Champagne Pear Cupcakes

Okay, so the decorating was a little underwhelming this time, but these were my girly-spring cupcakes. They were made for a coworker who is pregnant, and inspired by one of my favorite flavor combinations: pear and vanilla bean.
Let us start by having a little moment of silence for those cupcakes whose lives were cut short by a tragic baking accident..........

I attempted to make some double chocolate cupcakes a little while ago but they ended up being double busted cupcakes :( I bought these new Hershey's drops and figured they would be great as a cupcake filling. I was probably right, but I wouldn't know. About halfway through baking, I realized that I forgot to put them inside the cupcakes! A foolish choice was to pop out the cupcakes, put in the chocolates, then finish baking. I don't know if that was why they didn't turn out, or if I possibly forgot to add the salt. Regardless, they were my first cupcake catastrophe and they've been haunting me ever since.
I've made my Lemon Cupcakes, the Remix and these champagne pear cupcakes since that time, and was VERY nervous both times. But with good reason: I made two substitutions in ingredients and had a measuring mishap while making the lemon cupcakes, and my champagne pear cupcakes were a bit of a crazy experiment in recipe making. Here's the (hopefully) abridged story:
I didn't plan out my grocery shopping well, so I assumed I'd need one pear for the recipe and bought an extra to eat by itself. WRONG. The ONLY recipe I could find online for champagne pear cupcakes called for 2 3/4 cup of flour (which would make about 30-36 cupcakes) and three pears. UGH. After some thoughtful debate, I decided to do what I've been wanting to do for a while: research baking science. It was super enlightening and now I have much more appreciation for the ingredients that go into a cake. Armed with my new-found knowledge, I decided to tweak my Pomegranate Green Tea cupcakes recipe because it seemed to have a good ratio of ingredients and mirrored the liquid content I'd need to use to get the champagne flavor to shine in these cakes. I figured the pear component was an extra and wouldn't affect the chemistry, and I was right. So here's MY recipe:

Champagne-Pear Cupcakes:
2 cups All Purpose Flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (3/4 cup)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 cup milk*
1 cup champagne*
Two pears, grated*
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grate the pears and set aside.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl, set aside.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add vanilla extract and milk, plus half the flour mixture. Mix together until combined. Add the champagne and other half of the flour mixture, mix together until combined. Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full. Bake 16-22 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.
*The milk is probably not necessary, because the batter was a little thinner than I'm used to. They still turned out fine, but next time I'll omit the extra liquid. I used some cheap champagne- I think it was like $9 per bottle and was of the "brut" variety. It was quite interesting to have an ingredient fizz as I added it into the batter, but the best part was finishing the champagne afterwards (which was surprisingly pretty good!). As far as the pears go, it wasn't that bad to grate them. One of them was a little under-ripe and quite firm, and the other was much more ripe and soft. However, grating them with a cheese grater (using the side with the largest holes) wasn't a big deal. A little messy, but not difficult. Oh, and I also added some pink food coloring to make them a little extra cute :)

It's hard to tell what color they are, but they're a light pink-ish color. So needless to say, having made my own recipe for these, I was apprehensive about how they'd turn out. But I think the flavor of the champagne was there, but not overwhelming. The pear flavor was almost non-existent, but I think it balanced everything out and made for the most moist cupcakes I've ever had. Possibly my new secret weapon for moist cakes :) Overall I was relieved that they turned out ok and somewhat proud that I tweaked an already-tweaked recipe to make something new.

On to the frosting of my dreams...
Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting:
1/2 of one vanilla bean, seeds scraped and pod discarded*
One poud of confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbps+ of milk
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

Beat butter until smooth. Add vanilla bean seeds and extract, then slowly begin adding about half of the powdered sugar. Add the milk, then the rest of the powdered sugar. Add more milk if needed to desired consistency, and beat until smooth. Do not overbeat. Makes enough frosting for about 24 cupcakes.
*This was my first vanilla bean experience. I bought some McCormick gourmet vanilla beans, found on the spice rack at my local grocery store. They actually sell them in a little glass jar just like they use to sell other spices (like rosemary). I cut the seed in half width-wise with a paring knife. I put one half back in the jar, and then cut the other half length-wise. You'll see the darker seeds in the middle of the pod. Use the rounded side of a butter knife and hold the knife perpedicular to the bean on the side that has access to the seeds. Apply some pressure to the pod and scrape down it to extract the seeds. The seeds should come right out and stick on the butter knife.

I piped on a swirl of frosting and spinkled on some yellow sprinkles. Mmmmm... sophistication.

Lemon Cupcakes II: The Remix.

I made a deal with a good friend a while ago: I would give her cupcakes in exchange for some authentic Asian food. And we both held up our end of the bargain, just a year after the fact. My friend requested some lemon cupcakes, but prefers her cupcakes to be moist and fluffy rather than dense. So I ditched the Opposite of Low-Fat Lemon Cupcakes recipe I used before because those were some pretty dense cupcakes. I pondered what to do, then decided to tweak my Key Lime Cupcakes recipe because those turned out having my target texture for this batch. 

