Day 23: Rum Soaked Pumpkin Pie Spice Cupcakes with Caramel Buttercream

First of all: on the business front I have made (some) progress on my business plan, it's slow going.  If anyone has any tips on the cost calculations, that would be a HUGE help.  It's very daunting.

Second of all: I've put up an ad on Craigslist and am in the process of trying to vend at the next Underground Farmer's Market and the upcoming Bicycle Music Festival.  Wish me luck, and feel free to contact me if you need any cupcakes!

This weekend I was seeking inspiration for cupcakes and found myself staring into the liquor cabinet.  I had my pick to the liquor that we don't like very much: rum or brandy.  After a long deliberation and a brief internet search, I went with the rum.

I adapted this recipe from Vanilla Garlic.  I was too poor to go purchase more cupcake supplies, so I worked with what was on hand.  It was kind of an exercise in minimalism.  First of all, I only had enough cupcake liners for 5 cakes. So I non-stick sprayed the rest of the cups, thinking it was no big deal.

I pulled these from the oven, and burst out laughing.

They had become craters!  My best guess on what happened: This was a low flour recipe that I added an extra 1.5 tablespoons of rum to for extra rum-y goodness.  This made flour ratio it too low, which made them fall/crash into this shape.  So I've increased the flour in the recipe below.  Even though they looked terrible, they tasted great.  Pumpkin pie spice makes everything better.

I was planning on making an effort for attractive finished looking cupcakes on this batch, but with their decidedly concave shape, I skipped it.

Rum Soaked Pumpkin Pie Spice Cupcakes
adapted from Gourmet - makes 12

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
pinch of salt
6 tablespoons of butter, room temperature
1/2 cup of sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of spiced rum (break out the Captain Morgan)
1/2 cup whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Put cupcake papers in a muffin tin.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt in a bowl and set aside.

3. Beat the butter and sugar together for a few minutes in high until light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla and rum and beat for another minute or two.

4. Add the flour mixture and milk alternatively in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and mixing until just combined.

5. Divide batter among cupcake cups. bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. When cooled brush with rum. Allow it to absorb for 10 minutes. Brush again with second coat of rum. When the rum is absorbed frost the cupcakes.

Caramel Swirl Buttercream
1 1/2 sticks of butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
Caramel Sauce ( I had some left over from a Christmas gift,  check here for recipe that looks pretty good)

1. Beat the butter until fluffy, about 5 minutes, slowly ad the powered sugar, beat until fluffy and combined.  Fold in the vanilla.

2. Fold in the caramel sauce until buttercream is swirled with caramel.

( I was lazy, and put some caramel on the cupcakes, then tossed some buttercream on top.  Tasted just as good, although not nearly as beautiful as they could have been.)

Day 9: Failure

I made awful cupcakes today.  I was kind of in a bad mood and so I just whipped together some ingredients, based on what I remembered from recipes and what I had on hand.  The cake was made using flour and corn meal, then I added the juice of an orange and a bunch of orange zest.  Orange does not come out as well as lemon.  They almost tasted like fake orange flavoring, which is odd.  I think it was the zest, the flavor was not quite, but definitely on its way to being bitter.  With too much corn meal it ended up being like a cornbread that a cake.

Other mistakes: Too much batter in each cup so it overflowed the cup in baking.  The cake wasn't puffy either.  They weren't nice and round and puffy in the middle, like happy convex little arches.  They caved in to be lower in the center than on the edges.  I'm not sure if it was the recipe or the amount of batter that contributed to the cake 'falling'.  As for frosting, I wanted to make a super fine chocolate chip buttercream.  I ended up grating the chocolate way too finely, so the frosting kind of looks dirty.

Mistakes are as important as successes.  What I learned today is that my pre-cooking research is very important.  If I were to do it again, I think it would be a chocolate orange cake instead with some sort of tangy citrus frosting (lime? It's what comes to mind)

Remember: be creative and learn from your mistakes.  I might have made nasty cupcakes, but I certainly felt better after! ^_^