Roasted Blueberry Cupcakes With Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

I like to purchase foods that are in season - for one, they taste better and they are usually cheaper.  Also, they tend to be grown closer to home, carbon footprint and all that.  Although, when a couple of weeks ago,  blueberries were in store and on sale, I broke my code and went for them.  As predicted, they were grown no where near the UK (Israel I think) and weren't the best tasting blueberries I've ever had - I don't think any will ever compare to those picked myself in Northern Ontario, where I grew up.  But, they were cheap.  Win some, lose some.

Blueberries are great sprinkled on cereal or porridge, in smoothies or just eaten as they come but I really fancied making something with them.  All sorts came to mind; cake, muffins, pie (oh my).  But after a little browsing on the interwebs I went with my favourite treat, cupcakes.   I looooove cupcakes.  I can't stress this enough.  I love the scene from Bridesmaids when Kristen Wigg's character makes that one little cupcake, because sometimes just one is enough (well, that's not quite true but it's really all that I need).  I've often made 12 to 24 or even more because that's just what that recipe yields without ever thinking that I can actually cut the recipe by half or quarters and make far less.  It finally clicked - make 6!  When I told the hubster of my ingenious idea he had a bit of a "well duh" kind of look on his face but I ignored it, being quite pleased with myself.  Now I didn't have to eat more than I should. 

Now I was pretty proud of that little discovery (it's the little things people) but what I'm really pleased about is finally getting the cream cheese frosting right.  Sadly it wasn't on this particular batch of cupcakes.  Actually I'm not not sure what I will bake to go with the bowl of frosting I have sitting in my fridge (banana cupcakes?) because in wanting to share a cream cheese frosting recipe that works, I just made some!   When I last made cupcakes the frosting went a little bit wrong and it still wasn't perfect for these little blue lovelies.  I shared my frosting woes with my mother who suggested I forget the butter altogether and mix only cream cheese and icing sugar, saying "that's how I've always made it!"  Why didn't she pipe up months ago?

Anyway, it turned out perfectly - definitely won't be dripping down the side of the cake.  I'll need to make something to go with it, and quick, before I eat the whole lot with a spoon!  Although I used low fat cream cheese so it's not too bad, right?

Maybe I'll nip out to Morrison's and see if they still have blueberries on sale - now that I have the perfect frosting!

Roasted Blueberry Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes 6 (or so)

Cupcakes 
1 cup fresh blueberries (plus mroe for garnish, if using)
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons of milk, if needed 

Spread the blueberries on a baking sheet and roast in a preheated oven at 220°C for about 10-15 minutes or until the berries start to pop and burst. You'll want to eat these with a spoon but wait little grasshopper, it will be worth it. Set them aside to cool and lower the oven to 200°C.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined. With a spoon, stir in the flour and baking powder until fully incorporated. Scrape those luscious blueberries and all of their juices into the bowl and stir into the mixture, breaking down the berries as much or as little as you like - I left a few chunky pieces but you can use an electric mixer to fully break them down instead. Add a little milk if required to ensure a cake batter consistency. Spoon into cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full.

Bake for 18-20 minutes (12-15 in a fan assisted oven!) or until a toothpick inserted in the centre cake comes out clean (but not until the tops have browned).

Adapted from Sweet Peony originally from How Sweet Eats

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes about 1.5 cups of frosting

125g of cream cheese
about 2 cups of icing sugar 
1 tsp of cinnamon

Combine the cream cheese, cinnamon and 1/4 cup of the sugar with a hand mixer until the mixture is no longer lumpy.  Stirring with a wooden spoon, continue to add more sugar a little at a time until the frosting reaches desired consistency.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies with Mint Buttercream

A few Christmases ago, I received a book about Whoopie Pies.  I had no idea what they were but they looked delicious; sweet sweet frosting sandwiched between two fluffy little cakes (there are savoury ones too but I'm all for the sugar baby).  I love cupcakes but my favourite part is the frosting, so the cake to frosting ratio on these little pretties are just perfect!  I've made them a few times, usually sticking to vanilla.  There are so many flavours to mix and match within this book that I can get a little overwhelmed and indecisive.  Also, some of the ingredients can sometimes be hard to get a hold of.  Marshmallow fluff is used in a lot of the recipes and I have only ever come across this at a little trolley in the mall selling American goods like Poptarts at 5 quid a box.  No thanks!  Today, however, I found two things that I have been searching for over the years (why I never thought to ask before, who knows).  Pumpkin in a tin? Check.  Cocoa powder? Check check.  I had no idea it was in the drinking chocolate aisle!  Although W did and gave me the dumbest look when I told him of my find.  There's no holding me back from recipes containing cocoa now and I can make pumpkin pie anytime of the year (I won't, but I can!)

So today, when I craved a Christmassy cupcake, I remembered my whoopie pie book and having access to cocoa meant my baking was no longer limited.  Bring on red velvet.  I paired it with a mint buttercream for a candy cane flavour.  I've already had 2 (ok fine 3) as an appetiser before dinner.

Here' my recipe adapted from Whoopie Pies by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies with a Mint Buttercream

Whoopie Pies
1 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon malt vinegar
1/4 cup buttermilk (I make this by adding a squeeze of lemon into the milk and letting it sit for a minute or so)
4 teaspoons of red food colouring
pinch of salt

Mint Buttercream
2 and 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup butter
4 tablespoons whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, beat butter and both sugars for a few minutes until crumbly.  Beat in egg until incorporated.  Add in vanilla, malt vinegar and food colouring and mix well.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add half of the flour mixture and half of the buttermilk to the red mixture and beat in until well blended.  Add in the remaining flour mixture and buttermilk and mix.

