Work Hard for the Cupcakes

Since my daughter Valentina was born, I have been at home, not working, and have had plenty of ideas to start a home business. I think it is now time to actually put one of these ideas into action. So let me present my idea, Cute Cakes, selling small sized sweet goods, specializing in cupcakes. I wanted to do so many things but for now I want to focus on the cupcakes. Believe me, its easy to get carried away looking at all these cakes and bakeries on social media, I want to do everything, but I am sure they too once started off with something small. And on the plus side I can do the baking once baby is asleep, although she does seem to know when I want to bake, and these are the times she will not sleep. She obviously wants to be part of the action. Perhaps we have a little mini chef in the making!

The thing here in Portugal, especially our town Portimão, is that all the sweets are amazing and cheap. Not only that, there is what feels like 3 bakeries or pastry stores within every 100 metres, I kid you not. They are everywhere, and most of them sell the same traditional and regional sweets. Sure, they are delicious, I love them, but I feel like maybe there is room here to make something a little bit different. Not crazy different, but something a little creative and fun. Enter cupcakes, something a little bit different but not outrageously over the top or more importantly no too expensive.

Now that I have the idea, it is time to start deciding on flavours and decorations for the cupcakes, trialing recipes, and marketing. Oh where to start with this last one, it makes my head hurt just thinking about it, this I am no good at, so I think it deserves some procrastination.

And so I thought I would share with you one of the first cupcake recipes I have decided on, for a beurre noisette cupcake, caramel filling, and a chocolate ganache topping with roasted peanuts, a take on a snickers bar if you will.  I made these the other day to give to my sister in law as a thank you gift for looking after Valentina while I went to the gym. I had to do something to burn off those extra cupcake calories, no? These cupcakes are super delicious, the cake is light and fluffy, and the burnt butter gives these cakes such an incredible flavour. And the caramel filling is just YUM!

Start off by making the caramel a good few hours before you need it, as it needs time to set in the fridge before you use it. To make the caramel, heat up 120g of butter with 95g of yellow sugar until melted and starting to bubble. Add 1 can of dulce de leche and whisk to combine, keep on heat until the caramel starts to get slightly thicker. Take off the heat and season with a little sea salt. Leave to cool down, then put in the fridge.

For the ganache, heat up 200g of cream till just boiling, then add 200g of chopped dark chocolate. Leave until the chocolate is melting and then whisk to get a homogenous mixture. Leave for 5 minutes, then add 45g of room temperature unsalted butter and whisk well. Season the ganache with a little sea salt. Leave this in the fridge to cool down and solidify. Keep giving it a stir every 20 or so minutes to make sure it cools evenly.

Now the cupcakes. Heat 150g of butter in a small saucepan until the milk solids begin to burn, and the butter turns a darker golden colour with a nutty smell. Take off the heat, pour into a bowl, and leave for a few minutes for the sediments to settle at the bottom. Then strain the butter into a cup or another bowl slowly leaving the sediments behind. Put this burnt butter in the fridge to cool down. In a mixer, add 125g plain flour, 120g yellow sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 1\2 teaspoon of baking powder. Put on low speed with the whisk and add in 2 eggs, 1 at a time and 1teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix until combined scraping down the sides as necessary. Then add the cooled burnt butter (this can be liquid or a soft solid), mix until just combined. Finally add 3 tablespoons of full fat milk. Fill into cupcake cases. Cook at 160 degrees. When done, take out of oven and leave to cool down.

When cupcakes are cool, cut out a circle with approximately a 2cm diameter from the top of the middle of the cupcake, using a small sharp knife. The idea is to create a hole in the middle of the cake so you can fill it with the caramel. Keep the lid next to the cupcake from which it came. Fill the hole of the cupcake with the caramel. If the caramel is a bit hard just microwave it a tiny bit so it becomes workable. Now get the lid and cut off the fluffy cupcake part, eat fluffy part and put the top back as lid for the cupcake to cover the caramel filling. I just discovered there is actually a tool you can buy to cut the hole easily for you, who knew!

Stir the chocolate ganache and put in a piping bag with a nozzle of your choice. Again, if the ganache is too hard, put in microwave for a few seconds to soften. For this recipe you don’t want the ganache too runny, it needs to be solid. Pipe onto cupcakes and top cupcakes with roasted chopped peanuts. For a little extra touch, drizzle each cupcake with a tiny bit of honey or maple syrup and sprinkle with one or two flakes of sea salt. E já está! Cupcakes! They really are delicious and totally taste like a Snickers bar :)