cupcakes: pour some sugar... | pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

it’s getting cooler (except not today) and i’m starting to embrace autumn. it’s a tough thing to do, but i’ll come around. even if the shoes are not as comfortable.

so the other day we had porridge for breakfast. which i still call oatmeal in my head but porridge aloud. ‘cause it’s england and all.

but my favourite thing about oatmeal (because it’s not the done thing with porridge, really) is stirring in chunks of brown sugar and then having the glory of eating one spoonful of hot brown sugar because the chunks haven’t melted into the oats just yet.

i wanted this in a cupcake. but i didn’t want oats in my cupcake. because a cupcake with oats to me…is a muffin. not a cupcake.

this is what i came up with. sugar rush, yes. but also yummy, we think.

Brown Sugar Cupcakes

ingredients:
250g unsalted butter
400g sugar
200g self-raising flour
100g plain flour
50g dark brown sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup double cream
2 tsp vanilla extract

Heat the oven to 180C. Line cupcake tin with paper liners.
Use a mixer or electric whisk (or lots of arm strength) to beat butter until creamy and even.
Add white sugar and mix until fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix.
Add flours, milk and cream in stages to make it easier to mix. Mix until everything is smooth and even.
Then fold in the brown sugar—do not mix, just smash it through with a spatula to mix in the giant lumps, but you still want some little pockets of sugar that isn’t mixed. That’s the oatmeal effect.
Fill liners 3/4 full and bake for about 22 minutes (more time for big cupcakes, less time for minis).

Makes 30 regular sized cupcakes.

Brown Sugar Icing

75g dark brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
150g unsalted butter
400g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix milk and brown sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil, then simmer for ten minutes to thicken. While this cooks, sit the butter in a bowl to soften.
Remove sugar mix from the heat and stir for about a minute, then add to the butter and mix in until the butter is all melted.
Add the vanilla.
Add the icing sugar in stages, mixing as you go, and tasting to see if it is too sweet for your taste.

This will be soft enough (in hot weather, too soft) to pipe but sets up quickly in the fridge. Pipe then stick them in the fridge and they will set as they are just melting down the edges of the cupcake.

After eating, be aware of crash to sugar low due in approximately 25 minutes!

xlovesx

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21 September 2006

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