On a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper, drop the dough with a spoon at least 2 inches apart - about a tablespoon for large pies and half for smaller ones.  Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 8-10 minutes.  Prepare the frosting while the cakes cool on a rack.  Makes approximately 20 cakes.

In a large bowl beat butter and sugar until crumbly.  Beat in cream, vanilla, peppermint and salt until smooth.  Once the cakes have cooled, turn half of them over (match up similar sized cakes in pairs) and either spread the frosting or pipe it onto the cake.  Smoosh (a very technical term) a topper on and roll the edges in crushed candy cane.  

Eat up!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Happy Thanksgiving (tomorrow) to all my American friends and family!

In Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving in October.  I had always thought that we celebrated first because we were further north and the harvest came sooner.  From what I've read on the old reliable interwebs, that might be the case but it took us a long time to finally settle on the second Monday in October, something I had never heard of.  In England, we celebrate the Harvest but it seems more of a religious celebration within the Church of England than the big family gathering that has developed in Canada (and there's no day off work!)  My extensive research (this kids website) explains how Thanksgiving first derived from the Europeans.  So concludes the thorough investigation into why Americans and Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on different days.  I'm just glad I have an excuse to share these amazing pumpkin spice cupcakes that I made from the little pumpkin I bought for Halloween (it's the ONLY time I can find pumpkin in England).

 

Smaller pumpkins are sweeter for baking and have more flesh to work with whereas the larger pumpkins are perfect for jack-o-lanterns and have more seeds for roasting.  I started by cutting into the pumpkin and going into autopilot began to carve it - I'm surprised I stopped before giving it two triangle eyes and a one tooth grin.

I scooped out the seeds this way but it would have been easier sliced in half, which I did part way through.  Then I laid the two halves and the top on a baking sheet but not before drizzling them in olive oil.  I placed the pumpkin in a preheated oven (200°C) for about an hour.  Then I got to work on the seeds.  There were only a few but I thought they might make a nice garnish for the cupcakes.  I did come home from Canada a few weeks ago with a giant bag of candy corn and mini candy pumpkins which would have looked nice but they were devoured in the first week of being back in England.

For the seeds I simply rinsed them in a colander, dried them with paper towel, laid them on a baking sheet and sprinkled them with salt and pepper.  I placed them in the oven with the pumpkin and set 10 minutes on the timer.  They needed a further 10 minutes after that but just keep an eye on yours - I like mine quite crispy but the edges were starting to burn at 20 minutes. 

When the pumpkin was ready (a knife should go into it easily) I scooped out the flesh into a bowl and blended with my hand mixer until very smooth to make a puree.  The puree will keep in the fridge for a couple of days or you can freeze it if you want to use it at a later date.  It's great for so many things (check out this blogger's post) and I just may use some of these ideas for my leftover puree.  I definitely don't want to waste any!

Now for the best part - the cupcakes!!  These were one of the best cupcakes I've tried (and I've tried a lot!)

 I struggled with the frosting though.  It was my first attempt at a cream cheese frosting and after 2 failed batches I gave up.  Otherwise my recent gym visits (0) would need to increase to an amount that is just completely unrealistic.  Because when I say "failed" I mean that the consistency wasn't right for piping onto the cupcakes; it just sort of slid down the sides, but the consistency was, however, perfectly fine for eating with a spoon!  Oh dear!  I'm not sure what went wrong.  I went with a recipe I found on All Recipes that had great reviews but mine turned out very liquid-y.  The first batch went wrong because when my hand mixer ceased to work I thought the food processor would blend everything and it pretty much liquefied it all.  I should really know my kitchen tools better.  I added more icing sugar but you can see in the photo above, the icing is still sliding down the sides.  For the second batch I bought this:

I'd really like to hold out for something better that will last for years because this is the 3rd hand mixer I've had.  I'm going to do a little research and add it to my wish list.  Somehow with this new mixer I still managed to ruin the second batch.  It was much better than the first but I think I gave the maple syrup a whizz with the butter and cream cheese without adding any icing sugar and in doing so, liquefied it.  I think if I made this again I would skip the syrup altogether (you could hardly taste it) and use maple flavouring instead (like so many reviewers suggested).  Try this one or another recipe you know of and I will share my version when I get it right!  If anyone knows how to keep the icing sugar in the bowl when mixing please let me know.  It looked like CSI had been dusting for prints in my kitchen when I finished.  The little clean rectangular spot is where my camera was sitting (it's no wonder I'm not allowed to get a big fancy expensive one).

 Definitely try the cupcakes - they are great even without frosting (this coming from someone who used to make a bowl of the stuff just to eat it with a spoon - don't judge).

Recipe - yields 12 cupcakes

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter

In a bowl whisk together all dry ingredients.
In a large bowl, with a handmixer, cream together butter and sugars.  Add in eggs on at a time.
Slowly add in dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon.
Divide equally between muffin cups and bake in a preheated oven (180°C) for approximately 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the middle cupcake.

These cupcakes are light and fluffy and have a taste of pumpkin pie.  Absolutely delicious and a perfect addition to any Thanksgiving meal (or as a meal on their own? I made them Sunday and there are 2 left).

Can anyone help me with my cream cheese frosting hiccup?  How do I keep the icing sugar from covering my entire kitchen (I feel like I need to hang plastic sheeting before I start!)  What's your favourite Thanksgiving dish?  Mine is definitely the turkey...no wait, the sweet potatoes...no the pie, definitely the pie...do I have to choose?  I like it all!