Like a tasty flower.

Luckily, there’s a new cupcake competition starting this month, and it’s called Mystery Box. I happened to come across a tweet announcing it while I was coincidentally thinking about searching for cupcake inspiration. The timing couldn’t be better, and the first month’s theme? Totally my thing.

Floating in the clouds?

The theme for July 2010 is tea, something I enjoy immensely. I’m drinking tea right now, as a matter of fact. The hardest part was deciding on a tea to use – since you can only enter once per month, I knew I’d have to come up with something really good. I think I did just that.

Everything is better with toasted coconut!

I chose to flavor the cupcakes themselves with Thai tea, which is a fun choice because not only does Thai tea have an addictive, mysterious flavor (ingredients vary but there’s always some anise or other licorice-y spice in the mix, though it doesn’t taste like licorice), it also contains red and yellow dyes which make the tea bright orange when steeped. I hoped that both the color and flavor would carry over into the cupcakes once they were baked. As you can see, the color definitely shows. I’ve never seen cupcakes this color before!

Mmmm sweet tangy spicy pineapple jamminess.

I steeped the tea into the milk for my standard white cupcake recipe, using a lot to keep both the color and flavor strong. Happily, it worked perfectly and I was rewarded with bright orange, feathery-light cakes with a distinct Thai tea flavor.

In keeping with the Thai theme, I filled the cupcakes with pineapple jam. Since it was so sweet, I added a little tang by way of a smidge of tamarind paste, and a kick of spice via a pinch of cayenne pepper. I made a white chocolate coconut ganache to frost them with, though I wasn’t quite patient enough with it and it ended up as more of a glaze. It’s very sweet, though, so I think the glaze-y amount is perfect. To emphasize the coconut flavor and add texture, I also sprinkled them with toasted shredded coconut.

I wish you could taste this through the screen.

Thai Tea Cupcakes

First, Make the Frosting:

1. 150 g good quality white chocolate
2. 75 g coconut milk

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Heat the coconut milk until it steams, either in the microwave or in a saucepan. Pour the coconut milk into the white chocolate and gently whisk until fully emulsified. Chill until thick and almost set up, stirring a couple of times to ensure even thickening.

Then, Make the Cakes:

1. 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp milk
2. 1 1/2 Tbsp loose Thai tea (I bought mine at Kalustyan’s and it’s incredible)
3. 1/4 cup unsalted butter
4. 1/2 cup sugar
5. 1 cup cake flour
6. 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
7. 1/4 tsp salt
8. 2 egg whites

Pour the milk into a small saucepan and heat until boiling little bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan. Remove from heat and stir in the tea. Cover and let steep for 5-7 minutes. Strain thoroughly into a measuring cup, measuring out 1/2 cup. Cool thoroughly.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the milk and dry mixture alternately in thirds, mixing slowly and scraping down the bowl between additions. Once everything is blended, add the egg whites and mix on a medium-high speed for no more than 2 minutes, until the batter becomes somewhat fluffy. Spoon into lined muffin tins and bake 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean and before the cupcakes start to brown at all. Allow to cool fully before filling or frosting.

Now Get That Filling Ready:

1. 3 Tbsp pineapple jam (you can make your own or use store bought, just find a good quality jam that only contains fruit, sugar, water, pectin, etc….no HFCS or anything)
2. Pinch of cayenne pepper
3. 1/8 tsp tamarind paste (optional but awesome)

Use a spatula to fold the pepper and tamarind thoroughly into the jam.

Let’s Toast Some Coconut:

1. 1/4 cup unsweetened dessicated coconut (that’s the really tiny stuff)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Spread the coconut out on a small baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes. Stir thoroughly to evenly distribute any browned areas, and continue toasting for another 3 minutes or so, until most of the coconut is a light golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Time to Put Them Together:

If you’re not used to working with extra soft cupcakes you might want to chill or even freeze them first to make the cake less crumbly. Use a small round cutter to punch out the middle of each cupcake, reserving the “lid” to each one and trimming them to 1/4″ thick. Place a blob of filling in each cupcake and replace the lid.

Prepare the frosting in a piping bag. Pipe some onto each cupcake in any style you wish, or let it become more fluid and “flood” the tops (you’ll have some serious cleanup to do on the paper if you go this route but it’s awfully pretty). Top each cupcake with a generous amount of toasted coconut.

Keeps well refrigerated up to a week or well-wrapped and frozen for a month or more. Allow to come to room temperature before devouring. Makes 10 full sized cupcakes.

For all the info on Mystery Box, head on over to Sweetest Kitchen.

