Friday, November 12, 2010

Autumn Cupcakes


Very interesting story behind this company so if you're interested, you should Google it. For now, it's important that you know not all cake mixes are created equally. This box will run you around $4 which is a lot considering that you can usually get a Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker mix on sale for $1 on any given day. The problem with those mixes is they reek and taste of chemicals. That isn't appetizing. Dr. Oetker has no chemical scent and the finished product was lovely to behold and delicious to taste. No chemical taste. The cake was sturdy yet properly moist. It puffed right up as you can see here. (My cupcake carrier got left at a friend's house)


Right after these left the oven, they were injected with a Fleur de Sel caramel sauce from Trader Joe's.



 I used a sauce/condiment bottle to do the damage. 


If you use a thicker caramel sauce then warm the sauce up first. The sauce I used had a perfect consistency to where it didn't need heated up. When the cupcakes were done baking, I put them on a cooling rack and just pushed the tip of the bottle into the middle of the cupcake and injected a few squeezes' worth. You can cover up the hole with frosting once the cupcakes are cooled.

For frosting I made a simple browned butter frosting. As you can find on the Land O Lakes website:

BROWNED BUTTER FROSTING

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3-4 tablespoons milk

Melt 6 tablespoons butter in 1-quart saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking, stirring constantly and watching closely, until butter just starts to turn golden (4 to 6 minutes). (Butter will get foamy and bubble.) Remove from heat. Cool completely.

Combine browned butter, powdered sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla in small bowl. Beat at medium speed, gradually adding enough milk for desired spreading consistency. Frost cooled cake



And for the all important cupcake topper I made some little acorns I saw online, using Hershey kisses, mini Nilla wafers and mini chocolate chips. I stuck them all together with melted chocolate chips



These were for my friend Lyndsay's, birthday and I feel that fall birthdays deserve fall themed cupcakes.




And voila! Just don't let the squirrels get to them first!

4 comments:

  1. That looks super cute!! Can't wait to make these :)

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  2. I have decided I need a birthday once every season so that Amity will make lovely seasonal cupcakes. These look sooo good.

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  3. These look and sound awesome, Amity!! LOVE the little acorn toppers :-D I'm sure the organic cake mix is FAR FAR better than Betty Crocker...thanks for the review :-)

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  4. Alex is going to decorate a cake with these little acorns tonight. We'll post it on fb. My lab has it's November bday's party tomorrow so I plan on taking the cake.

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