled this commemorative bread after the King’s stirrup of his saddle in celebration of his victory. This story is relegated to that of legend in Maria Balinska’s The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread. She states that in the 16th and 17th century, known as a “golden age” for the Jews in Poland, the bajgiel became a popular repast for the country. And according to the book The Joys of Yiddish, the first time the word “bagel” appeared in print was in 1610 in the Community Regulations of Kraków. Due to the symbolic protective significance of bagels, they were a common gift presented at various celebrations, from births to deaths, in Europe. The descendants of these European Jews brought the bagel, along with other culinary delights, across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, specifically the classic port of call, New York, in the centuries that followed. Although Jewish emigration is recorded as early as the 17th century colonial period, it was until the 1970s that the bagel was introduced to the majority of America. It was Harry Lender, who opened the first bagel factory outside of New York City in New Haven, Connecticut, who helped disseminate the bagel, albeit frozen, to the United States. Now you can find fresh made bagels in every grocery store.

Like the bagel, I’m from New York with Polish heritage. I moved away (too) long ago, and have wanted to get back ever since. For me, there’s nothing like New York, as for many bagel lovers, there’s nothing like a New York bagel. Some say it’s the flour they use, or the famous New York water, but I say it’s the energy of the place and the people that infuses every experience there including its food…you can’t beat it. So what better way to pay tribute to the city I love dearly, and I will always call home no matter how far I away I may be, than to call my crazy concoction, inspired the very New York bagel, an I ♥ NY Cupcake. And if a bagel can become a cupcake, then maybe I can get back to New York

I ♥ NY Cupcakes

Notes before you begin:
First off, you really need a scale to do this right. I measured out the “cupcakes” using my scale, and I can give you a ballpark shape to look for (a large handful), but even when measuring out the ingredients in the first place…if you’re making any kind of yeasted dough, you need a scale. Sorry.

I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but you’re not going to be able to use paper cupcake liners. Unfortunately I didn’t find this out until after I had baked, and taken pictures of the “cupcakes”. They stick. Big time. I’m sorry for including pics with cute bagel “cupcakes” in cupcake liners, but you just can’t do it. Again, DO NOT use paper cupcake liners when you finally throw these in the oven. This won’t be the last time you hear this because I don’t want you to forget. If you’re worried about forgetting, then just lock your cupcake liners away and don’t use them at all. I do want to note, that you will get a more consistent cupcake-shape if, when retarding in the fridge overnight, you place the dough in a cupcake liner in your cupcake pan. BUT, if you think you’ll forget and put them back in those liners after boiling, well, just forget about using the liners. Otherwise you’ll be trying to avoid eating said liner. THEY STICK….don’t forget! Now, you can do the aluminum foil liners, but those don’t stick at all. So much so that when I took those out of the pan, the liner didn’t come with. It just stayed in the pan. If someone figures out a liner that sticks with these, but not like glue let me know.

Everything should go smoothly, especially if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook. For those of you who don’t (like me!) I want you to know that this can be done without a stinking mixer The tricky thing will be knowing when the dough is really ready. Your best friend will be your hands and your eyes. If you are making any additions to the dough, this process will take longer, and a lot longer if your additions hold any moisture of their own. I’d say that the olives added probably another 20 minutes of kneading time and a heck of a lot more flour.

It won’t necessarily take this long for you, but I was a bit leery of adding too much flour. The next time I do this I’ll know to just dump an extra half cup of flour in and go from there. I was just doing light dustings, but it really needed a lot of extra flour to absorb all the moisture in the olives. In the end I think I may have actually added a whole extra cup, but until I have this recipe down I still plan on playing it a little cautiously.

As far as additions go, I added parmesan cheese, kalamata olives, and dried parsley. Originally I had planned to throw in some sun-dried tomatoes, but I didn’t have any at the time so I just mixed those into some cream cheese for a “frosting”. You can add whatever the heck sounds good to you. Or if you’d rather just go for the classic plain bagel, go for it. Whatever you can imagine on a bagel (or even a pizza for that matter) you can probably add to these. Just keep in mind the moisture factor when kneading those additions in and you’ll be fine.

