Eggnog Latte Cupcakes

I love eggnog. As a kid, I used to drink it every morning for breakfast during the holidays. As an adult, my new vice is the Eggnog Latte at Starbucks. Boy, is it glorious! Two of my favorite things together in one: eggnog and coffee.

I was surfing the net for holiday recipes and knew that I wanted to do something with eggnog in it. I didn't know what I was specifically looking for, but eggnog had to be a part of the equation.

After days of reading through boring eggnog recipes to no avail, I finally found it: the glorious Eggnog Latte Cupcakes. You can probably guess how excited I was! THREE of my favorite things in one: eggnog, coffee, and cupcakes! What could be better?? I had to make these immediately.



It's an eggnog cupcake with coffee-infused mascarpone frosting! Ok, let me revise my prior statement: this recipe contains FOUR of my favorite things: eggnog, coffee, cupcakes, and marscarpone frosting! Mmmmmm....! I could already tell that this was going to be the ultimate cupcake for coffee-obsessed Seattleites like me.

(1) The Eggnog Cupcakes

The two essential ingredients: eggnog and dark rum! You already know that it's gonna be good.

Sift together the dry ingredients. Cake flour is used for this one. I know cake flour can be hard to find in some areas. And even if your local grocery store has it, it's suuuuuper expensive. You'd be surprised to know that you can actually make your own for a fraction of the cost. It's just a mixture of regular flour and corn starch! And it takes all of 30 seconds to whip up. There are a ton of recipes out there if you Google it. Here's the first search result. You're welcome! =)

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add in the vanilla. I always use pure Madagascar vanilla extract. It's a bit pricey, but totally worth the investment.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Then add in the eggnog and rum. Mix until well combined.

Add the flour mixture in three batches, beating until just combined. Do not over mix.



Bake at 350 degrees. The recipe said to bake for 22 minutes, but mine only took about 15. I think maybe it's because I have dark muffin tins. Just keep your eye on it.


They baked up SO beautifully! They were really large cupcakes and had that muffin top dome! The entire kitchen smelled so yummy - like eggnog!

(2) The Coffee Marscarpone Frosting

I love Marscarpone Frosting. It's so light and fluffy. It's basically Marscarpone cheese mixed with fresh whipped cream and powdered sugar. A great combination!

Mix the powdered sugar and marscarpone until smooth. Set aside.

Beat one cup of heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form.

Then add the marscarpone mixture and coffee grounds. I used my favorite type of coffee: Verona. It's a sweeter dessert coffee. Perfect for cupcakes!

Mix until well combined. You can see the little specks of coffee!


(3) Frost, Decorate, and Devour!

Wow, these cupcakes were SO incredible! The frosting alone was totally out of this world! I could've sat there and just spooned frosting into my mouth directly from the bowl. Any coffee lover would go crazy for these!

Surprisingly, Hubby, who hates the taste of coffee really enjoyed these too. The coffee taste wasn't super over powering, it provided just enough of a subtle flavor to really bring out the eggnog flavor of the cupcake.

I thought maybe the coffee grounds would make the frosting a bit gritty, but it wasn't! The frosting was so light, smooth, and creamy- it just melts in your mouth. Delicious!

Coffee lover or not, everyone should give these fabulous cupcakes a try!

Please click HERE for recipes in this entry:

Eggnog Cupcakes
Coffee Marscarpone Frosting

H's Cupcakes

A while back, I did a post on Grace's Cupcakes. Grace is the G in GH Kim Photography, our incredible wedding photographers. They did such an amazing job on our wedding photos that I offered to make her whatever she wanted for her birthday. She chose the Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes, which turned out fabulously!

Well, this month it's Hun's turn! He's the H. =)


He chose the Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting, one that I recently posted. Apparently Hun is a huge sweet potato fan and wanted it for his birthday party...just a small get together of close family & friends. All 60 of them. *gulp*

Grace was super nice about it and asked me if 5 dozen cupcakes would be too much for me to handle. And of course I said "no problem!" What kind of domestic goddess would I be if I offered my catering services and then backed out simply because the task was daunting? It presented itself as a challenge and I was determined to triumph! Besides, this would be good practice for when I start my bakery one day. =)

I had never in my life made so many cupcakes before in one go, but I was a determined woman on a mission! I meticulously planned out what I would do: making detailed grocery lists in the exact amounts needed, drawing sketches of the toppers and wrappers, re-writing the recipe for the amounts that I needed to make bigger batches, etc.

