Thursday, August 2, 2012

Peach Cobbler Cupcakes


I seriously cannot believe it is already August; where has the time gone? It's amazing how at one point, summer felt so far away and in an instant, it's gone in a blink of an eye. I'm still looking forward to my vacation at the end of the month though - it seems like it has taken forever to come. 

I'll be going to Cancun, which I wasn't all too excited about at first because it's a little cliche and overrun with tourists, but I decided I was gonna make the best of it. I started researching all the awesome places to go, like here and here and here, and now I find myself incredibly excited. Underground caves? Yes, I'd like that, I'd like that very much. A fine example of why you shouldn't judge things too quickly.


Anyways, I'm pretty sure I made these last summer, goes to show how much of a procrastinator I am. But since it's summer now, these cupcakes are perfectly fitting for the season. We actually have gorgeous peach trees at home, both yellow and white, so I love baking with them. These cupcakes will inhabit your dreams, they do mine, while I reminisce about eating them last summer...

Full of fresh peach chunks and a tender cake, then topped with a crispy-crunchy top. On top of that, a fluffy frosting made of pudding mix! I wanted to try something new and I'm glad I did. It's perfectly rides the line between being too sweet and not sweet enough and it's velvety on the tongue. Definitely a home-y, comforting little cake.




Peach Cobbler Cupcakes
Yields: 16 cupcakes
Cupcakes adapted from here. Frosting adapted from here.

For the cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cup peaches, skins removed, roughly chopped (about 2 medium)

For the crumble:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

For the peach-pudding buttercream:
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 stick salted butter, room temperature
1 pkg. white chocolate instant pudding mix
1/2 - 3/4 cup heavy cream (depending on how thick you want your frosting)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of cardamom
1/2 cup powdered sugar (or more depending on your taste)

To make the crumble, mix everything in a bowl with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs; set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a cupcake pan with liners and set aside. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and spices in a bowl. Beat the butter and sugars in a stand mixer for 1 minute until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture until just combined. Fold in the peaches. Fill the cupcake liners 1/2 full. Sprinkle each cupcake with about 1 tbsn. of the crumble mixture. Bake for 25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. 

To make the frosting, in a stand mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth and silky. Turn the speed to low and add the pudding mix, when incorporated, slowly add in the cream, a little at a time. When fully incorporated, bring the speed up to high and beat for 5 - 7 minutes this ensures you beat the grit of the pudding mix out). Turn the speed back down to low and add the powdered sugar, tasting along the way. When it is sweet enough to your taste, beat again at high speed for 5 minutes. Add the vanilla and spices then bring the speed back to low and beat for 3 minutes longer.

18 comments:

  1. Ooooh, I love all the spices you've used in these...what amazing good fortune to have two peach trees in your yard!

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  2. I love baking your cupcakes. I've made a couple of them and they're huge hits!

    x's & o's

    laughsandicecream.blogspot.com

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  3. Oh, these look so good! I love peach cobbler...amazing in cupcake form! :)

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  4. These looks so so delicious! I've been loving peaches on everything!!

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  5. You're right - I can't believe how fast summer is going and it seriously doesn't seem like it should be August already. And I'm so jealous you're going to Cancun! These cobbler cupcakes look incredible and I'm featuring this post in today's Food Fetish Friday (with a link-back and attribution). I hope you have no objections and I love the inspiration I get from your food…

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    1. Thanks for featuring me!! Saw your tweet - hope your readers enjoy it!

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  6. What a wonderful idea!! Love peach cobbler...

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  7. So lucky to have peaches available so easily...This is really an awesome recipe to try. I love making crumbles, and of course, there is no better way than to use your fingers when mixing. ;)
    Anyhoo, we have just recently launched a food photo submission site, http://www.yumgoggle.com/gallery/ that allows you to showcase all your great work and share it with all of our visitors. Your phenomenal photos have caught our attention. We’d be proud to have your work as part of our growing collection to continue to have a larger reach and further inspire all fellow food lovers out there! (sorry for the blatant shameless plug)!

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  8. I'm so jealous of your peach trees. Can't get enough of them!

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  9. Hi, I made these last night. Cupcakes are delicious! However, I'm really confused about the frosting. I made it like you said and it tasted like I was eating slightly sweet butter! I added another 2 c of powdered sugar and it helped, but the taste of butter (and salt) was there. I was surprised it used 3 sticks of butter and so little sugar. I didn't frost the cupcakes yet bc I was debating on how buttery this frosting tastes. I think I'm going to go for a regular buttercream, this time. Any tips or is it supposed to taste that buttery? Thanks!

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    1. Also, the Blog that originally posted this said the frosting doesn't get hard in the fridge. I put mine in the fridge while I have been debating about trying to fix it/how to fix it....and the frosting is now rock hard -- like a stick of butter! ;) I'd love to hear from others who've made this.

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    2. Hi Carrie, the reason why there's so little sugar is because there's a lot of sugar in the pudding mix. When I made the frosting it was super velvety - but definitely not overly buttery tasting. The only thing I can think of that would change how buttery it tastes is how much heavy cream you put in - maybe when I made it, I put in more to make it more loose. That's the only reason I can think of - sorry! Hopefully the cupcakes worked out!

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    3. Thanks for getting back to me! I do wonder what size of pudding mix you used because it doesn't specify in the recipe. Also, I looked in 4 different stores and every single one only carries a sugar free version of the white chocolate pudding mix. Of course, it has some sort of sweetener in it and I didn't think it would make this big of a difference, but maybe that affected it? I consider myself a pretty experienced baker but always try to follow a recipe as close as possible before altering it. After I tasted the frosting, I called up my best baker friend and we discussed for awhile. She said that her typical buttercream recipe is about 3c powdered sugar for every stick of butter. Looking back on some previous buttercream recipes I've used, I typically did about 2.5 c powdered sugar to one stick of butter. In the end, by the time I had added 2.5c powdered sugar to this recipe, my roommate who doesn't like sweet frosting said she was almost ok with it (I still tasted almost nothing but butter). I added another 2c of sugar, about 2 tbsp cream (I had used 1/2c), and 1/4 tsp more of cinnamon. It's still definitely not as sweet as my frostings usually are, but it works. (Of course, using my friend's calculations, I would have added 9c of sugar! I don't think I even had that much! Haha)

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    4. Omg! I'm sorry this frosting caused such a ruckus in your kitchen :/

      I definitely did not use sugar free pudding mix and that's really weird that your market only has sugar free, but maybe that did make the difference. We have two sizes of pudding mix in our markets, I can't recall the exact oz. currently because I don't have any on hand, but I remember using the larger one - so that also might have made a large difference, and I'll make sure to note that in the recipe. Generally though, I'm not a fan of traditional buttercreams because they are much too sweet for me, as I like my desserts to be not too sweet. But definitely, this frosting is not what I'd call a "sweet" frosting, it's just lightly sweet. I'm glad you at least liked the cake though ;p

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  10. I'm featuring your cupcakes as this week's Food Porn Friday on my blog's side bar (even though it's Monday).

    http://www.whitelightsonwednesday.com/

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  11. Those are so unique! I kind of ignored cupcakes through the whole cupcake trend in the past years, and am just now getting excited about them. Figures ;)

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  12. This looks delicious, I think I'll make it this weekend. Thanks for sharing!

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  13. These were delicious, thank you! We skipped the buttercream (although I'm sure it would've been phenomenal) because we aren't fond of frosting, but the cupcakes + crumble had the perfect amount of sweetness anyways. We had to edit the spices a bit for lack of cardamom; we used 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp ginger and nutmeg each, and the cupcakes were perfectly lovely :)

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