If you choose to fill these with your “frosting” I’d suggest using the cut the center out from the top method. Basically you cut a “plug” of sorts out of the top, scrap some of the center out, fill up the part you scrapped out with “frosting”, trim your “plug” so it fits back into the “cupcake”, then use it to plug up the hole, frost the top and you’re done!

Sponge:
1 teaspoon (.11 ounce) instant yeast
4 cups (18 ounces) bread flour
2 1/2 cups (20 ounces) water

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon (.055 ounce) instant yeast
3 3/4 cups (17 ounces) bread flour
2 3/4 teaspoons (.7 ounce) salt
2 teaspoons (.33 ounce) malt powder
OR
1 tablespoon (.5 ounce) malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar *I used dark brown sugar.

Miscellaneous:
1 tablespoon baking soda for the water
Cornmeal for dusting the pan
Additions for the bagels such as olives, onions, sun-dried tomatoes, or garlic

If you are looking to replicate what I’ve done here, I added 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup kalamata olives, and 2 tablespoons of dried parsley. You’ll need a bit more parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top.

To create your own sun-dried tomato cream cheese “frosting”, use 8 ounces of cream cheese and about 4 tablespoons of diced sun-dried tomatoes, or to taste.

The Night Before

Make the sponge by stirring the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended into a sticky batter, like pancake batter. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature for two hours, until the mixture becomes foamy and bubbly.

Once the sponge has risen, remove the plastic wrap and stir in the additional yeast. Add 3 cups (approximately, I did this by eyeballing since being exact at this point is not of importance since you already measured the flour out precisely in your prep….right?) of the flour, the malt powder (or dark brown sugar in my case), and the salt into the bowl. Stir (or mix on low speed with the dough hook) until the ingredients form a ball. Slowly work in the rest of the flour to stiffen the dough.

On a clean surface, knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes (or 6 minutes by stand mixer). *I actually kneaded mine right in the bowl. It worked fine.

If you are making any additions (olives, onions, etc.) now is the time to add them. Again, your hands are your guide in this process (even if you use the stand mixer). You’re looking for a firm but pliable dough, that’s smooth. There shouldn’t be any dry flour – everything should be hydrated. If the dough is too dry, add water, a few drops at a time. If the dough is sticky, then add more flour. The finished dough should feel satiny, not tacky, and pliant.

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Immediately after kneading, split the dough into 4 1/2 ounce pieces for big “cupcakes”, or 2 1/2 – 3 ounce pieces for smaller, regular looking cupcakes. Roll each piece into a ball and set it on the parchment, cover with a damp towel, and let rest for 20 minutes.

After the dough has rested, place the “cupcakes” in either oiled or cupcake liner lined cupcake pans. Cover pans loosely with plastic or use a food-grade plastic bag. Allow dough to rise at room temperature for about 20 minutes. (AGAIN, if you think you’ll forget on baking day and return your boiled “cupcakes” to a liner then DO NOT USE THEM. DO NOT PUT A “CUPCAKE” IN A PAPER LINER IN THE OVEN! THEY STICK! That said, at this point, they will help keep a more cupcake-like shape in the long run. If you decide to use the liners at this stage, make sure you leave one liner-less for the “floater” test described next.)

Now you need to check to see if the “cupcakes” are ready to be retarded. You can check this by doing a “float” test. I did come across, over on the Fresh Loaf, a baker who decided to skip the test, and just retarded them after 20 minutes. Fill a small bowl with cool or room-temperature water. Drop a test “cupcake” in the water. If it floats within 10 seconds of being dropped in, they’re ready. If not then return it to the pan and continue to proof at room temperature, checking every 10 to 20 minutes until a tester floats. Once you have a “floater”, then return the tester to the pan, pat it dry, cover the pan with plastic, and place it in the refrigerator overnight (you can wait up to 2 days from this point before you actually bake them, if you choose).

While the pans do not need to be covered with the plastic tightly, do make sure that they are completely covered. I missed the edge of one and found that the part exposed had dried out overnight. I have to say that this didn’t seem to matter in the finished product since the boiling rehydrated them the next day.

Baking Day

Preheat the oven to 500°F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the tablespoon of baking soda to the pot. This reportedly alkalizes the water, replicating a traditional New York bagel shop flavor. I forgot to do this. Honestly, they still tasted great. I remember to do it with my cinnamon raisin “cupcakes” (did I mention those? Oops!) and frankly didn’t notice a difference. It’s up to you.

