Sunday, October 15, 2006

I-scream Cupcakes

Ginger Buttermilk Cupcakes with Meringue Frosting

I vowed to stay away from them for some time, but I couldn’t do it any longer. I was like the trite little moth that was lured into its lusty flame. What I am referring to is the lure of the cupcake; I could no longer resist. Besides, I do think I have sufficiently abstained from baking or eating them for long enough. Although I do thank myself for going on a self-imposed cupcake sabbatical; it would not have allowed me to explore other avenues in baking. But like Dorothy once said, there’s no place like home and I somewhat regard cupcakes as my culinary home.

The cupcake is where I really started to love baking and these are where my roots are. Who knew a foray into cupcakes could metamorphose into a full blown obsession with food, and in particular desserts. So come to think, I really have the humble cupcake to thank. So thank you cupcake, I will be forever grateful. So here is my tribute to the cake that instigated a passion. I made these earlier last week but never had the time to post about them properly.

I had seen these ice cream cupcakes in various food blogs when I first started blogging and thought that they would be too hard to make, despite reassurances on every recipe that they were dead easy. My confidence in baking then was at an all time low. I had only baked cupcakes in paper cases, so deviating to other containers proved a little too advanced for me. Now that my confidence has been incited, and my latent baking skills have now been uncovered, I decided it was time to make them. This was just one of these things that I needed to mark off on my mental checklist of things I must do and i'm glad I did.

Ginger Buttermilk Cupcakes with Meringue Frosting

The cake is Ginger Buttermilk and the frosting is orange meringue, I think these two flavours go swimmingly well together; just like the proverbial house on fire. And at first they look a little bit too cute and “made-up” to eat, but after you get a whiff of them, you will not be able to resist. My aunty took some home and sort of forgot to eat them. I know what you're thinnking, how could a cupcake or more so eating these cupcakes accidently slip your mind, but nonetheless it did. However she did mention that even a day later the cupcakes were still good. I wouldn’t recommend keeping them for too long, but I don’t think this will be a problem for these cupcakes.

Ginger Buttermilk Cupcakes
(makes 8 cupcakes)
adapted from
this book

Ginger Buttermilk Cupcakes

½ cup plain all-purpose flour
½ cup self-raising flour
¼ tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
90g unsalted butter, softened
½ cup firmly packed light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 egg
¼ cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 170°C. Prepare 8 ice cream cup cones.
Sift dry ingredients into a bowl and mix, set aside.
In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add maple syrup and egg and beat until combined. The mixture will appear curdled at this point.
Add buttermilk and beat until batter is smooth.
Sift in dry ingredients in two batches, making sure not to over mix after each addition.
Pour two tablespoons of batter into each ice cream cone. Make sure you do not overfill the cones as the cake will rise during baking.
Place cones onto a baking tray and carefully transfer to oven.
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the tops have just risen, creating perfectly round mounds.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
Ice the tops of the cake with meringue frosting (recipe below).
And bake in the oven for 5 minutes at 160°C, until meringue is lightly browned on the edges.

Ginger Buttermilk Cupcakes with Meringue Frosting

Orange Meringue Frosting

1 cup caster sugar
¼ cup orange juice
2 egg whites

Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar is completely dissolved.
Boil uncovered without stirring until the syrup reaches 116°C, about 5 minutes (use a candy thermometer).
Remove from heat and allow the bubbles to subside.
Beat egg whites in a dry bowl until soft peaks form.
While mixer is operating, add hot syrup in thin streams beating on high speed for about 10 minutes or until frosting is thick and cool.

Ginger Buttermilk Cupcakes with Meringue Frosting

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

They look marvellous! One question though, how did they taste with the ice cream cones, or did you have to treat the cones as muffin liners and toss them?

They look like they'd be awesome for a kid's party! Little tykes would go nuts :D

Helene said...

That is just Twilight Zone weird: I jsut picked out ice cream waffle cones to bake mini cakes in them next week for the neighbors. Yours look so cute, very tempting.

Anonymous said...

I love these. What a great idea.

Anonymous said...

Those remind me of my childhood soooo much. My mom would make them for our birthdays.
Yours look wonderful. As always, you do not disappoint.

Bonnie said...

Oh, these are so cute! What a great idea... you're such an inspiration!

Liz :) said...

