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.