Friday, April 17, 2009

Cupcake Experimentation: Horchata

Sometimes working with a box cake mix can lead to great things. Examples: cake cookies (yes I've seen it), cupcake bites, and even Horchata cupcakes! I recently bought horchata mix from the mexican market near my house but I've also bought it from Whole Foods, which is probably easier to find for most people. It just a powdered mix that you can add to water or milk to make a quick cup of Horchata. Anyway, it inspired me to make these cupcakes but I didn't want to whip up a whole batch of homemade cupcakes on an experiment, so I used a cake mix as a base and added things to it. I'm not going to provide the recipe because they still aren't perfected to a tee yet, but I will provide descriptions as to what I did to give them their flavor.

Horchata Cupakes: For these cupcakes, I used started off with a white cake batter and mixed in the horchata mix powder, extra cinnamon and some ground almonds (to add texture and because almonds are traditionally served in horchata). I topped the cake with cinnamon whipped cream, clear sprinkles, and extra cinnamon. 

The verdict?
Horchata: B -
The cake turned out a little dry for my taste. It wasn't parched per say, but I just love, love, love super moist cakes. I think this was due to the almond meal. I did love the texture that the almond meal added but next time I should add less flour if I plan on adding meal. The cinnamon flavor was definitely present but horchata flavor itself was not. Maybe I should try actually using real horchata like chockylit did here.

4 comments:

  1. They look great. I'm sure if you find a way to flavor the cake without a packet mix, you'll get what you were looking for. Good idea though to start off like this.

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  2. In Mexican grocery stores they often have ready-made horchata. I think Kerns even makes a variety of it now. You could try adding actual horchata to the wet mixture before incorporating the dry. Maybe that would fix the dryness you disliked while also giving it a horchata flavor.

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  3. Mmmmmm, these sounds wonderful. I'm with you I prefer everything a little underbaked (moist) than dry. :)

    Just a thought but some crushed almonds on top would be tasty too, but that's just my opinion! :)
    ~ingrid

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