At first I had thought about making wrappers that matched the toppers. I did a few sketches and sent them over to Grace for approval. She mentioned that maybe doing the wrappers would be too much, and on second thought, I agreed. There was no way that I could make 60 toppers and wrappers in a few short days. So we stuck with H toppers. I originally wanted to do them in blue, because.. well, no particular reason, I guess. But then Grace mentioned that Hun's favorite color is black. And her's is white. lol. Are black and white even colors? hehe. Oh well, I'm really not one to judge, since my entire wedding was done in black and white (with a splash of green). So black H's it was!

(1) The H Toppers

I thought it would be fun to do a bunch of H's in all different fonts. So I got some thick card stock and printed out a few sheets of them. I sliced them into strips, and then into individual squares.


I also got some thick black card stock from Michael's. It had a cool shiny sheen on one side and a super deep black on the other. Perfect!


I found this awesome 1 inch square paper punch and went at it! I ended up with 144 little black squares. No kidding! lol. I made 6 dozen little H's. =)


I used mounting tape to affix the H's. This made it so that they kinda popped out. It was super cute!

Ta-DA!

To finish them off, I glued toothpicks and added a back side. Done!

(2) The Cupcakes and Frosting

Here are some of the ingredients it takes to make 60 cupcakes: 5 lbs of sweet potato, half a bag of brown sugar, half a bag of flour, ten eggs, 5 sticks of butter, 40 oz of mascarpone, 5 cups of heavy whipping cream. I barely had enough counter space to hold all of it!


Wow! That's a lot of cupcakes! Not all of them are pictured here, either. Hehe. Couldn't get all of them to fit into my photo station. =)

Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes w/ Mascarpone Frosting

Please see this entry for the recipes and "How-To."

Hun had decided that he wasn't going to have a cake at all. My cupcakes were it. The most important element of any birthday party is the cake, right? If I messed up on these, I would have to run out to Costco to buy him a sheet cake large enough to feed 60. And it would probably be ugly, with pink roses. Plus it would taste like pure sugar paste in your mouth. The pressure was on. Did I mention that I've never made a cupcake batch this large?? *gulp*

So I started baking these at like 10am and finished at around 6pm. The entire time, I was perpetually stressed out and totally freaked out. lol. I don't really know why. I mean, I could practically bake cupcakes in my sleep.

I felt fine when I woke in the morning and was pumped to start on them. But as the day went on, I got more and more nervous, and my imagination ran wild: what if something goes wrong? I don't have enough ingredients for an extra batch. Dang! Why didn't I get enough ingredients for an extra batch?? Sixty people are going to eat these and if they're horrible, all of them will know that I was the one who made them! Then my career as a baker would be over before it even started! I'd be known as the girl who baked disgusting cupcakes! A total fraud! No one would ever want to come to my bakery if I ever start one.

(3) Assembly of the Cupcakes

Everything went relatively smoothly with the cupcakes, with only a couple of hiccups along the way. (Mainly because I was frazzled, which caused me to make silly mistakes.) But it wasn't anything major that wasn't salvageable.

By the time I was onto the frosting, I was in a relatively good mood....

Until I realized that the mascarpone frosting was the DIVA of frostings. No kidding. It was SO fragile. I already knew it was, when I made a dozen of them last week. But to frost 5 dozen was a whole different story! It literally melts. Like, if you got a tiny drop of it on your hand, it would turn into sugar syrup in a minute or so.

By the time I frosted a dozen of them and placed them into the box, the first dozen already showed signs of melting! My beautiful swirls of frosting were sitting in a tiny pool of sugar syrup that was beginning to develop at the base! So I had to keep my bowl of already-made frosting in the fridge. I would fill my bag with enough to pipe 5 cupcakes, run over to pipe them, and then run back to the fridge to "reload." All the while, praying that my already frosted cupcakes wouldn't melt before I finished the entire 30 that fit into one box!


Whew! It was a close one, but I got through it! Keeping the frosting well refrigerated between each piping session proved to work really well. It kept the frosting stiff enough to work with, even though the heat from my hand was melting it pretty quickly, before it even made it onto the cupcake. The ones that melted a little bit congealed just fine in the fridge after a couple of hours!


One more snag: after I boxed them, I realized that I could fit 30 of them into each box, and only needed two of them. wow. not good. For regular sized cupcakes, you're supposed to only be able to fit 24. I didn't realize this last week when I made them for the first time, but they're significantly smaller than regular cupcakes! I think it's because they're so dense with the potato mixture. I felt really bad and wanted to start on a new batch so that I could deliver 6 dozen, but it was too late! =/ It was already approaching 6 pm and I was out of time! Grace later joked that American generally eat too much anyway, so the petite size of the cupcakes were perfect. lol. That made me feel a bit better.


