Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Pineapple Upside-Down Cupcakes w/ Sour Cream Frosting

I was watching The Food Network's show, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, and one Food Network star talked about a pineapple upside-down cupcake topped with a passion fruit frosting. This got my attention because my brother loves pineapple. Anyway, the show revealed a little about how the cupcake is made, and it seemed pretty easy (the pineapple & sugar part, anyway), so I figured I could make a vanilla cupcake and put some pineapple and brown sugar on the bottom, and I did!


They were good, but at the same time I have high expectations for food, so I'm thinking I'll use fresh pineapple instead of frozen next time and put more pineapple and more brown sugar at the bottom...and I'll use either a different cake recipe or use this same Hummingbird Cafe one but with whole milk (I only had non-fat!! BOO!!). I'm all about using REAL butter and real whole milk, heavy whipping cream, etc. usually. Oh well. Next time! Anyway, these came out pretty yellow and almost had the flavor and texture of cornbread--minus the grainy bits, of course (according to my mom and me). Interesting.

I knew that my uncle and little cousin were coming over, so I thought I should add a frosting to make it look prettier and taste better overall. I blindly mixed powdered sugar, one tablespoon of unsalted butter, & sour cream because I wanted to get rid of my sour cream leftovers. It ended up tasting like cream cheese frosting...only it was watery while mixing. Yumm.

RECIPES:


Sour Cream Frosting (Recipe by me. I was just experimenting 'cause I had never made sour cream frosting before)
* Note: This only makes a little bit of frosting (not enough to cover all 12 cupcakes) because I only wanted it on some of the cupcakes.

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
some leftover sour cream (about 1/4 of a cup)
powdered sugar (didn't measure...just kept adding...probably about two cups)

Directions:
(1) Mix the butter & sour cream together with a hand mixer.
(2) Add powdered sugar until it has your desired consistency.

Vanilla Cupcakes (recipe on Joy the Baker's site, but she got it from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook; I made this recipe for these cupcakes)

1 cup all-purpose flour
a scant 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup whole milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1) Put flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda & butter into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or use handheld beater like I did) & beat on slow speed until mixture is a sandy consistency & everything is combined
2) Gradually pour in half of the milk & beat until milk is just incorporated
3) Whisk egg, vanilla, & remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds and then pour it into the flour mixture & continue beating until just incorporated
4) Scrape unmixed ingredients from side or the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula
5) Continue mixing until the batter is smooth. Just a few minutes to avoid overmixing.
6) Spoon batter into paper-lined muffin tins, dividing between the 12 cups (you should barely have enough for each cup)
7) Bake for 20-25 minutes or until light golden & a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
8) Cool cupcakes slightly in the pan & put onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

how do you make the passion fruit icing frosting ?

Corriendo said...

Sorry, but I don't know. I'm not a fan of passion fruit, so I've never made it before.