Vanilla bean cupcakes with speculoos-mascarpone frosting

If you follow me on instagram you may have seen that Saturday was baking day; in the morning it was cupcakes and in the afternoon bread. Being tucked away in my little kitchen making sweet and savory things on the weekends makes me happy.

I made a bread loaf entirely with buckwheat flour for the first time ever, and it was a good start. It was dense, due to the lack of gluten in the flour, a bit crumbly, but held together very well, and we ate it mostly with some strong aged Gouda and fig jam. The recipe needs some tweaking so I’m not going to post it just yet, but what was a complete success was these cupcakes.

Saturday was not the first time I made these; they are my go-to cupcakes whenever there is a craving for speculoos biscuit paste, which doesn’t happen often, admittedly, but when it does, these cupcakes are the thing to make. I don’t enjoy speculoos paste on its own or on pancakes/bread etc. as I find it a bit too sweet, but incorporated in a mascarpone frosting for cupcakes, it is alarmingly good.

When I was in Belgium recently, I bought a speculoos paste whose flavor I really enjoy over those I find in the Netherlands, and Saturday was my chance to use it. Vanilla cupcakes are the best vessel to carry the flavor of the frosting, making an excellent combination, and I also had some speculoos cookies on hand, which I crumbled and sprinkled on top to accentuate that biscuit flavor.

The cupcake is fluffy and intensely aromatic from the fresh vanilla seeds whereas the frosting is creamy and airy with that spicy speculoos biscuit flavor. Overall, the flavors are not overly sweet, which is always a good thing when it comes to cupcakes in my book.

Give them a try! And if you can’t find speculoos where you live, how about substituting the biscuit paste for gianduia? Different flavor of course, but oh so incredibly good.
That’s what I did yesterday when I made another batch of these cupcakes.

Vanilla bean cupcakes with speculoos-mascarpone frosting

Speculoos paste is a paste made from the classic Belgian speculoos biscuits (similar to Dutch speculaas). Not all speculoos pastes are the same, so make sure to use one whose flavor you really like. Oh, and if you can’t find speculoos paste or gianduia (as mentioned above), then use nutella or another hazelnut-chocolate paste of your liking.

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

for the cupcakes
110 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
120 g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise and seeds scraped out (or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract)
200 g all-purpose flour
1½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
60 ml fresh whole milk

for the frosting
220 g mascarpone
200 g speculoos paste
70 g icing sugar, sieved
½ tsp pure vanilla extract

Speculoos biscuits, crushed, for sprinkling on top

Special equipment: stand or hand-held mixer, fine sieve, 12-cupcake pan, 12-cup cupcake pan, paper liners


Preparation

for the cupcakes
Line your cupcake pan with paper liners.
Preheat you oven to 175°C.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or in a large bowl) add the butter and sugar and beat with the paddle attachment (or with a hand-held mixer) on medium-high speed until you have a creamy and light mixture. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition to incorporate them fully. Beat in the vanilla seeds (or vanilla extract) and then sieve the flour, the baking powder and the salt directly into the bowl. Add the milk and beat on medium speed until the ingredients have just incorporated. Be careful not to overbeat the mixture or the cupcakes will be tough.

Empty the batter into the lined cupcake pan, filling each cup halfway up.
Bake the cupcakes on the middle rack of the preheated oven for 16-17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Check them after 15 minutes because all ovens are different and it is best to be on the safe side and make sure that they don’t over-bake and become dry.

Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack. Once the cupcakes have slightly cooled, remove them carefully from the pan and onto the wire rack.

The cupcakes need to be completely cool before you frost them, otherwise the frosting will melt.

You can cut the pointy tops of the cupcakes off if you want a flat cupcake but I rarely do that.

for the frosting
In the bowl of your stand mixer (or in a large bowl) add all the ingredients for the frosting and beat with the whisk attachment (or with a hand-held mixer) on medium-high until you have a creamy, smooth and fluffy mixture. Give it a taste and if you can feel the sugar on your tongue or teeth, it means that the sugar hasn’t dissolved so beat a little more until it does.

Frost the cupcakes using a piping bag and nozzle of your choice (I used a star tip), or using an offset spatula.
The frosting will soften after a while but it should not be runny. You may put the frosting in the fridge to firm up a bit before you use it if you wish. If you leave it in the fridge for too long it will stiffen up, so before using it, leave it out of the fridge for 10 minutes and then beat it again.

In order to crush the speculoos biscuits, put them in a plastic freezer bag, seal it and beat the cookies with a rolling pin.

Sprinkle on top of the cupcakes and enjoy!

You can keep the cupcakes for a couple of days at room temperature, lightly covered, or if you make them during the summer, keep them in a paper box in the fridge for a couple of days.

