Monday, July 18, 2011

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

Because Key West is calling my name but I’m dirt poor, I opted to bring a little bit of the Keys to me. There’s nothing like a cool, refreshing key lime pie on a hot summer day. And because I’m the local cupcake dealer and my coworkers are cupcake junkies, I modified this classic treat into a portable delight. Like most of my cupcakes, there are 3 parts to this recipe – the cupcake, the filling, and the frosting. These were absolutely delicious. Just a few tips – they were better on the first day, so make these right before you plan to eat them. They were fine as leftovers, but the filling sort of soaked into the cake and just…eh…eat em while they’re fresh. Also, if you have to refrigerate them and then serve, make sure they come back to room temperature. They are definitely not as good while cold. The flavors are so much more pronounced when you let them warm up a bit. Who needs Margaritaville when there’s cake?

Graham Cupcakes
Makes about 3 dozen

1 cup softened butter
2 cups sugar
6 eggs, room temperature
2 cups milk (I used 2%)
2 cups flour
3 cups graham cracker crumbs (do yourself a favor and just buy the box of crumbs – it would take forever to smoosh graham crackers into a powder. However, if you’re feeling angry and need an outlet, this might be a perfect project for you.)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Break out the Kitchenaid (you’ll need it – there’s a lot of wet batter and it’s kinda messy) and mix the butter until it’s creamed. Add the sugar a little at a time and mix for another couple of minutes until it’s nice and fluffy. Slowly add one egg at a time, mixing thoroughly between each one. Incorporate some of the dry mix into the butter/sugar/eggs, then add some of the milk. Switching back and forth, add the flour mix and the milk, a little at a time, ending with the dry. Continue to mix until it looks like it came together nicely.
Scoop into cupcake liners and bake for about 16-18 minutes.

Easy Peasy Citrus Curd

While that’s baking, you can make your “Why the Heck Have I Painstakingly Been Using A Double Boiler and Timing It Precisely For Years” Key Lime Curd (remember this when you want to make lemon curd, you hear that, self?! Don’t be a dummy - do it the easy way!)
This makes about 2 cups and you’re going to need…

1 cup sugar
3 eggs (the whole egg, not just the yolks as most other recipes have)
1 cup citrus juice (I used key lime, but you can use lemon, lime, orange, meyer lemon…mmm)
1/2 cup melted butter

In a large microwave-safe bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until smooth and thoroughly combined. Whisk in citrus juice, and then a little bit of the melted butter. You don’t want the eggs to scramble, so incorporate the melted butter slowly.

Cook in the microwave in one minute intervals, stirring after each minute. The timing will depend on the strength of your microwave, but mine took 4 minutes. You will know the curd is done cooking when it coats the back of a metal spoon. I tasted this while it was still hot, and I wasn’t very impressed. There was just something off. Wait until it’s cooled off and you’ve refrigerated it for at least an hour before you taste test. It thickens up and has a nice tang to it. Yummy!

 

My Go-To Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

Beat one package of cream cheese (8 oz) with 5 Tablespoons of softened butter and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract until combined. Very slowly (seriously, this is going to puff out of the mixer like it’s snowing) add 3 cups of powdered sugar. Mix until it’s nice and creamy and delicious looking. Since I was putting this on a key lime pie cupcake, I added about 2-3 Tablespoons of key lime juice to the frosting. It was very subtle but tasty.

1 comment:

  1. [...] off, use the graham cupcake recipe from my key lime pie cupcakes. Fill these little guys with marshmallow fluff (from a jar, [...]

    ReplyDelete