Browned Butter Cupcakes

I didn't lie; I told you this year's theme was browned butter.

I have made browned butter cupcakes a few times this year, but my favorite iteration has to be the one with the rosemary infused maple syrup and toasted pecans. It was inspired by a very delicious ice cream I had at a lovely restaurant in Oakland. Vanilla ice cream studded with salty pecans and topped with this rosemary maple syrup drizzle. Outstanding combination of salty and sweet, and very rich. I thought it would work very well with a browned butter base, so turned it into cupcakes.

Browned Butter Cupcakes
Makes about 2 dozen

1 1/2 sticks butter, browned (instructions below)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped, toasted pecans (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350˚.

First off, toast a handful of raw pecans. Spray them very lightly with some oil and sprinkle with some kosher salt, roasting from anywhere between 200˚-300˚ for about 10 minutes or until you smell the nutty aroma. Don't burn them, so keep an eye, and toss them around halfway through if needed. Set aside to cool.

Then make a quick infusion of rosemary into maple syrup. I don't think I did a good job of measuring out how much syrup or rosemary I used here. Let's say 1/4-1/3 cup and a 4" piece of rosemary. I do recommend trimming the rosemary into small clusters first (versus sticking the whole stock in the syrup) so that you have small pieces to top each cupcake with. In a small pan, bring the syrup with rosemary in it to a boil, then remove from heat and let it steep until it's cooled off on its own. Oh, just in case it's not a given, you should only be using real maple syrup for this - not the fake stuff. 

Next is the batter, starting with browning butter. In a medium size sauce pan, melt butter slowly over a low heat. Keep a close eye on it and stir frequently. The butter will probably try to boil or sizzle, so don't let it do that. Stir frequently, scraping up any bits from the bottom as you do. First it will foam up and be hard to see what's going on underneath the foaming. Then the foam will subside and you'll start to see little "bits" floating in the butter. That's the good stuff. Keep your eye on those bits and when they start getting to a caramel color and the aroma is nutty, remove from heat. This all takes between 5-10 minutes depending on how much butter you're browning, width of your pan, and how low your heat is.

Set that aside for a minute, and in a medium bowl whisk together your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt (and nuts if using in batter).

Mix brown sugar into the browned butter (in the sauce pan is fine), then quickly whisk in the eggs one at a time until combined. Add vanilla, then alternate adding the flour mixture with the milk (typically 1/3 flour, 1/2 milk, 1/3 flour, 1/2 milk, ending with remaining 1/3 of the flour). Try not to over mix.

Pour batter into prepared baking tins (1/4 per cupcake works great for me) and bake for 20 minutes.

While cupcakes bake, make frosting.

Rosemary Maple Buttercream
Side note: I have found that 1 stick of butter to ~2 cups of powdered sugar is just enough frosting for a dozen cupcakes. Consider it a good rule of thumb if you decide to start experimenting. Likewise, you can gauge how many cupcakes you'll get out of recipe (roughly) by following the formula that with every 1 cup or so of flour in a recipe you'll get about a dozen cupcakes. Give or take. Anyway...

2 sticks butter, softened (1 cup)
3-4 cups powdered sugar (depending on your sweet tooth and the consistency of the frosting you like - more sugar = stiffer and will form a kind of crust once it's set for a while - great for making shapes/flowers, less sugar = less stiff and creamier.)
2-3 tbs of infused maple syrup
dash of kosher salt
1-2 tsp milk as needed

Whip butter, adding powdered sugar until blended. Drizzle in syrup and dash of salt and beat until it gets fluffy. Add a little milk to smooth out the consistency. You're now ready to decorate.

Another side note: I didn't do it with this recipe, but if you're REALLY loving the browned butter flavor and want to make it really pop, you could make a little extra browned butter and scrape some of the nutty caramelized bits into the frosting at this point as well. I did make just browned butter cupcakes with browned butter frosting once and they were delicious, albeit extremely rich.

Pipe your frosting onto the cupcakes and top with a pecan or two and LIGHTLY drizzle with the remaining maple syrup. You don't want to put too much because it will just drip off the cupcake and make a sticky mess. Do try to include a little piece of rosemary that was infused in the syrup on the top of each cupcake though. And if your nuts didn't hold onto their salt while roasting, definitely make sure you sprinkle a little extra onto each cupcake. It makes all the difference.

About Brittle

I'm not an avid candy maker by any means, but I like to dabble. Last year for the holidays, I went crazy making all sorts of gift basket goodies, including a couple varieties of candies. Luckily most of them went well (thanks to the wonderful candy thermometer by boyfriend's family gave me- thanks!), but I preferred some over others. I was most intrigued by brittle. Last year I had found a recipe for pumpkin seed brittle that had a cinnamon in it, and it was pretty amazing, and also relatively consistent (unlike my taffy which on one attempt to make was as hard as a candy cane).

I'm just starting to plan out what I'm going to make for gift baskets this year, and brittle is definitely on the list. I searched online for a variety of recipes and inspirations, but ended up making 3 variations on one recipe. I'm calling it my "brittle base".

In medium saucepan, over medium heat, stir together:

• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup sugar

until the sugar has dissolved. When it starts to boil, add:

• 1/2 cup butter

Let it keep boiling until your candy thermometer reaches 230˚ F, then start to stir it constantly until it reaches 280˚ (somewhere around 10 minutes).

At this point, you can add in your key ingredient, usually nuts + (get creative) (ideas below).

Stir constantly until it reaches 300˚. Move quickly and have your ingredients ready because this sugar mixture can burn in the blink of an eye.