P.S. If you’re using gianduia/nutella etc., make the frosting in the exact same manner. Sprinkle the cupcakes with dark chocolate shavings (very bitter preferably) instead of crushed speculoos biscuits.

Fresh chamomile cupcakes

There are many desserts I haven’t made before in my life. Doughnuts, tarte tatin, black forest cake, are just a few of them. What I have made many times is cupcakes.

I’ve told you about this before, I don’t get wildly excited about cupcakes, why go small when you can go big, right? Having said that, there is the time and place for a cupcake or two in my life and, when I was in Greece a couple of weeks ago, an opportunity to make and eat them presented itself.

Sometimes individual portions have a certain allure, especially when they come in the form of a fresh chamomile mini cake with a “anthomelo” (Greek flower honey) glaze.

I found fresh chamomile at the farmer’s market in Greece and I was extremely excited about it. Really, I began jumping up and down when I spotted it. People were staring, but I didn’t care one bit. I just love the stuff.

I began thinking about all the things I could make with it and I concluded that I wanted, nay needed, to use it in dessert.

I considered a simple pound cake flavored with the sweet-smelling flowers, then I thought about ice cream but my mom doesn’t have an ice cream machine and then, out of all the people, my grandmother came up with a perfect idea as she asked me to make cupcakes for her. I remembered Joy’s chamomile cupcakes, found in her book, and that was it. Cupcakes it was.

And they were divine, both in appearance and in flavor. It was the first time I had ever used fresh chamomile in a dessert and even though I was scared that it was going to taste grassy or too intense, it was the complete opposite. The chamomile flavor was subtle and paired harmoniously with the floral accents of the Greek flower honey I used.

The small cakes were fluffy and soft, the glaze was silky smooth and sticky in all the right ways, and they were devoured within a few hours which is the best kind of praise a baker can get.

P.S. The use of edible flowers reminded me of this dish with dried lavender that I make all the time and that’s one of my favorite chicken dishes. I actually made it again today.

Fresh Chamomile Cupcakes with Flower Honey Glaze
Adapted from Joy the Baker Cookbook

The original recipe calls for dried chamomile which you can also use, but I find that the fresh chamomile is so much better tasting. I also omitted the baking soda as I don’t particularly enjoy the flavor it imparts to desserts.
I found that the amount of icing sugar in the glaze was a bit too much for my liking, so next time I will add a little less sugar or add less glaze on top of each cupcake.

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

for the cupcakes
120 ml fresh whole milk
1 large egg
½ tsp vanilla bean paste (or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract)
60 g unsalted butter, softened, cut into small pieces
150 g granulated sugar
125 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh chamomile (flower heads only, not stems)

for the glaze
165 g icing sugar
1 Tbsp flower honey (must be clear and runny)
75 ml (5 Tbsp) heavy cream, full fat (35%)
Pinch of salt

Fresh chamomile flower heads, to decorate

Special ingredients: stand or hand-held mixer, a 12-cup cupcake pan, paper liners


Preparation

for the cupcakes
Line your cupcake pan with paper liners.
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius / 325 Fahrenheit.

In a small bowl, add the milk, the egg and the vanilla and using a hand whisk, mix the ingredients together.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or in a large bowl), add the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and chopped chamomile flowers and beat, using the paddle attachment (or with your hand-held mixer), on medium speed until you have a mixture that resembles sand. It will take 4-5 minutes.

Pour half of the milk mixture into the flour mixture and beat until just incorporated. Pour in the rest of the milk mixture and beat on medium-high speed until well blended, for about 1 minute. You will have a creamy and slightly runny batter.

Empty the batter into the lined cupcake pan, filling each cup by 3/4.

Place the cupcake pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 17-19 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack. Once the cupcakes have slightly cooled, remove them carefully from the pan and onto the wire rack to cool. They need to be completely cool before you frost them, otherwise the glaze will melt.
Cut the pointy tops of the cupcakes off if necessary.

for the glaze
In a medium-sized bowl, add the icing sugar, honey, cream and salt and using a hand wire whisk, whisk until you have a smooth glaze.

Glaze the cupcakes and decorate with a couple of fresh chamomile flower heads.

You can keep the cupcakes for a couple of days, covered, at room temperature. If you don’t plan on eating them straight away, don’t decorate them with the fresh chamomile.

Chocolate cupcakes

As with brownies, I discovered the beauty of cupcakes when I moved to the Netherlands five years ago. In Greece, they had not become quite popular yet so when I spotted a couple of cupcake shops in The Hague, I became excited and immediately smitten by their flavor, looks and extreme cuteness.

I'm not one to fawn over cutesy food and desserts, but cupcakes are just impossible to resist. Who was I to snub them? I was immediately hooked. They swiftly became my sweet treat of choice and I couldn't get enough of them. But I wanted more, I wanted to learn how to make cupcakes myself. I bought a couple of books and a cupcake pan, I visited some websites and I gave them a try.