Having a slotted spoon nearby, remove the “cupcakes” from the refrigerator. It will be a little tricky, but gently take them out of the pan (obviously remove the liners before boiling if you used them). Don’t worry too much if they seem to become more misshapen. Once you put them back in the pan, they’ll regain a more cupcake-like shape. Drop a few of the “cupcakes” into the boiling water and let them boil for about a minute and a half. Flip them over and boil them on the other side for another minute and a half.

Before removing the “cupcakes” from the pot, sprinkle corn meal on the cupcake pan. Remove them one at a time, set them back into the cupcake pan, and top them right away (I used some extra parmesan cheese to sprinkle on these, but you can use whatever you want or nothing at all), while they are still slightly moist. Repeat this process until all of the “cupcakes” have been boiled and topped. I did let mine drip dry on a paper towel. I just felt weird throwing a very moist “cupcake” into the pan. It worked out fine, but you can probably skip that and just throw them in the UNLINED cupcake pan.

After all the “cupcakes” have been boiled and topped (if you chose to do so) bake for 6 minutes in your preheated oven. Reduce the heat to 450°F degrees, rotate the pan, and bake for another 6 minutes until the “cupcakes” begin to brown. You can bake them longer if you prefer more color in your “cupcakes”.

Remove the pans from the oven and let cool on a rack for at least 15 minutes before serving. These are fabulous right out of the oven!

You know the song in Alice In Wonderland, “A very merry un-Birthday to you!” Well, a very merry un-Iron Cupcake challenge to you! At least I’m going to try since I obviously did not make the deadline…yet again…this month. I still managed to get a cupcake designed and baked though, and that’s what the challenge is really all about right…baking cupcakes outside of the box!

I really wanted to branch out with this month’s Iron Cupcake flavor inspiration of soda pop. There are so many sodas to be had out there other than plain ‘ol cola…red apple, crushed melon, green tea, lavender…there’s even orange cola. Being the bohemian that I am, I wanted to experiment with one of the more uncommon flavors. My only problem was that I couldn’t find any of them available locally. Sorry dear reader, but I’m not going to make a special 45+ minute trip galavanting across Florida trying to find Kumquat soda. If I had had more foresight (which I should have by now) I would have known that I live in a proverbial no-man’s land whose only fizzy consolations come in plain Coke and Pepsi Co. flavors, and I could have simply ordered something unusual from somewhere exotic…like Scottsdale. *sigh* But I didn’t. So I was stuck with cherry.

The words, “She couldn’t decide,” should probably be engraved on my headstone when I go. I perused the gleaming shelves of the internet, eyes shinning with wonder of all the flavors to be had. Seriously though, it comes down to me being cheap. I reeeally didn’t want to pay the shipping for soda of all things. Soda should be on every corner, in every household, and available to all in every conceivable flavor…and then some. I actually came across a set of commemorative Thanksgiving Day sodas. I am not kidding. We’re talking Green Bean Casserole, Cranberry, Mashed Potatoes With Butter, and of course the ubiquitous Turkey & Gravy. This cornucopia of flavors didn’t really say, “Put me in a cupcake!”

Also, I got sidetracked by the egg cream. I guess I should say inspired, but the word “inspired” suggests visions of good things to come. Those visions turned out to be a mirage, and didn’t materialize. I actually made an old fashioned egg cream, which my Mom (a born and bread, native New Yorker herself, as am I!) thoroughly enjoyed, but I being from a younger generation didn’t have them same nostalgic feelings to warrant the calorie intake. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad. They’d probably be wiz-bang great if I had better syrup than Hershey’s but I didn’t feel like making chocolate syrup from scratch. I attempted a small cupcake recipe using a homemade egg cream and the results were….well, kind of like playdough with the slightest hint of chocolate. I certainly couldn’t come to you all with chocolate playdough, so I finally gave in and used cherry. What goes better with cherry than chocolate, which wasn’t the easiest decision for me since while I’m a chocolate FREAK, I could pass on chocolate cake most times. White or yellow cake with a good chocolate frosting though….you better have the brick house otherwise this wolf will blow your house down for that cake.

