French Toast Cupcakes w/ Maple Syrup Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe comes from one of my favorite food blogs, The Cupcakery.  I have been making a lot of chocolate desserts lately (I’m huge on chocolate, the thicker, richer, and darker, the better) and I decided to try something new that contained absolutely no chocolate.  So, I found this cupcake recipe and it sounded absolutely divine. Plus, as I adore anything cream cheese, this frosting had me sold.

I followed the original recipe pretty closely, but I did make a couple tweaks, so I’ve listed the modified recipe below.

Ingredients:

(cupcakes)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 tsp. maple extract
• 1/2 tsp. praline extract
• 1/2 cup milk

(frosting)

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 tsp maple syrup (make sure it’s also at room temperature)
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 dash of cinnamon (for dusting/decorating)

Directions:

(cupcakes)

1. žPreheat your oven to 350° F. Line your muffin tin(s) with baking liners (recipe yields 12 smaller cupcakes, or I suppose 6 large ones)
2. Whisk together your flour, baking powder, cinnamon, clove, and salt in a cooking bowl
3. žBeat butter, sugar, and eggs until creamy in a medium/large mixing bowl. Add in maple and praline extract
4. žWhisk flour mixture and milk into this, in roughly three additions of flour and two of milk. Then beat until smooth
5. žUse an ice-cream scoop to divide the batter into the cupcake tins and bake 20-25 minutes (mine took about 23 minutes).  They’re done when they’re  a golden brown, tops are springy when lightly touched, and a toothpick comes out clean
6. Let the cupcakes cool for a bit until they separate away from the tin, then take them out (I used a fork and my fingers to gently nudge them out, but you could also just carefully invert the pan)
7. Let them cool completely on a rack before frosting

(frosting)

1. žCream together your butter, cream cheese, and salt (keep in mind cream cheese is already a little salty).  Add in your maple syrup
2. Reduce speed and carefully pour in sugar 1/2 cup at a time until the frosting has the sweetness and the consistency you want (I prefer my cream cheese frosting more tart and thicker, so I used much less sugar than the original recipe).  Beat on medium-high until smooth
3. Refrigerate the frosting for 5 minutes or so to reduce melting while you pipe it onto your cupcakes
4. After frosting your cupcakes, decorate with some dusted cinnamon on top

Review:

This is a wonderfully crafted recipe (no surprise coming from The Cupcakery).  It yielded a perfect 12 cupcakes with just enough leftover batter for a delicious fingerful.  The cupcakes rose without any fuss and did not overflow their cups at all. They smelled absolutely heavenly (think a spiced combination of Christmas and chai tea) and they tasted exactly the same.  The frosting called for much more sugar than I used, and I don’t feel it needed anywhere near four cups of confectioner’s sugar; it was sweet enough with less than half of that.  Just by itself, it had a mild maple syrup flavor, which, while pleasant, wasn’t as powerful as I was expecting.  On the cupcakes, however, the flavor was drawn out as it played off the delicious spice of the base.