This week's cupcake came up in a tie with "Granny shoots...SKORS!" from week 3. The Great Canadian is all about my personal pride, being Canadian! And my cupcakery talents of course. A maple walnut cake frosted with a walnut buttercream (walnut butter from scratch) and maple buttercream (maple syrup from Central Ontario) swirl topped with hand crafted white chocolate maple leaves and red sugar crystals dyed by yours truly.
Taste: ****1/2 | Presentation: ****1/2
Cupcake
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 cup milk
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup chopped, toasted walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease pan(s).
In a large bowl, stir the butter and sugar together until fluffy (~5 mins). Beat in the eggs, one at a time. In a small dish combine the vanilla, maple syrup and milk, set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together the dry ingredients, adding the oats after sifting. Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture in 3rds, alternating with the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Fold in the walnuts. Scoop the batter into prepared pans and bake. This recipe yielded 12 regular size cupcakes and 9 minis, baked for 16 and 10 minutes respectively.
Maple Walnut Butter (for frosting)
from http://walnuts.org/walnuts/index.cfm/all-
recipes/california-walnut-butter/
2 cups chopped, toasted walnuts
1/4 tsp salt
3 tsp maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp oil (I used grapeseed)
Place the nuts into the food processor, running it until they are broken down and start to get sticky. Add the salt, maple and cinnamon. Pulse and season to taste. Run the processor continuously, slowly drizzling in the oil and voila! I know it looks slightly unappetizing in this photo but I promise you it is quite tasty. Yields about 1 cup.
Maple Walnut Buttercream Frosting
1/4 cup walnut butter
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 cup icing/confectioner sugar
1 tsp milk
Combine the walnut butter, butter and maple syrup until light and fluffy (approximately 2 minutes). Add the sugar and milk and beat until well mixed.
I attempted to create a 'swirl effect' when decorating the cupcakes by combining this frosting with the regular buttercream frosting I use, but the colours were too similar to distinguish. So it was a failed attempt. Also, I barely managed to frost the 12 regular sized cupcakes at about 1cm thickness of frosting.
The maple leaves you see set to the left here were created using red chocolate melted down and pipped into form on parchment paper. I placed them in the refrigerator for some time to allow the shapes to set.
The red sugar sprinkles were simply made by adding a few drops of red food colouring to 1/4 cup regular white sugar.
The PanelTied for first place, this cupcake received much positive feedback, some even claimed it as their new favourite! The balance of flavours this week was pretty spot on according to the judges, though most seemed to comment that the maple was slightly underwhelming. Presentation was professional/adorable. The walnuts were widely appreciated, adding a good texture to the cakes. One of the suggestions that really peaked my interest was made by Peanut to add bacon which I think is a rather brilliant idea, it would have prworked well with the star flavours of this recipe.
Diana: "Overall awesome!"
Fathom's Chef: "Walnut buttercream was superb!"
Cocoa: "This was my favourite tasting cupcake, even though I may have said that in the past :)"
My comments
Funny part about this week's cupcake was that when I was doing my own rating I decided it wasn't one of the better ones I had done, but apparently the cupcakeivores strongly disagreed! The only comment I really have is that the recipe DEFINITELY needs more maple!! This was my first time making any form of nut butter and it will absolutely not be the last as it was so simple and so very tasty. I may have dropped the bake time slightly on the regular sized cakes (I feel like this is a recurring statement) and the cakes could have definitely used more frosting.
Diana: "Overall awesome!"
Fathom's Chef: "Walnut buttercream was superb!"
Cocoa: "This was my favourite tasting cupcake, even though I may have said that in the past :)"
My comments
Funny part about this week's cupcake was that when I was doing my own rating I decided it wasn't one of the better ones I had done, but apparently the cupcakeivores strongly disagreed! The only comment I really have is that the recipe DEFINITELY needs more maple!! This was my first time making any form of nut butter and it will absolutely not be the last as it was so simple and so very tasty. I may have dropped the bake time slightly on the regular sized cakes (I feel like this is a recurring statement) and the cakes could have definitely used more frosting.