*I'm SO excited about my next batch of cupcakes that I'll be making soon: pear champagne with vanilla bean frosting. So stay tuned, because I'm hopeful that those will be my best yet :)

Lower-fat Lemon Cupcakes:

Ingredients: (makes about 16 cupcakes)
1 3/4 cup cake flour*
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp  lemon zest*
yellow food coloring
3/4 cup buttermilk*
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt three times and set aside. Beat butter until smooth and creamy, then add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating in between to combine. Add lemon juice, lemon zest, food coloring, and vanilla extract and beat until combined(mixture may look curdled). Add flour mixture and buttermilk in the following order: 1/3 of the flour mixture, 1/2 of the buttermilk, 1/3 of the flour mixture, rest of the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour mixture. Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full and bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean.

*Once again, I used my "fake cake flour" since I still don't have actual cake flour. Our brand new Publix just opened about a mile from my neighborhood, so I'm hoping they carry cake flour. Regardless, this works just fine: put 2 tbsp corn starch in the bottom of a one cup measuring cup, then fill the rest of the measuring cup with flour. Then, put one tbsp of corn starch in the bottom of a 1/2 cup measuring cup, and fill the rest with flour. Another 1/2 tbsp of corn starch in a 1/4 cup measuring cup and fill the rest with flour. And voila! Fake cake flour.

*I never measure zest. It doesn't change the chemistry of the batter so it will only affect flavor... I just zested about half of a medium sized lemon and the flavor turned out pretty well.

*Holy crap! I didn't have any buttermilk this time, but LOVED how it worked in my key lime cupcakes. Never thought I'd say this, but buttermilk may soon surpass sour cream as my favorite ingredient in a basic cupcake recipe. Sour cream makes the cupcakes very dense, which isn't a bad thing to me, but not everyone likes a dense cupcake. Buttermilk, on the other hand, makes a nice, thick batter that is a little fluffier after baked. I didn't know this before, but buttermilk is actually low fat (less guilt!!). Anyways... I decided to use the typical buttermilk substitute of putting one tablespoon of white vinegar into a one-cup measuring cup, and fill with milk to the one cup line. Let sit for five minutes. Since the recipe only calls for 3/4 of a cup, you can either put 3/4 tablespoon of vinegar into a 3/4 cup measuring cup or use one cup and only use 3/4 of it. Yes, I am a math genius.

So, these cupcakes were actually pretty scary for me, especially since the batch I made prior to these (that were supposed to go to the same friend) were BUSTED. I'll post on those later. So with that horrifying memory in the back of my mind, I worried that I suddenly lost my cupcake baking finesse. Added to that was the fact that I used TWO ingredient substitutes (cake flour and buttermilk). Then, after adding my first addition of buttermilk, I realized that I must have filled the measuring cup pretty far past the one cup line, because after adding what I thought to be about a third of a cup, there was still about one cup left in the measuring cup. DOH! So I guesstimated how much to add after that, and ended up adding a splash more at the end because the batter seemed a bit too thick. Once I popped them in the oven, I said a little prayer to the God of cupcakes, and started washing dishes so I wouldn't keep peeking at them.

So obviously they turned out just fine! Some were a little well-done, but not bad at all. Notice the time on the clock in the second picture? That's AM. I made the fondant decorations first, then decided that I would go ahead and make the cakes that night as well, since the next day was going to be quite busy. Of course I had to try one, and they turned out just how I wanted them to be. Not too lemony, but fluffy and moist.

I busted out the Wilton fondant again and spent a long time trying to figure out how to decorate them. I didn't want to make lemon wedges because I did that with the key lime cupcakes and I wanted to try something new. I started searching high and low in my house for inspiration, and stumbled upon this:

It's a necklace I bought a little while ago, and it was perfect inspiration for some spring cupcakes.

Method for making fondant flower decorations:
Knead fondant of chosen color (I decided light blue would be a nice contrast to the yellow cupcake and frosting) until soft and workable, and roll out until about 1/8" to 1/4" thick. Using a small circle (about 1/2" around... I used the small end of a piping tip coupler for this) cut out five circles per flower. Pinch one side of each circle until shaped like a tear drop, then pinch to flatten a little on that side (so it is thinner than the other end of the circle). Arrange each petal to form a flower, pressing each petal together to ensure they stick:

Then, with another color (yellow would be the obvious choice), roll out more fondant and break off into small pieces. Roll into tiny balls (about half the size of a pea) and flatten into a circle. Using a wet brush, wet the center of the flower and the back of the yellow circle and press together to bond. Set aside and let dry. Store in an airtight container if not using immediately.

I ended up scoring the petals the next day to add more detail, and used a paring knife for it. Which was really dangerous, so I suggest using a toothpick to prevent cutting your fingers off :)

On to the frosting.

OMG. This frosting is heavenly. It made more than I needed (probably the perfect amount if you want to pipe something pretty on them) and for once, I couldn't throw away the leftovers. I saved it in a Tupperware container in the fridge, and have been enjoying it smeared onto a graham cracker as a dessert. I think the graham cracker was just an attempt to not feel like a total fatty from eating the frosting by itself. It's just that good.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:
Ingredients:
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 teaspoons lemon zest*
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract
5 cups confectioner's sugar
Yellow icing color

Directions:
Beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, lemon zest, and extracts together until smooth and fluffy. Add confectioner's sugar in two additions. Beat until creamy. Add more icing sugar or juice as needed for easy spreading.
*Still didn't measure the zest. I probably used about 1/4 of the same lemon I used for the cakes.

I piped a small swirl onto the top of each cupcake, then topped with one of the flowers:

LOVE.