1. 29 August 2010 · 02:12 AM ·

    EXPERIMENTAL CUPCAKES (recipe below)

    Yes, I know, I haven’t been here lately… but you should be happy for me! I got a job! And I have a few freelance gigs doing a few things when I’m not working!

    However, I had a friend ask me to bake a sweet potato (aka KAMOTE) cupcake and OMG i thought it would be easy, but it took me weeks to plan, only to have 2.5 days to work… procrastinated and then ended up working on it a few hours on Friday and the party was on Saturday! shiiiii….

    It was the request that really freaked me out. Designs, I could do fine, probably. I have been itching to create cakes using MM fondant, which seems sort of easy! But my friend texted…”a sweet potato/nutella fusion mixed with some type of crushed candied nut like a pecan or walnut. then on top a peanut butter frosting topped with a whole version (not crushed) of the type of nut that is mixed inside”.

    Obviously, these guys are connosseiurs of cupcakes! So rather than doing design, I figured I should prioritize taste and do R&D (research and development, aka TRIAL AND ERROR). 

    I had gathered my materials 2 weeks in advance. (Fat lot that does when you change recipes at the last minute!) Still I found myself working on my “R&D” a day before the party, and that day, I was assigned to pick up my aunt at the airport and drive her to see my grannies 2 hours away! :( Suffice it to say a back and forth trip would take half a day at least, esp if she’s coming in after lunch. Had to get backup (my husband) to come with so he can drive the way home.

    Still, I was able to do one batch on Friday, but it failed. Did the frosting and shoved the bowl in the fridge. After picking up my aunt, we stopped by my apt to eat our sandwiches and she gave me a few tips also (but she has never done sweet potato pastries either), like:

    • preparing all ingredients in bowls
    • writing down half recipes so you dont get confused
    • separating the wet and dry ingredients,
    • AND, any new ingredient you throw in should ALWAYS BE MEASURED.

    Those tips are possibly some of the best experimental baking tips ever!

    I’ve never seen a sweet potato nutella recipe online, so I asked her if I should mix the nutella with the “wet ingredients (milk, potato, etc)” or throw it in afterwards? She said it was definitely wet and should therefore be bunched in with the wet ingredients.

    The reason my first batch failed is because I halved the recipe, but (in my confusion and haste) still threw in 4 eggs instead of 2.

    My second batch failed because I left it in the fridge too long (more than 12 hours) since I had to travel to the burbs. Some online forums have said it was okay, some say there’s a chance that the cake will have difficulty rising.

    By this time, it was Saturday morning and I was close to panicking! My recipe (forwarded by requestor to use as a base) was not working, and the recipe texture of refrigerated batter was too dense, too rich, too heavy! The peanut butter tasted good, but texture was not as creamy as those canned Duncan Hines ones I normally buy when I decorate.

    So I called a friend who has probably never failed at anything, especially now that she’s a mom, she sews, decorates, cooks, bakes, writes…she made me realize that aside from the over-refrigerated batter, I may have overmixed it too.

    BUT, she said, I could still just work on a Martha Stewart banana cupcake recipe that she uses, just substitute the sweet potatoes for the bananas! WTH! Why didn’t I think of that??? (thanks Sunsh!)

    Googled Martha, but found that she used too many weird ingredients, so I did another blind google for Banana-Pecan cupcakes and found one HERE - which was adapted from Martha as well. GOOD. Had no use for the nutmeg I bought last week now, but at least I got to use my 2 lb bag of pecans (over-toasted a few of those too, grr)!

    I also did 2/3 of this recipe because I only needed to make 2 dozen.

    Did 3 store runs (one asian store for sweet potatoes+ one grocery by foot, and another by car this morning, total. Got hubs annoyed countless of times (maybe cause I didn’t make him breakfast or lunch - was in the kitchen and monopolized kitchen table).

    And in the end? It was all worth it! yes, it was pretty fluffy, sweet enough, and balanced out the uber sweet peanut butter frosting! The Nutella was really a nice touch too!

    So… in case you were wondering.. here is the recipe!

    ==============

    Sweet-Potato-Pecan-Nutella-Peanut Butter Cupcakes
    Makes 20-24 cupcakes

    Idea by Melbert Sebayan, R&D by Mutya Bose-Roldan
    {Sort of adapted from oneluckycouple who slightly adapted the recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes}

    • 2 cups cake flour {substituted 2tbsp cornstarch+APflour=1cupx2}
    • 1 teaspoons baking soda
    • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1/2 (heaping) teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • 1.5 cups of mashed sweet potato (boiled/water cooked for 30 minutes before mashing)
    • 1/2 cup buttermilk 1/3 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
    • 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
    • 1 cup sugar
    • 2large eggs, room temperature
    • 2/3-1 cup chopped pecans, plus whole pecans for top
    • Nutella (12 tbsp roughly)

    Preheat oven to 350. Line two standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon (dry ingredients!). In another bowl, whisk together sweet potatoes, buttermilk, and vanilla (wet ingredients!).

    With a hand-held electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Reduce the speed to low. Add half of the flour mixture, then the banana mixture, and then the other half of the flour mixture, beating until just combined after each. Stir in the pecans by hand.

    Divide the batter evenly among the lined cups, filling each about three-quarters full. Bake, roughly 25 minutes and stick a toothpick in the centers, until it comes out clean. Remove from tray, or transfer to wire racks, or some other surface to cool cupcakes completely.

    With a paring knife, saw out holes on top of cupcake (up to 2/3 down) and stuff Nutella inside. Place cut out cupcake back to cover the hole. Pipe the frosting (recipe below) onto the cupcakes to cover hole. Top with pecan.

     PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING (from allrecipes.com)

    yield 3 cups

    • 1/2 cup butter
    • 1 cup creamy peanut butter
    • 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
    • 1/3 cup cream

    In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in 1/2 of the confectioner’s sugar. Mix in 1/4 cup of the cream. Beat in the remaining confectioners’ sugar. If necessary, add a little more cream or milk until the frosting reaches a good spreading consistency. 

    =============

     Kitikeyks_Kamote_Kupkeyk

    Well, the adventure doesn’t end there! After I finished the 3rd and 4th batches, I decided to make another batch of frosting, because the one I made yesterday was not THAWING OUT. Problem was, I was almost out of confectioners sugar, and the batch I made the day before was this recipe above. I had enough materials to make 1/2 batch. So I did. 

    It covered about 18 cupcakes. Then I had to try working on the day old frosting. Added more cream, and tried beating it a bit more. It finally softened, albeit flaky, but taste is amazing! Maybe If I had a pro-piping tip, it wouldn’t look so horrible! Ah well.I used the cupcake courier and cupcake tier for the first time, and it really did look fancy! Excellent! People thought I was a pro, LOL! The important thing is, people liked the actual taste! Yes! All in a days work!

     

    recipe