Caramel

I've not had a post dedicated to this most delicious treat, and it's high time I rectify that. I love caramel. It's cheap and easy to make and remake (for those times when we should be watching the stove but something fascinating just started happening on Facebook or TV or something).

I was blown away when I tried a friend-of-a-friend's caramel recipe, the one used with the chocolate and salted caramel brownies. The sour cream and salt combine to form this slightly tangy, slightly salty, sweet treat.

I wanted to use that caramel as a glaze to accompany my mother's apple cake recipe (something else I need to post on here). But the tanginess and saltiness wouldn't quite hit the right notes of the apple cake. So I decided to add browned butter to offset some of those flavors. Just a tablespoon. But oh my, what a difference it makes. And this is the recipe I provide to you:

Browned Butter Salted Caramel Sauce
yield: about a half cup, but this recipe is easy to duplicate

1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp water

1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp browned butter

Place the sugar and water in a pot set over medium to medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar is melted, and the mixture begins to boil. Let it boil for 6-8 minutes, watching it carefully. Once the mixture begins to turn golden, you'll have roughly 1-2 minutes before it turns a dark amber.

When the mixture has reached an amber or dark amber color, add the cream and sea salt. It will spit and sputter, but whisk until it calms itself down. Add in the sour cream and browned butter, whisking until combined. Place in a bowl and let it cool down before placing it in the refrigerator for safe keeping.

Pumpkin Cupcakes Revisited

edit: I decided to repost this because it's fall and I'm particularly proud of having developed this recipe. However, I wanted to try out some new ideas. I decided to use the entire 29oz can of pumpkin because I had little use for the remaining cup of pumpkin puree. The batter was too thick and didn't properly rise. The result was closer to a muffin than a cupcake; what little distinction there is between the two was present in the end product.

In a second, much more successful, batch I kept the pumpkin quantity the same, increased the baking powder by half a teaspoon, and increased the flour by a 1/4 cup. The recipe below reflects these changes and was incredibly successful. The cupcakes now have a more cake-like quality to them while maintaining all of the caramely, roasty, pumpkiny flavors I initially sought.

Finally, I'm usually skittish of overfilling cupcakes, but because of the thickness of the batter, these don't rise too much and I daresay it may be difficult to really overfill them. While they used to deflate after coming out of the oven (the main reason I wanted to adjust the baking powder and leavening), they now keep their domed-top shape.

I'm truncating two posts that have combined to make one amazing Pumpkin Cupcake. This time, trial and error more than paid off!

I don't mean to be getting all "Cooks Illustrated" on everything, but when I don't have a base recipe to start from, I tend to go to Taste Spotting in order to research other recipes that people have used. I judge based on looks, and then compare a few recipes.

Pumpkin cupcake recipes were all over the place, though. Some yielded around 14 and contained 2 cups of pumpkin, but another one yielded 24 yet only contained 3/4 cup pumpkin! Spices were actually pretty consistent throughout (1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/8 tsp cloves were used pretty regularly).

Flour was fairly consistent with all-purpose. One used cake flour, but I'm not exactly sure why. Sugar was... interesting. It seems like the caramel notes of brown sugar would work well with the pumpkin, but only a couple recipes contained any at all. So, with all of that in mind, here's what I want out of a Pumpkin cupcake, and here's what that led to:

Caramel goodness = brown sugar
Toasty warmth = browned butter
Tenderness = buttermilk
Pumpkin like woah = 2 cups pumpkin puree

And here is what I've cobbled together from a few websites (more than one of which cited Martha Stewart's recipes as starting points). Additionally, I've truncated a later post containing my favorite buttercream frosting paired with these cupcakes: brown sugar-cinnamon. It's a perfect combination!

Pumpkin Cupcakes
Yield: 20 - 24 cupcakes

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves

Whisk dry ingredients together. Set aside.

1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.

Place butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Swirl until fragrant and milk solids are beginning to brown. Remove from heat (browning may continue). Transfer to bowl of stand mixer and let cool.

Add sugars to browned butter and cream until wet, sandy mixture forms. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add in vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk (3:2 ratio). Finally, mix in the pumpkin, just until combined.

Scoop batter into muffin tins, filling 2/3 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes until turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting
Yield: Enough frosting for about 2 dozen cupcakes

1 cup of butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups confectioner's sugar, divided
3 tbsp half and half, divided

Cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cinnamon and vanilla. Add two cups of the confectioner's sugar and beat until smooth. Add in about 2 tbsp of the half and half. Add in the remaining confectioner's sugar until spreading consistency. Add half and half if needed to make it more spreadable.