Tag Archives: honey

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes & Maple Honey Frosting

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Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes & Maple Honey Frosting

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes & Maple Honey Frosting



I waited as long as I could. But it was time…. time for a pumpkin recipe. 😀 it occurred to me as I was contemplating what to make that for a blog named From Cupcakes To Caviar, I don’t have many cupcake recipes on here. Yes, yes, before someone brings it up, I am well aware that I don’t have any caviar recipes on here. Guess what? I never will. 😛 I just liked the way the name sounded when I created the blog and it was simply meant to denote that the blog will have everything from the simple to the fancy in it. Buttttt, as I was saying, I realized when mulling over pumpkiny goodness ideas that I don’t have many cupcakes on here. !!!! That had to be rectified immediately. So pumpkin cupcakes it was. But I didn’t want to do plain cupcakes; oh no, not me! So I decided on using brown butter in them. When I went to see if that had been done before, I found a bazillion variations lol. So rather than beat a dead pumpkin, I used the recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Two Peas And Their Pod because I knew if it came from there, it would be good. The only thing I did differently was in the matter of spice. I like pumpkin desserts that are heavy on the warm Autumnal spices and their recipe was a bit light for my tastes, so I used quite a bit a little bit more. I also used more vanilla and dark brown sugar rather than light because we enjoy the more caramelly flavor it lends.

These are some delicious cupcakes. The cupcakes part is just dense enough without being heavy and with the additional spices and extra vanilla I added, it tastes like Fall. When I was trying to decide what to do for frosting, I wanted to vary a bit there too. I didn’t want cinnamon or cream cheese or caramel or any of the other “normal” flavors. We all know by now that I don’t do normal well in any aspect of my life. So I chose a combo of maple and honey; both flavors I love but both flavors that can be a bit one dimensional on their own. I knew it would need a bit of tang though, what with 3 sources of sweetness, so I added some sour cream. You could probably sub a thick Greek yogurt if you wanted to. The frosting is quite lovely if I do say so myself. Sweet, but not cloying with a touch of tang from the sour cream and a nice maple and honey flavor.

This all comes together fairly quickly; the long list is mainly spices, so don’t cringe…  you know the drill 🙂

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes & Maple Honey Frosting

  •  3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1 2/3 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon cloves
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • Maple Honey Frosting-
  • 4 to 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup real maple syrup (preferably grade B as it has a stronger flavor)
  • 1/4 teaspoon maple flavoring
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 15 muffin cups with paper or foil liners.
  2. Melt your butter in a medium sauce pot over medium low heat. Stir occasionally as it cooks until it turns a lovely medium brown color and has a nutty aroma. Immediately take it off the heat and pour it into a medium sized bowl to cool.
  3. In a small bowl, whisk to combine the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Add the pumpkin puree, sugar, vanilla and eggs to the cooled brown butter. Whisk to combine. Dump the flour mixture into the butter one and stir just until it’s combined. Don’t overbeat.
  4. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, filling them about 3/4 full. bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of one comes out clean.
  5. Remove the cupcakes from the pan to a rack to cool completely. While they cool, prepare your frosting- In a large bowl, on high speed, beat your butter for about 2 to 3 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally, until it is light and fluffy looking.
  6. Add in 4 cups of the powdered sugar and with the mixer OFF (unless you want to have a face full of powdered sugar), stir it around a bit to mix in the sugar a bit. Turn the mixer on low and beat until well combined. Snatch a bite of the butter/sugar mix out of the bowl and enjoy, because it’s one of Gods gifts to us hehe
  7. Add in the rest of the icing ingredients, except the last bit of powdered sugar. Beat at high speed for about 5 minutes. Yes, you read that right. When you first add the ingredients and beat it, it will look soupy. Keep beating and it will come together and thicken. If it isn’t thick enough for piping after five minutes, add the last 1/2 cup of sugar and beat on high speed for about another minute or two. Refrigerate the frosting for 30 minutes.
  8. When ready to frost, stir the frosting a little to loosen it and pipe or spread the frosting on each cupcake. If you have any extra, it can be refrigerated, covered. It’s strangely appealing on bagels and would also be great all melty on top of a waffle or pancakes.

Copyright Notice: From Cupcakes To Caviar images and original content are copyright protected. Please do not publish these materials anywhere without prior permission.

 

Sweet Cream And Honey Cornbread

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Sweet Cream And Honey Cornbread

Sweet Cream And Honey Cornbread

I generally don’t like sweet corn breads, so when I do make them, it makes the dinner time conversation rather interesting.

Russell (using a really bad Mark Lowry Voice -) “Sugar in the cornbread is cake! When you take a bite of cornbread, it’s supposed to suck 90% of the moisture out of your body!”

Jordan- “If this is cake, can I have whipped cream on it?”

Joshie- “Oooo… cake! Can I have ice cream with it?!”

Yeah… my family is strange. They are also unused to cornbread with sugar. You see, I’m a Yankee by birth and a Southerner by long time geography (well, part genetically too, if that can be genetic 😛 ) and that whole birth thing being the case, one would assume I use a ton of sugar in cornbread. Nahhhh. I’m fine with a touch, if any. I am also enough Southerner at this point that when I see people put sugar on a bowl of grits, I am hard pressed to not walk up to them, say “bless your heart, honey. You’re not supposed to do that”, then hog tie them and drag them behind a mule drawn carriage until they learn the error of their ways. So far, I’ve resisted. But I make no long term promises.

