Cranberry White Chocolate Cupcakes
Carrie of Carrie’s Sweet Life had a great idea earlier this month. I “know” Carrie from an online community I participate in that’s all about cooking and baking. She wanted to form a group of people who bake together. We named ourselves “What’s Baking?” as a play on the online community we’re a part of.
For the first month, Carrie chose the theme: fall cupcakes. I struggled with this theme quite a bit. I didn’t want to go with pumpkin. I thought it would be too predictable and I wanted to try something more creative. After bringing home some fresh cranberries from the cranberry festival, I knew I wanted to use crans. I started thinking about what flavors go well with cranberries and since I’ve already made a maple walnut cranberry cupcake, I decided to go with white chocolate.
I decided to sub half of the vanilla with some Fiori Di Sicilia that I grabbed at King Arthur Flour. I haven’t had a chance to use it and according to KAF: You know that wonderful marriage of flavors you taste when you combine vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet in the same bowl? That’s what Fiori di Sicilia tastes like. We find that using it in just about anything mild and sweet–anything where competing flavors, like chocolate, don’t interfere–adds a wonderfully mysterious taste. Your friends will be guessing just what you’ve done to your sugar cookies or yellow cake or sweet bread to make them taste SO good! It really does smell like a creamsicle and I thought it would complement the white chocolate and cranberries well (especially since the cranberry mousse has orange zest in it!).
I filled the cupcakes with some homemade cranberry sauce to add another punch of flavor and color. These cupcakes are amazing and would be a great dessert for Thanksgiving or Christmas! I’m going to be mean and post the recipes for the cranberry sauce and the cranberry mousse in the next couple of days. Sorry to do that to you, but they’ll be up soon!
One Year Ago: Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins
Yield: 18
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
4-oz white chocolate, chopped
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup plus 1 tbsp milk
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325F. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a small, microwave-safe bowl, melt the chopped white chocolate by heating it in 30 second intervals in the microwave. Stir well with a fork between each interval and cook only until the chocolate is smooth when stirred.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by melted white chocolate and vanilla. Alternate adding in some of the milk and some of the flour mixture, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Mix until just incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.
Divide batter evenly into muffin cups.
Bake for 20-23 minutes until a tester comes out clean and the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a fingertip. Cool on a wire rack.
To Assemble the Cupcakes:
Once cupcakes are cooled completely, use the cone method to remove part of the cupcake. Fill with cranberry sauce. Pipe cranberry mousse on top of cupcakes.
Store cupcakes in the refrigerator.
Recipe from Baking Bites
Don’t forget about my Power of Pink Challenge – make something PINK by the end of the month to raise Breast Cancer Awareness!
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Raspberry and chipotle! what a combo. I love this idea. I could put chipotle in anything and be happy.
beantownbaker — January 22nd, 2014 @ 9:37 pm
Chipotle is a flavor I’m learning to love as I use it more and more!
Holy yum! This jam reminds me of the sauce in one of my favorite appetizers from a little restaurant in Kansas. It was raspberry chipotle sauce combined with cream cheese and black beans, and it was served warm with tortilla chips. The best!
beantownbaker — January 23rd, 2014 @ 2:15 pm
Is it So Long Saloon by chance?…
If so, check back on Tuesday…
beantownbaker — January 23rd, 2014 @ 2:17 pm
BTW, I just saw in your bio that you went to Purdue – I did too! Aero engineering for me. Crazy about that shooting this week…
Yes, So Long Saloon! We lived in Manhattan for a few years while my husband worked on his PhD. Can’t wait to see what you’ve cooked up on Tuesday!
Goodness, what a coincidence that you are a Purdue alumna too! Yes, so crazy and so sad.
this is definitely one i’ll need to make, great flavor combo 🙂
Oh gosh, this is such a fun flavor combination 🙂 I can’t wait to try this out!
I am super excited to try this recipe out. I love idea of the sweet of the fruit and the heat of the pepper. I will let you know how mine turns out.
*I just moved to Boston which is how I found your website. I’m sorta sad that you moved back to Ohio because I would love to meet you. 😀
beantownbaker — September 12th, 2014 @ 10:40 pm
Hope it turns out well for you! We love this jam. It’s really good on a breakfast sandwich.
Oh, yum! I’m a great fan of using jams, marmalades and chutneys with meat in the crockpot or as a glaze on roasts. This would be perfect on a pork tenderloin.
how do you make it without the jam maker? I have a breadmaking machine that can make jelly, would it work about the same?
Are there any water bath instructions?
Thats look so delicious.. nice sharing
http://www.target4d.com/