Remove from heat and stir in:

• 1/2 tsp baking soda (and whatever spice or flavoring you want)

Pour onto a greased or parchmented baking sheet or jelly roll pan and spread until fairly even. I learned a neat trick where you can put a layer of parchment over the brittle and use a rolling pin to lay it flat. The thickness of whatever nut mix you used will help keep it from getting too thin.

Let it cool, then break into pieces and store in an air tight container for a couple days. Be careful of how much moisture is in your home, too. The brittle can get a layer of stickiness on it if you don't have dry enough conditions. Weather can have a big effect on this, so if you can do it, try and make you candies on a non-rainy day.

Ok, so, here are the 3 variations I made today:

1. 1-1/2 cups chopped cashews (simple)
2. 1-1/2 cups pecans, 1 tbs maple extract (not the real stuff I'm afraid), 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp chipotle powder (a great flavor combo with a subtle kick)
3. 1 cup pumpkin seeds, 1/2 cup cocoa nibs (I used Askinoosie), dash of cayenne pepper

I usually use pre-roasted and salted nuts, but you can always roast your own.

Yay for brittle!

Maple Pecan Pie

It's high time for pie time!

Pies are amazing. I especially love a good pumpkin pie, but honestly, just use the Libby's recipe, so there's not much to blog about. But I do have a very special Pecan Pie recipe that I have every intention of sharing.

Inspired originally by my dear friend, Liz, who is always so willing to accommodate those with special dietary restrictions. She made a pecan pie that used no processed sugars. Knowing that most of the recipes out there for Pecan Pie are 80% corn syrup does make them high on the processed sugars list. Our friend who had this restriction did say that Maple syrup was natural, therefore he would eat it. Bingo. With a little experimentation, she whipped up a batch of pecan pie tarts using only maple syrup in place of the corn syrup. I was skeptical at first, thinking they would taste like a gallon of maple syrup with some pecans thrown in, but I was sure wrong. Delicately sweet, chewy, and super nutty, they fulfilled everything you'd ever want from a pecan pie, and were actually not as painfully sweet as their corn syrup counterparts. Nor was the flavor overwhelmingly mapley. I mean, I like maple syrup, but I do have my limits on how much of it I can take in.

It did take me a couple years to make my own version, but well worth the wait. Adapted from a recipe on Simply Recipes.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, slightly beaten

• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 
1 tbsp molasses

• 2 tbsp melted butter

• 2 tbsp flour

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 tsp bourbon or brandy
• 1 1/4 cups pecans (enough to cover bottom of pie tin)
• 1 Removable bottom tart pan lined with pastry crust
  

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread pecans along the bottom of the pie shell. I tend to be meticulous about it and fan them out from the center, but then am disappointed when I pour the mix over the nuts and they proceed to be displaced chaotically. Just a warning, if you happen to be a perfectionist.
Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over pecans. The pecans will rise to the surface.
Bake at 375°F for 45-50 minutes until the filling has set.
Cool completely.
Cutting can be messy, because I keep the pecans whole, so you have to chop through the whole nut AND crust. You can of course chop them before you put them on the pie crust.

I use a trusted pie crust recipe that is basically 1/2 cup of butter to each cup of flour, with a tsp of salt and sugar tossed in. I keep some of the butter chunks pretty big too, which makes the crust super flaky (but reliable - how ironic!).

I hope you enjoy this treat as much as I do. It definitely competes with pumpkin pie in the ranks of my favorites. But apple is so good too.... ooh, Dutch Apple. mmm. I guess I have more posts to work on.

Rum Raisin Cupcakes

September's cupcake of the month flavor was inspired by the ever popular (well, at least cult-like popular) "Talk Like a Pirate Day," which is coming up the 19th of this month. If you aren't familiar with this festive holiday, it's really quite a simple celebration of grammar: you just have to drop your "arrr"s all day.

In the piratical spirit, I felt like rum was the only neccessARRRy ingredient. Unsure of what kind of pairing would go with Rum that would compliment but not overwhelm it, I decided rum raisin. Inspired by an ice cream flavor that my friend Becca used to order back in my Brooklyn days. Now personally, I'm not a fan of raisins, so I had to resort to the opinions of my taste testers to see if the recipe was a winner. Luckily, it has passed the test.

My recipe was fairly straight-forward, but a little time consuming. I made a pretty standard "off-white" cupcake, but used all brown sugar and added a couple tablespoons of rum in place of some of the milk (and actually forgot vanilla.... I will probably use vanilla though if I make them again).

While those were baking, I soaked some small dark raisins in rum and brown sugar and put them over a double boiler until the raisins seemed plump and the liquid had turned syrupy. Not a very technical explanation, so if I had to guess, I'd say I used 1 cup of raisins, 2-3 tablespoons of Rum and 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Once that was ready, I put it into my food processor, added about 1/4 cup of roasted pecans and pureed it into a sticky paste. I actually added more rum to thin the solution out a bit so it was more spreadable.

Then I made some butter rum glaze. Over medium heat, melt 6 tablespoons of butter, 3 tablespoons rum, 3 tablespoons water, and 3/4 cup of sugar. I let the solution boil a little and then took it off the heat and let it cool. It does form a skin, so you can either cover it or mix it once in a while to keep it fluid.

Finally, I made rum buttercream which was just a regular buttercream recipe that used rum instaed of milk. 1 C butter, room temperature beaten until fluffy. Gradually add 4+ cups of powdered sugar and approximately 4 tablespoons of rum and whip until creamy and fluffy.

To assemble, spread raisin puree/compote evenly over the top of the cupcake. Using a pastry brush, cover compote with glaze. Top with buttercream and of course, a little raisin so everyone knows what to expect.