The winner of July’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

• Bake It Pretty; $5 electronic gift card
• Beanilla; Tahitian vanilla fleur de sel & 3 organic Indonesian vanilla beans
• Rishi Tea; the new Tsuki tea pot and 2 tins of tea
• Soapylove Glycerin Soap Design; a Soapy Pop
• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

A very yummy cupcake.

This month’s theme is Winter Warm Up, requiring all participants to create a cupcake that embodies the way we like to keep warm.

Smarshmallows!

If you know me at all, you’re probably expecting a tea-flavored cupcake. Unfortunately for your expectations, I didn’t do that. Maybe if they have a “things you need to live” theme some month.

A lovely new spice to play with.

Nope, this year I have been all about eating spicy things to keep myself warm. There are still several cups of tea a day, but I’m also eating far too many steamed veggie dumplings with hot chili oil from the Chinese place a block up the street. And since my mom had sent a gorgeous and mysterious pepper in a box of Christmas goodies, I decided to put it to use.

VERY lovely.

Urfa Biber is a Turkish pepper, with shiny red flakes and a yellowish residue that smells like raisins and has a lingering, zippy heat. The second I tasted it I knew I wanted to put it in a chocolate cake.

Big ol' black cardamom pod.

And what better to go with a warming, spicy chocolate cupcake than an exotic spiced frosting? I’d had an intriguingly delicious truffle at my internship a while back, which, along with copious amounts of high quality chocolate, included a little coffee and a touch of black cardamom. I decided to put those flavors into a marshmallow frosting.

Bruleeing action courtesy of Rocket Powered Stove.

A TOASTED marshmallow frosting, of course! I was going to finally fill my torch and toast them up proper, but I wasn’t sure if I was filling it or just getting butane everywhere so I pulled the trivet off of one of my burners, cranked the flame up to high and toasted those babies over an open flame.

The peak that would not stop burning.

Aside from one cupcake with an especially peak-y dollop of marshmallow that would not stop catching fire while I rotated the cake to get even browning (a spectacle that I found hilarious instead of terrifying, probably due to my time spent in a kitchen classroom where we sometimes catch things on fire ON PURPOSE), this procedure worked swimmingly. I could have just as easily popped them under the broiler but I don’t really like how little control you get with a broiler. However if you’re a little flame-shy, you could just do that.

For when you don't feel like getting out another muffin tin.

This recipe realistically makes about 15-16 cupcakes, but I overfilled some of the papers a touch and just didn’t feel like getting out my other muffin tin and using more papers so I dumped the rest of the batter in a ramekin and baked it off as a giant cupcake. I had plenty of extra marshmallowy goodness to top it off, too.

I love toasty marshmallow.

I’m very happy with these cupcakes – the cakes themselves are made from the same recipe I use for all my chocolate cupcakes (because it’s so darn GOOD), to which I gradually added the pepper until I was happy with it. The heat really does hit you after you eat a bite, and it’s an interesting sensation to take one bite right after the last and have the heat of the first bite roll in as you consume the second bite. Yeah, savor these.

The marshmallow frosting is a basic Swiss meringue with not even a whole pod’s worth of crushed seeds (this is some strong stuff, people). Originally I was going to use just the cardamom but upon discovering just how astringent the seeds are once out of the pod (the pod itself smells like woodsmoke but the seeds smell more like rubbing alcohol – don’t let that turn you off, it really is nice in small amounts) I added just a hint of cocoa powder and instant espresso to the meringue to round it out.

These cupcakes are soft, sweet, toasty, spicy and just the right thing to comfort you on a cold day.

Mmmm, warmmmmm.

Urfa Biber Chocolate Cupcakes

First, Bake the Cakes:

1. 1 cup boiling water
2. 1/2 cup (1.76 oz. or 50 g) cocoa powder
3. 1 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp (6.7 oz. or 190 g) AP flour
4. 1 tsp baking soda
5. 1/4 tsp baking powder
6. 1/4 tsp salt
7. 1/2 cup butter, soft
8. 1 cup + 2 Tbsp (8.54 oz. or 242 g) sugar
9. 2 eggs
10. 1 1/2 tsp Urfa Biber

Preheat the oven to 350F. Pour the water into the cocoa and whisk to dissolve. Let come to room temperature. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl down in between additions. Alternately add the wet and dry mixtures in thirds, scraping the bowl often. Mix in the pepper and pour into lined muffin tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. Allow to cool fully before frosting.

Then, Make the Frosting:

1. 4 egg whites
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
4. 2/3 seeds of black cardamom pod, crushed finely
5. Pinch cocoa powder
6. Pinch instant espresso powder

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water (don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water) and whisk constantly until the mixture is hot to the touch. Immediately move to the mixer and whip to stiff peaks. Mix in the cardamom, cocoa and espresso powder. Dollop onto cooled cupcakes and toast with a torch, under a broiler or over an open flame.

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