The other problem I encountered was how the heck could I come up with a recipe for a cupcake that included soda as an ingredient….logistically speaking. In most cases, cooking is a more forgiving science that can be nudged and cajoled into becoming tasty. Baking on the other hand is more exacting and if you forget a teaspoons worth of something you end up with some nice paperweight cupcakes. Who knows what the heck is in soda that might wreck havoc on your tasty treat.

Believe it or not there are very few true recipes on the web for cake that includes soda as a main ingredient (well, at least until this challenge). Most of the recipes I came across were all for using cake mixes *gasp* So I was back to the drawing board. The nice people at Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Forum gave me waaaaay too much credit, thinking that I actually knew how to augment the amount of baking powder to the amount of acid in the soda. I looked through, what I thought was, every cookbook I have in the house trying to find a blueprint for my carbonated cake device. Even my two favorite cake books, Tish Boyle’s Cake Book and Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible were barren of a decent blueprint. Keep in mind, this was all BEFORE I gave up on my quest for a far-out flavor of soda. Prior to resigning myself to cherry, I had been thinking of a white or yellow cake recipe. Once I accepted my fate of cherries and chocolate, wouldn’t ya know it, while trying to find a good buttercream recipe in the meantime, I discovered the resolution to my recipe quandary in Martha Stewart’s New Classics. Not only is there a recipe for chocolate cake, but also yellow cake that are perfect blueprints to use when experimenting with the bubbly.

The next step was frosting. I don’t know why I decided to do a buttercream but I did. I’ve had mixed results with buttercream. Every time (including this one) I’ve attempted it, it tastes like a lightly flavored sweet stick of butter. I like butter, but not that much. I have the book Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen from the library and thought surely there would be a good Professional recipe that would taste divine since it was Professional. I will give you the recipe, but be forewarned that while a classic buttercream recipe, if you have taste buds like mine, well…these aren’t the buttercream droids you’re looking for. That said, I do think I can make a buttercream in the future that should do nicely for people who like butter, but not that much. Please see my notes in the recipe for some augmentations to make it a bit (and I mean a bit, this ain’t light baking after all) less artery hardening.

So, cupcake recipe…check. Frosting recipe….check. The elements of my design just didn’t seem to cut it as worthy of an Iron Cupcake. What could I sweeten the pot with (so to speak) to transform my plain Jane chocolate cherry concoction into an effervescent exaltation of cake. Why chocolate covered cherries of course! That’s right, I got a jar of maraschino cherries, covered them in chocolate, and dropped them in the batter. Yum!

I have to say that this is the best damn chocolate cake I ever tasted. I’m not a chocolate cake person, but this one made me a believer. The chocolate covered cherries are great, but this cake would be great all on it’s own. These cupcakes are best eaten the same day (I know it may be tough for some of you, but I know you can soldier on), although they have kept very well for a couple of days in the fridge. If you must refrigerate, take them out of the fridge about 20 minutes before you eat them. I think they’re better at room temperature.

Cherry Midnight Cupcakes

I’d start out this recipe by making the cherries, if using them. Please don’t go out and buy a box of those stick-a-big-spoon-o’-sugar-in-my-mouth concoctions that pass for chocolate covered cherries in the stores. While I haven’t tried dropping those in a cupcake, I think they would probably overpower the flavor of the cupcake. Either that or they’ll burst while baking and you’ll end up with some kind of mutated cupcake that dribbles cherry cream. The cherries are the easiest part of the recipe, so I do recommend making them yourself.

Chocolate covered cherries

3/4 cup chocolate (I used a combination of bittersweet and milk, but I think it’s really up to your tastes)
24 maraschino cherries (approx.)
(You will want to double this recipe if you want a lot of cherries in your cupcakes. I wish I had actually.)

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Evenly coat the cherries.

Place coated cherries on wax paper. You’ll see in the picture that I put mine on a dish, but after hardening they were tough to get off the dish, and not the wax paper (which I didn’t take a photo of). If you want to put them on a plate it’s not a huge issue, just be prepared to have to pry them off. Put the cherries in the refrigerator (I put mine in the freezer since I didn’t think about the fact that they needed to harden until I had already started my cake batter) to harden.

