Peach Mupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting/Cointreau-Peach Buttercream

On September 9, Leslie posted about our Spain planning/Ratatouille viewing where she served Thomas Keller's very delicious and complex Ratatouille recipe and I brought Peach Mupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting or Cointreau-Peach Buttercream. These mupcakes are a delicious adaptation of the Mango Chile Cupcakes with Key Lime Frosting from April's movie night. All 8 tasters agreed.

Clearly the recipe is out of season but I suspect using frozen peaches would work and two orange events were last weekend, Halloween and the ING NYC marathon, making it kind of timely. The cupcakes are moist, light and not overly sweet. Mascarpone Frosting** lets the cupcakes flavor shine without being overly sweet. Unfortunately it quickly disintegrates in heat (or if you overbeat it) thus the Cointreau-Peach Buttercream. The buttercream was a result of my not having milk and decided on a whim to substitute the two handy liquids. It was exciting to discover that buttercream doesn't have to be restricted to milk, butter, confectionary sugar and extracts.

I highly recommend making these cupcakes and your own variations. I'm thinking my next batch should be apples/apple cider and a maple or brown butter frosting.

Peach Mupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature (I used salted and it was fine).
3/4 cup soy milk, at room temperature (any milk would work)
1/4 cup peach nectar, at room temperature
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 egg, at room temperature
3 peaches, blanched, peeled and cut into cubes*

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Line or grease and flour 12 wells in a cupcake pan. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg, mix thoroughly. Add flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt to the butter mixture. Add the milk and peach nectar to the rest of the batter and beat until well combined. Fold in peaches. Fill each well 2/3 of the way full. Bake about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted the center of a cupcake comes out mostly clean. Cool briefly in the pan, then remove cupcakes to wire racks to cool completely before icing. Ice.

*Bring water to a boil. Cut a cross into the bottom of the peaches. Add to boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain. Peel as soon as you can handle them.

**I forgot to bookmark which recipe I used for the marscapone frosting, but I'm sure you can findn a good one via the every useful Food Blog Search to the right.

Molly's piping skill! It was my first time using the pastry bag...harder than it looks...but not bad.

Paella and Irish Carbomb Cupcakes

In an ultimately successful campaign to sell me on a September Spain trip, Leslie had her friend Kristin and me over to view Vicky Cristina Barcelona and to eat delicious Paella with Chicken and Sausage. It was rich and filling; I especially loved the fresh taste of the parsley which broke up the tomato flavor and color.

My contribution were these politically incorrect, delicious Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. Frankly it has been so long since I made them that I don't remember my impression beyond finding them amazing and a bit time consuming to make. I want to say the cupcakes were moist, rich and dense. But who knows? I guess I'll have to revisit the recipe and drink more leftover Guinness. Damn! Life is hard...

Yes, this recipe taught me that I can drink beer and it really isn't so bad. I still don't go out of my way to consume beer but the 6 year "allergy" has ended.

Bran Muffins from Scratch

Last winter I thrived on bran muffins or oatmeal with raisins for breakfast. The idea came from my mother and All-Bran's super simple recipe. They were slightly sweet, filling, reasonable, and quick. A few batches in, I discovered that All-Bran contains the ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup. So, just like that, bran muffins were off of the menu.

You would be amazed how hard it is to avoid high fructose corn syrup. It is everywhere: canned tomatoes, salad dressings, All-Bran, bread, candy corn - you name it. It doesn't add nutritional value and, shortly, it may make grocery shopping more expensive since the increased ethanol demand may cause the cost of corn to rise (go here for a related article). Anyway, back to the muffins...

Months later I discovered this recipe for bran muffins from scratch online. I put off making it for months as I knew it would be a pain to find all the ingredients, which it was, but it was worth the effort. The muffins are slightly sweet and moist. They manage to taste buttery without a drop of butter. They don't even require processed sugar, which makes them the antithesis of All-Bran's high fructose corn syrup containing ways. I highly recommend them.

P.S. I didn't use molasses and my honey was buckwheat.
P.P.S. I think my cupcake/muffin pan is a bit shallow.