Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Maple Cupcakes

For months I had been wanting to make some variation of a maple cupcake, and a couple of weeks ago I finally did. It was a Monday night and it was late, but I decided to try to whip something up. Working with what ingredients and energy I had, it was something quite simple.


I had some plain (and all too buttery) butter cream frosting leftover in the fridge that I added some melted down white chocolate chips and maple syrup to.

For the base, I used the cupcake recipe (found here) that I loved so much for the 60th birthday cupcakes.

I stirred 2 tablespoons of maple syrup in to the batter after combining all the ingredients. This made the batter slightly more liquidy than the last time, but since the batter was still light and frothy, I decided to try it.

The first pan of cupcakes came out only very lightly maple flavored, so I stirred in another tablespoon and baked the rest that way. I included one of the second batch in the picture below so you can see the difference - the more maple syrup, the darker the cupcake.


The darker cupcakes also had a bit more maple flavor, but some of it crystallized into little balls. Though that was sometimes a nice surprise to bite into, I was hoping for a more uniform maple flavor than what I got.


I had my usual taste testers try these and one thought the white chocolate and maple combination was nice, and the other concluded that the overall cupcake was good but the frosting was too sweet. I would have to agree with both.


I have made this cupcake recipe a few times now, and I think it is a definite keeper. I will have to work on the maple additions. Maybe next time I will try putting bacon in the mix!