Chocolate and Cherry Soda Cake

(Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Basic Chocolate Cake recipe in her book The New Classics. This made 21 cupcakes for me.)
1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups room temperature cherry soda
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Chocolate covered cherries (to taste)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line your cupcake pan with liners.

Sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, soda, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla. Mix on low speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Scoop the batter into your cupcake liners. Cut up the cherries and drop a few pieces into each batter filled liner. Use a toothpick or a knife to push the cherries down a bit below the batter. Try not to push them down too much. (I only used one cherry, cut in half, in each cupcake. Next time I’ll probably put in two, so you may want to double that chocolate covered cherry recipe.) I left maybe a quarter inch from the top and these babies domed like giant mushrooms, which made it a wee difficult to make any kind of pretty flower pattern with icing. Next time I’d probably fill them a bit less so I can have more doming area for icing.

Bake, rotating the pans halfway through,until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes then remove to cool completely.

Cherry Vanilla Buttercream

(I cobbled this recipe together from Martha’s vanilla buttercream recipe in The New Classics book, as well as a swiss buttercream recipe from the book Professional Baking)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean
4oz egg whites (I think this is probably around 3 large egg whites. Do go with just 3 if only using 2 sticks of butter. If you want to use the full 3 sticks, then I’d do 4 egg whites.)
3 sticks of butter, softened (If you’re like me and don’t like to feel like you just frosted your cupcake with butter, then cut this down to 2-2 1/2 sticks.)
4 tablespoons of shortening
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
1/2 cup maraschino cherry juice (or to taste)

You can do this first step in either a food processor or a blender. I did this in a blender. Drop the vanilla bean into the sugar after scraping the vanilla seeds into the sugar.  Process or blend this mixture until you can’t see any large chunks of bean left. Sift into a bowl, and discard any large pieces of vanilla. You’ll need to use a very fine mesh sieve for this. If you’d rather not do this step, then add more vanilla extract. Personally, I love seeing those little vanilla seeds throughout the frosting.

Place the egg whites and sugar in a stainless-steel bowl or in the top of a double boiler. Beat with a wire whip over hot water until the mixture is warm (about 120F).

Using either a hand mixer (what I have) or a standing mixer, whip at high speed until stiff peaks form and the meringue is completely cool.

Little by little, add the soft butter and continue to whip. Add each piece after the previous one has been incorporated. In the same way, whip in the shortening, if using, or the additional butter. When all the fat has been incorporated, whip in the vanilla and maraschino cherry juice. Continue to whip until the buttercream is smooth. (Forgot to take a pic of the finished frosting, sorry.)

There’s no big assembly instructions with these. Just frost and eat. Or not frost and eat. These were crazy good. I hope you give them a try!

I know I didn’t acknowledge Easter at all this month, so this is my little nod to the holiday. I actually scored this great cupcake stand at HomeGoods after Easter and had to use it for my pics.

I’ve been thinking about doing an Iron Cupcake challenge for awhile now, and I couldn’t resist this month’s flavor, coffee. I can’t promise something every month especially since I’m not exactly great at following someone else’s recipes, let alone tinkering with my own. Despite that fact I think I created a yummy little cupcake, if I may say so myself.

Some of you may be asking, “What praytell is an ‘Iron Cupcake’?” Well, it is a challenge in which, “bakers from anywhere, all over the world, to take place in the ultimate flavor challenge and promote world peace, one cupcake at a time.” The way it works is there’s a flavor picked every month and you take that flavor as your inspiration to create culinary bliss inside your mouth through the medium of…a cupcake. But wait there’s more! You can win stuff too! Here’s the booty:

Our February ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:
* something to warm your cupcake heart by DIANA EVANS
* as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES.
* PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice – sweet!
As an added bonus for February, SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in a variety of cupcaking supplies.
Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, JESSIE STEELE APRONS, TASTE OF HOME books, a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers. All voting in the Iron Cupcake challenge takes place at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner. Voting ends March 6th.

When I contemplated attempting this challenge, I concluded that a cupcake template would be required. I don’t have the first clue as to how much baking powder versus soda versus what-the-heck-ever is require to create a tasty cake, so some kind of blueprint was in order. I searched every book in my house to no avail. Thank God for the internet! I must give a tip of the hat to vanilla sugar for her Cinnamon Espresso Cake. While I changed the recipe quite a bit, it was from her foundation that I was able to include one of my favorite ingredients….brown butter!

