Sunday 22 June 2008

Cinnamon sugar puff cupcakes

Over the past weeks I have hugely enjoyed my foray into the world of cupcakes and buttercream. This week I was keen to find something that still qualified as a cupcake but didn’t go down the buttercream route; this week I wanted the cupcake to be the star.


I cannot recall when I enjoyed making anything more than these little puff cakes. When I got to the stage of rolling the cake tops in melted butter and then dipping in sugar I wished I’d made 100 as I could’ve stood there for hours performing this inexplicably gratifying task!

The butter and the sugar awaiting the cupcakes:


The topping is applied when the cupcake is still hot; as the cake cools the topping turns into the sort of sugary coating that you normally see on doughnuts – you know the sort, where it sticks to your lips and you just have to lick it off. The cupcakes are quite pale – I love this photo as it shows the dipped (on the left) and the undipped (on the right). Just look how deep and beautiful the colour of the cinnamon coating is:


All dipped!


The combination of crisp sugar topping and soft airy sponge is delightful. Next time I make them I will double up the recipe as the cupcakes are quite small and I am a glutton.


Cut open, you can see the flecks of nutmeg in the cupcake. For small cakes these really pack a flavour:



Still deliberating whether to make them? As you can imagine, The CCD (Caked Crusader's Da ) has sampled many a cupcake, yet declared these his all-time favourite. Recommendations do not come much higher!

If some of the measurements in the recipe look strangely precise it is because I converted it from a US recipe in cups.

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
112g caster sugar
1 egg
118ml milk
188g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the topping:
85g unsalted butter, melted
112g caster sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease a 12 hole muffin pan. You do not need to use paper cases for this recipe.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until they are pale and fluffy.
- Beat in the egg.
- Weigh out the flour and add to it the baking powder, nutmeg and cinnamon. Beat 1/3 of this dry mix into the creamed butter mix.
- Beat in half the milk, then a further 1/3 of flour. Repeat until all the milk and the flour is beaten into the mix.
- Spoon the batter evenly into the 12 holes.
- Bake for approximately 18 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly. Mine took exactly 18 minutes.
- Stand the muffin tray on a wire rack for only 5 minutes, then turn the cupcakes out – you need them upright so the dome is on top.
- Melt the butter and, in a separate bowl combine the sugar and cinnamon. Ensure that the cinnamon is stirred into the sugar (the sugar will look brown).
- Dip the dome of the cupcake into the melted butter and then dip into the bowl of cinnamon sugar. Make sure the cupcake’s dome is completely coated.
- Stand the cupcake on the wire rack to cool completely. Repeat until all the cupcakes are coated – there will be butter and sugar left over.
- Eat the cupcakes while they are warm or at room temperature. They will keep for two days in an airtight container.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try using Ceylon Cinnamon in your recipe and reduce on the sugar. You could also avoid the toxic effects of Coumarin in Cassia.

The Cinnamon that we buy in the US is actually Cassia which could be toxic.

Please click below my name to read more

The Caked Crusader said...

Thanks for your comments - the cinnamon I used was definitely cinnamon and not cassia.

As for reducing the sugar! Now that's a crazy idea.......

Anonymous said...

Oh wow. These look so good. I think I've mentioned before how much I looooooove cinnamon? Oh my. These are getting made very soon!

Cakelaw said...

These would be fab on a cold day (like he current Melbourne weather!!) straight out of the oven and just dipped in the cinnamon sugar. In fact, they would be perefct right now.

Beurrée said...

We are in 2020, but I just made your recipe... and we loved them !
Thank you so much !
Stay Safe !