Granted, those first two-three batches of cupcakes left a lot to be desired. My piping skills were not good enough to create those beautiful swirls everyone else seemed to have mastered and I could not for the life of me artfully place dollops of icing onto the small cakes. Nevertheless, I pressed on.

After a while, my cupcakes were presentable and before long, they were beautiful. Then, all of a sudden, I outgrew them. I was over them. It was right about the time I started writing this blog, three years ago. Sure, I still enjoyed making them however not so much for myself but mostly as gifts to friends and colleagues. People go crazy over cupcakes.

From time to time, I too get a craving for them and I have a couple of recipes that have stuck with me and that I've been faithful to for some years now. Why? Because they work every single time, because they're a huge success with anyone who has ever tried them and because they are so damn delicious.

I've been wanting to tell you about this recipe for years. It was going to be one of my first posts in this blog but alas, I totally neglected it. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-crème fraîche frosting. Heaven. That's all I want to say. That's all these are. Delicious in every sense of the word. The cake is moist with an intense cocoa flavor, fluffy, light and airy. And the frosting, well the frosting is the reason I'm posting these at all.

One of the things I dislike about cupcakes is the buttercream. When it's greasy and heavy and so incredibly sweet you feel your teeth are going to fall off or when you take one bite and you can feel your glucose levels rise. Yes, cupcakes are supposed to be sweet, but buttercream, even though I have found a couple of recipes for it that I like, is for the most part something I prefer not to frost my cupcakes with.

Instead, I love crème fraîche frostings. They're lighter, no less calories mind you but certainly more refined in taste and texture. The crème fraîche cuts through the richness of the butter and the sweetness of the sugar, balancing the flavors with its slightly tangy accent and the dark chocolate gives the cupcakes a more 'adult' feel and not that sickly sweet result. The frosting is incredibly smooth, glossy, sumptuous and intensely chocolaty.

If you ever try making a cupcake, this should be it.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate-Crème Fraîche Frosting
Adapted from Shuna Fish Lydon

I know you'll be tempted to make the frosting in a stand mixer or with a hand-held mixer but don't. The frosting comes together better and more quickly in the food processor which gives it that amazing texture, gloss and shine that makes this frosting unique.

If you don't like the bitterness of 70% chocolate, choose one with 55-60% cocoa solids.

Update: In case you can't find glucose syrup, you can substitute with light corn syrup (or golden syrup, but I wouldn't recommend it as it is thinner and sweeter). In Greece, you can find glucose syrup in large supermarkets. Crème fraîche can be substituted with sour cream or Greek strained full-fat yoghurt. The result will be a little different though since crème fraîche is thicker, creamier and has a fuller flavor. I wouldn't advise you to substitute it unless you can't by any means find crème fraîche.

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

for the cupcakes
25 g Dutch-processed cocoa powder, sieved
120 ml boiling water
60 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100 g caster sugar
1 large egg
1½ tsp vanilla extract
100 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

for the frosting
85 g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
120 g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), cut into small pieces
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp glucose syrup
140 g icing sugar, sieved
140 g crème fraîche, at room temperature
2 tsp hot water
¼ tsp salt

White chocolate, shaved, or sugar flowers, for garnishing

Special equipment: fine sieve, hand whisk, stand or hand-held mixer, a 12-cup cupcake pan, paper liners, food processor, piping bag and nozzle of your preference (optional)


Preparation

for the cupcakes
In a small bowl, add the sieved cocoa powder and the boiling water. Whisk until well blended and smooth. Allow the mixture to cool.

Prepare your cupcake pan by lining it with the paper liners.
Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius / 375 Fahrenheit.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or in a large bowl), add the butter and sugar and beat, using the paddle attachment (or with your hand-held mixer), on medium-high speed until you have a creamy and light mixture. Add the egg and beat on medium-high speed until incorporated. Beat in the vanilla and then sieve the flour, the baking powder and the salt directly into the bowl. Beat on medium speed until just incorporated. Be careful not to overbeat the mixture at this stage. Add the cocoa-water mixture and beat on low speed until smooth. It will only take a few seconds.

Empty the batter into the lined cupcake pan, filling each cup halfway through.
Bake the cupcakes on the middle rack of the preheated oven for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Check them after 15 minutes because all ovens are different and it's best to be on the safe and make sure that they don't over-bake.

Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack. Once the cupcakes have slightly cooled, remove them carefully from the pan and onto the wire rack.

The cupcakes need to be completely cool before you frost them, otherwise the frosting will melt.

You can cut the pointy tops of the cupcakes off if you want a flat cupcake but I rarely do that.

for the frosting
Melt butter and chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring often and making sure the chocolate doesn't burn. The bottom of the bowl must not come in contact with the simmering water. Once the mixture is smooth and melted, remove bowl from the top of the pan, whisk to blend and add the vanilla extract and the glucose syrup. Whisk to incorporate and then add the sieved icing sugar a little at a time, whisking to incorporate it. The mixture will look weird, thick and grainy but it's okay.