I apologize for not being more diligent in taking note of how long these suckers took to be baked, but just give it ten minutes, rotate the pan, another ten, then start checking with a toothpick to see if they’re done every five minutes or so.

One thing I was happy to find in The Cake Book by Tish Boyle (FAB book!) was a recipe for caramel espresso buttercream frosting. The only think I changed there was I halved the recipe, except for the amount of espresso. After trying this experiment, I suggest you use half the amount (so just follow the recipe I include here as written). Tish had it right and the extra espresso was a bit too overpowering when it was atop a double-shot cupcake.

The cupcake alone was fantastic. Without the frosting, the brown butter flavor really came through and was balanced by the coffee. The addition of the frosting made the coffee flavor a bit too overpowering for me, so next time I’ll either follow Tish’s recipe exactly or maybe even choose a different flavor of frosting. If you are a freak for coffee flavor then you will lose your mind over these. My Mom, a freak for coffee, was raving.

Double-Shot Espresso Brown Butter Cupcakes:

1   3/4 cup cake flour
2   tsp baking powder
1   1/3 cup sugar
3/4   cup half and half
2   eggs
2   tablespoons instant espresso
1/8   tsp kosher salt
1   tsp vanilla
9   tablespoons butter (browned)

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line your cupcake pan with liners.

Brown the butter: In a small saucepan heat butter over medium high heat til completely melted, all the while swirling the pan. Lower the heat to around medium and keep swirling the pan until the milk solids turn a reddish brown color. You should also be able to smell a nutty aroma from the butter. This process may take about ten minutes. Don’t forget to keep swirling the pan. Once the butter has browned, strain through a cheesecloth or extremely fine sieve. I go into more detail about my success and failure with browned butter in this post.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and espresso powder.

In a separate bowl whisk the half & half, eggs, and vanilla.

Whisk the egg mixture into the flour until almost combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the browned butter until the batter is smooth and all the butter has been incorporated.

Scoop batter into cupcake liners. I had enough for exactly twelve cupcakes, with a bit lick from the bowl left over.

Now here comes the tricky part. Unfortunately I wasn’t as vigilant about the amount of time I left these suckers in the oven. I believe they only took about twenty minutes, maybe twenty five. One way or another, in my oven I have to rotate the pan approximately halfway through baking otherwise I won’t have an evenly baked product. I would advise you to do the same.

I know I baked them for ten minutes and rotated. Then after another ten (maybe fifteen?) minutes I started checking to see if they were done. You’re looking for a toothpick to come out clean

Cool the cupcakes in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Caramel Espresso Buttercream:

(Again, this recipe can be found in The Cake Book by Tish Boyle. I halved the recipe because I just didn’t need five cups of buttercream. You should have more than enough to ice the twelve cupcakes.)

1/2   cup plus 2 tablespoons of firmly packed dark brown sugar (I used light brown, because I’m not crazy about molasses)
1/2   cup plus 2 tablespoons of heavy cream
1/4   cup light corn syrup
1/8   teaspoon salt
2   large eggs
2   sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened
1   teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2   tablespoon espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, heavy cream, corn syrup and salt to cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Stop stirring and increase the heat to high.

Meanwhile in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with te whisk attachment, begin beating the eggs at medium speed. When the sugar syrup reaches 225ºF on a candy thermometer, increase the speed of the mixer to high. Continue to cook the sugar syrup until it reaches 238ºF.

Remove the pan from the heat and with the mixer off, immediately pour about 1/4 cup of the hot syrup over the beaten eggs. Beat at high speed until blended, about 10 seconds. Turn the mixer off and add another 1/4 cup syrup. Beat at high speed for another 10 seconds. Repeat this process until all the syrup is used. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat at medium high speed until the egg mixture is completely cool, about 5 minutes. When you touch the mixing bowl, it should be cold.

At medium speed, beat in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Add the vanilla extract and coffee mixture, increase the speed to medium high and beat the buttercream until it is smooth and shiny, about 4 minutes.

The buttercream can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 6 hours, or refrigerate for up to a week; bring to room temperature before using.