All of that said, I liked this cornbread. Would I want sweet cornbread every time? No. But I was pulled in by the words cream, honey and butter in the recipe.  I mean, everyone loves those words… and by everyone, I mean I me.  There are very few things that can’t be made better with copious amounts of cream and butter. Except maybe liver. There is no hope for liver. And eggplant.

This IS a pretty sweet cornbread. It’s also buttery, rich, tender and moist and quite tasty served with a half cup pat of butter on it. This comes from one of my favorite cornbread cookbooks, The Cornbread Gospels. This book is cornbread lovers nirvana. It’s 358 pages of different corn breads and also ways to use said cornbread, plus a few go-alongs. This particular recipe isn’t one you’d serve with something like chili. In my humble opinion, chili needs an unsweetened cornbread. But this was wonderful with the roast chicken we had for dinner and will be wonderful later my favorite way, which is gently heated, put in a bowl with a ton of butter and some maple syrup. YUMMY!

You know the drill… 🙂

Sweet Cream And Honey Cornbread

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup cornmeal
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1/4 cup honey, warmed for easier mixing
  • 2 eggs
  1. Butter either a medium (9 or 10 inch) cast iron skillet or a 9 inch square pan and preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt.
  3. In another bowl, combine the cream, milk, sugar, honey and butter. Whisk well. You will probably still have some butter pieces; that’s fine.
  4. Beat the eggs into the cream mixture. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix just until combined.
  5. Pour into the prepared pan, drizzle with some extra honey if desired and bake at 400 degrees until it is golden brown and slightly pulled away from the edges of the pan, about 25 minutes.
  6. Serve warm… or room temp… or reheated with butter and maple syrup. 🙂

Copyright Notice: From Cupcakes To Caviar images and original content are copyright protected. Please do not publish these materials anywhere without prior permission.

Honey, I’m Home

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When I was a kid in the late 60’s and early 70’s (I was born in ’64 so I guess I can claim kid-dom up until about 82 or so but I mean little kid here) the music that was around was much simpler and dare I say much more innocent most of the time. I grew up listening to country or “Country and Western” as it was known back then. In those days, it wasn’t the trendy music it is now. You listened to it because you loved it. I also was exposed to AM Pop music; artists like Gilbert O ‘Sullivan, Simon And Garfunkel, Carly Simon, James Taylor and Bobby Goldsboro. They are still singers that I love to be honest. I remember Bobby Goldsboro having a song called “Honey”. It is the worlds saddest song (with REM’s “Everybody hurts” still in first place for worlds most depressing song) about a man whose wife dies while he is at work and how he misses her. The romantic child I was then thought it was so cool that she died and he loved her enough to nurture some stick of a tree for her and I just knew I would grow up to have that kind of love. I conveniently forget about the part where she dies. Alone. By herself. No one there to help. Dead as a doornail. You get the point. I still love the song though. My dad always told me that it reminded him of my mother and made him think of her when he heard it.

I heard that song today on my media player. No, you do not want to know what other songs are on there. It would simply clarify my extreme old age and senility for you. I prefer you believe I have all sorts of modern songs with the modern attitude that goes with them and that I spend my days getting cool tattoos and having people come up to me and say “I just had to tell you that I hope I look as good as you when I’M 25!”. I do not, I repeat do NOT, have Donny Osmond singing “Go Away Little Girl” on my media player. I swear I don’t. If it is there, my husband must have put it there.

As I was saying though, I heard the song Honey today and decided to make something with honey in it in honor of the worlds saddest song. So I made cupcakes. Lemon Honey cupcakes with a lemon honey frosting. The recipe originally comes from Womans Day I took the liberty of making some changes to the batter because when I tasted it (Hey! It’s quality control!) it had minimal lemon flavor. To be honest, it had minimal flavor period. No offense to Womans Day. They do however have a nice tart sweet lemony frosting that I loved. perhaps too much since I ended up with three cupcakes with no frosting. Oops. If you like Lemon, you’ll like these. :-D  While you’re cooking these you should go to youtube (*points to link below) and listen to the song Honey.  You can listen to it and weep while you wish you had a love like that. Minus the dead part. The dead part sucks.

Lemon-Honey Cupcakes Recipe

  • Cupcakes-
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 tsp each baking powder and baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract
  • 3 Tbsp grated lemon zest
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • Lemon-Honey Frosting
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp grated lemon zest
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
  • 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 7 to 8 tsp lemon juice
  • Few drops yellow food color

1. Cupcakes: Heat oven to 350°F. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl to blend. Whisk sour cream, milk, lemon extract, lemon zest and juice in a small bowl until well mixed.

3. Beat butter, honey and sugar in large bowl with an electric mixer 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended.

4. With mixer on low speed, beat in half the flour mixture, then the sour cream mixture. Beat in remaining flour mixture until just combined.

5. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter into each muffin cup. Bake 18 to 20 minutes until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove cupcakes from pan to wire rack to cool completely.

6. Frosting: Beat butter, honey, lemon extract  and lemon zest in large bowl with an electric mixer until creamed, about 2 minutes. On low speed, beat in confectioners’ sugar until blended. Beat in lemon juice and a few drops food color until mixture is fluffy and pale yellow.  Taste about 47 bites of the frosting to make sure it’s lemony enough. Vow never to eat sweets again. Eat more anyway.

7. Spoon into a large ziptop freezer bag, snip off one corner and pipe onto cupcakes, or just spread frosting onto cupcakes. Or just eat it all and tell everybody that the cupcakes are really lemon muffins thus they don’t need frosting.

*Points down to song link*

 

Honey