My gosh! These look absolutely gorgeous cute and wow totally amazing!!! I definitely want to give it a go sometime soon! :)))

Anonymous said...

Oh, wow! They look so cute!

I just bought those silver beads and flower flakes yesterday! What a coincidence :) they look so pretty!

Brilynn said...

Those are ridiculously cute! Kids everywhere must love you.

Anonymous said...

OHMY! my kids will surely love these!

Rachel said...

So pretty!!

Anonymous said...

These are gorgeous! I love the look of the meringue! Great photos too.

Unknown said...

I've done ice cream cupcakes before but not with merengue. It really makes it look like ice cream! So cute!

Su-Yin -DĂ©corateur said...

TOO CUTE!! pretty work jen *thumbs up!*

Edith said...

These are so cute. Just in time to do it with my kids this week. I have tried once but I couldn't really balance the cones while baking. Any idea to share?

ilingc said...

oh jen,
they would go down real well at my place.
i'm curious, did the cones go a bit soggy with the cake batter cooking in it and all?
ps. the meringues look awesome.

Anonymous said...

They look seriously cute! Great site you have here. Well done! I will be back.

wheresmymind said...

Great description: "trite little moth" *laugh*

Anonymous said...

They are so adorable! I love your creativity in putting flavors together!

Anonymous said...

love your work jen jen. beautiful looking cakes

Unknown said...

Aww...these are so lovely! And absolutely CUTE!! Bravo, Jenjen!
I'm curious too..how do they taste with the ice cream cones?

Jen said...

Ellie- Thank You! They tasted all right with the cones, you can eat them with the cake as they don't really taste like much. Or if you really don't want to eat them you can just unravel the cones to reveal the cakes.

Helene- Awesome, we are on the same wavelength when it comes to baking!

Barbara- Thanks : )

Peabody- How wonderful that you got to have them for birthdays : ) This would be such a treat especially as a kid.

Bonnie- Thank you, now you're making me blush!

Liz- Give them a try, they are really fun to make, even if it's just for their novelty.

Mae- Another coincidence, the first one was Helene. Those silver dragees always make even cutesey cupcakes look elegant.

Brilynn- Thanks, I haven't road tested them on kids yet. But you're right, I imagine it would be popular with kids. But perhaps not such an adult flavour like ginger, maybe something like chocolate.

Ces- Thanks!! I sure bet they would.

Rachel- Thank you : )

L- Thank you, I feel kind of honoured especially coming from you and your great visual syling skills.

Natalia- They are really fun to make and a nice variation from the normal cupcake cases.

Claire- The meringue was actually a last minute idea when I realised I had spare egg white sitting in the fridge.

Suyin- Thanks, that means a lot coming from you: The Cupcake Queen.

Precious Moments- I used flat-based cones and they stayed upright fairly well. If you are having trouble keeping them up, you might want to put some rice or beans at the bottom of the baking tray to anchor your cones.
Hope that helps.

Ilingc- the cones stay surprsingly crisp and the batter does not seep through at all. It's like magic!

Helen (AG)- Thanks, I'm so glad you like them!

Tim- Welcome and thanks for stoppping by : )

Bron- Thank you these are definitely at the top of the cuteness food chain.

wheresmymind- Yep, I was foolishly lured into making these cupcakes, but gladly they did not disappoint.

Anita- Thanks, I have to admit it was all a bit of a fluke. But it worked out at the end.

Jules- Thanks!

Jacelyn- They actually do not taste too bad with the cones. The cones are virtually tasteless they just add a little bit of texture to the cupcakes.

Anonymous said...

omg jenjen those are sio cool! i have to make them! what an awesome idea i think i have to borrow it! beautiful too :)

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Wow, simply mind-blowing!!! I love the way those cupcakes look...

Anonymous said...

These look so cute JenJen. They are also so playful. Lovely photos to display them!

*fanny* said...

Hi Jen
these are SO cute.
I do scream indeed!

xoxo
fanny

Annina Anton said...

It's months later, but I had to thank you for the recipe. My grandmother used to bake cupcakes in waffle cones and then frost them with green icing. She cut the tip from a long wooden Q-tip and glued on green crepe paper leaves, then took a pastel marshmallow (I don't know if they still make these for Easter in the US), and snipped it all over to resemble a tulip. One end of the stick went into the marshmallow, and it was "planted" in the cupcake to make an adorable flowerpot. They were an Easter tradition for years.