Empty the mixture into a food processor with the blade attachment and with the processor running, gradually add through the top of the lid the crème fraîche and the hot water. Process until the frosting is shiny and smooth. Add the salt and process for a couple of seconds.

You can frost the cupcakes now but it is best to do it after you have put the frosting in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to firm up. You can also keep it in the refrigerator for a day before piping it onto the cupcakes.

Empty the frosting in a bowl and place a piece of plastic wrap on top of the frosting (not the bowl), pressing gently to cover it tightly. This will prevent any moisture coming into it.
When you're ready to use it, take it out of the fridge and beat it in the food processor, or in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, to soften it a bit*. Do not overbeat it or it will split. Pipe it onto the cupcakes using a piping bag and the type of nozzle you prefer, or frost the cupcakes using a spatula.
The frosting will soften after a while but it should not be runny.
Decorate the cupcakes with shaved white chocolate or sugar flowers.

You can keep the cupcakes for a couple of days at room temperature, lightly covered, or if you make them during the summer, keep them in a paper box in the fridge for a couple of days.

*If you keep the frosting in the fridge for many hours, it will become hard, so before beating it in the food processor, allow it to come to room temperature.

Kind of blue *

Saturday mornings. Filled with deep kisses and sun rays coming through the bedroom window.

Waking up to the smell of fresh coffee brewing, and crisp, clean air breezing through the open balcony doors.

Calm mornings, filled with shades of blue in the sky and shades of blue on my plate.

Summer is finally upon us and it's bearing gifts in the form of small, round, dark berries. Blueberries rolling on my kitchen counter, every which way. I miss a few and they end up on the floor. I pick them up, swiftly, and give them a rinse. They're okay.

Saturday mornings. Filled with the smell of muffins baking in the oven. Spelt, blueberries, sugar, butter, yoghurt. He can't wait to taste them but he need not wait long. They're almost there.

I have to stop him from eating one; they're too hot. He waits, he's patient. Until he's not anymore. He greedily eats one, I take one too. I can't believe it. Each mouthful is better than the last. They're so incredibly light, so intensely aromatic. Sweet but not overly so with nutty, earthy accents from the spelt—oh how I love spelt. Their crunchy top, thanks to a light sprinkling of demerara sugar, makes me smile and the juicy, sweet blueberries are there, you can taste each and every one.

He looks at me and I can see it in his eyes. He wants another one. I'm afraid they will last no more than a day. That's a good thing.

*Listen to this and dream away... I know I will.








Blueberry and Spelt Muffins
Adapted, ever-so-slightly, from Tender: Volume II

Whenever I see recipes for cakes or muffins that have baking soda, I hesitate to make them. I hate the flavor that it imparts on my sweet creations yet in these little cakes, you can hardly tell there's any in it. Same as in this strawberry cake.

Spelt (Triticum spelta) is really good for you, don't hesitate to use it. Plus, it tastes divine!
In Greece, you can find it sold as dinkel flour in health food stores.

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients
60 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125 g caster sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten with a fork
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
110 g Greek strained yoghurt 2% fat (I always use Fage Total because I grew up eating it)
125 g whole wheat spelt flour
125 g all-purpose flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp coarse sea salt
220 g fresh (or frozen) blueberries
Demerara (or turbinado) sugar for sprinkling on top

Special equipment: 12-cup muffin/cupcake pan, 12 paper liners, stand mixer or hand-held mixer, sieve


Preparation
Place the paper liners in the muffin pan.

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius / 375 Fahrenheit.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl and with a hand-held mixer), beat the butter with the sugar on high speed, until pale in color and creamy.

Add the lightly beaten eggs a little at a time in the butter and sugar mixture and beat well on high speed, until the eggs are fully incorporated and the mixture is fluffy.
Add the vanilla extract and mix, then add the yoghurt and mix on low speed, until incorporated. It won't take more than a few seconds.

Sieve the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder and soda, salt) directly into the butter-sugar-yoghurt mixture, and mix well on medium speed for about 40 seconds, until you have a smooth batter.

Add the blueberries and fold them into the batter using a spatula or spoon, being careful not to break them up.

Note: If you're using frozen blueberries, there's no need to defrost them. Simply add them to the muffin batter.

Using a spoon, or an ice cream scoop which is easier, empty the batter in the muffin pan.
Sprinkle the tops with a little demerara sugar and place the muffin pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven.

Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffin, comes out clean.

Allow the muffins to cool a bit in the pan and then transfer them onto a wire rack to cool completely.

You can keep them at room temperature, covered, for 2-3 days.