Yay, I did it! I sent them home with Grace and she commented on how beautiful they looked. It felt good that I was able to pull off my first big cupcake order! This was really good practice for when I have my own business one day and it turned out to be super fun... in retrospect! lol. I spent the entire day baking and frosting cupcakes, what could be better?!

But the verdict is still out! Hun's party isn't until tomorrow night, so I don't know how people will receive it. I'm still a tad bit nervous about it, like what if I dumped in too much baking powder and the cupcakes are bitter?! I tasted one of them, but only from one batch. What if a different batch was messed up? But alas, I'll just have to wait patiently until after the party. Grace said she'll get back to me on it. =)

Happy Birthday, Hun!

Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting

This is my third month as a member of the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club and I absolutely love it! What could be better than a club that bakes nothing but cupcakes?? =) Every month on the 15th, every member bakes the same exact recipe and then blogs about it. It's been super fun to see all the different creative variations and interpretations of the same recipe.

This Month: Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting

Ok, I have to admit that I totally had my reservations about this recipe when I first read through it. Sweet potato? In a cupcake? I never would've thought to use sweet potato as an ingredient. And even though I've baked a ton of recipes from Martha's Cupcake book already, I have to admit that if it wasn't for this club, I probably would never give this one a second glance, let alone attempt it. But since my enthusiasm for cupcake baking has brought me to this club, I felt compelled to give it a chance. Besides, I wouldn't want to get kicked out for not participating. =)

(1) The Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes

The first step is to poke a sweet potato with a fork and bake it in the oven for about an hour until it's super soft and mushy. It pained me greatly to post this incredibly ugly photo on my blog. hehe. You guys all know how I feel about ugly photos. (See here to find out why.) Sweet potatoes are not the least bit photogenic!

Peel it, mash it up, and set it aside.


As with all cakes/cupcakes, mix the dry ingredients.



Cream together both sugars and butter until fluffy.


Add in the other liquid ingredients like eggs and vanilla.

Next, mix in the sweet potato.


Lastly, mix in the dry ingredients.


Bake & Cool! It was a really simple recipe. =)



(2) The Mascarpone Frosting

The recommended frosting was marshmallow. Yes, that's right. Marshmallow. Like.. pile a bunch on top and then fire up your blow torch. The only time I eat marshmallow is on a s'more or in rice crispy treats. I wanted something better for these. So I chose mascarpone. You really can't go wrong with it.

I haven't featured it very much on my blog, but it's one of my favorite frostings! It's incredibly creamy, light, and fluffy- not super overpoweringly sweet. Right up my alley. And if these cupcakes turn out to be nasty, I knew I could count on the mascarpone to salvage it. It was my plan B.

First, whip up a big batch of whipped cream. You know it's going to be fantastic when you have fresh whipped cream involved. =)



While you've got the whipped cream going, in a seperate bowl, combine mascarpone and powdered sugar. Wisk together until well blended.



Once the whipped cream is done, fold it into the mascarpone mixture until well blended.


The finished product doesn't look a whole lot different than the powdered sugar and mascarpone mixture, but it makes a huge difference in taste. Mmm...whipped cream and mascarpone. You really can't beat that combination!

Now you're ready to frost!

But wait! How about some fancy cupcake wrappers, first? It's officially autumn and we must celebrate the season. =)

(3) Make some fancy cupcake wrappers!

I found these super cute leaf-shaped brackets in bronze, gold, and silver at Impress. I knew instantly that they would be perfect for these wrappers.


First, I used my cupcake pattern to cut out the wrapper shape in two different colors: brown and orange. Please see the main cupcake wrapper post on more "how-to" details.



Next, I took a ball point pen and drew branches & leaves onto the wrappers. Then I pushed the brackets into the wrappers, to imitate leaves on the branches.

Lastly, I fitted them onto my cupcakes. Now, I'm ready to frost!

*sigh* I just love to frost cupcakes.

OMG. So....these were THE. BEST. CUPCAKES. EVER. No kidding. My friends, who have tried a lot of my different cupcake varieties, unanimously agreed that this is by far the best. The flavor was SO unique. And the mascarpone frosting just took it to the next level- it was subtly sweet and soo creamy-smooth. And the cupcake itself was super flavorful, moist, and delicious! It was perfect. Just perfect.

This reminded me of the September post where I was super weirded out by using zucchini in a cupcake, but then it turned out to be super delicious, too. I will never unfairly judge another Martha recipe ever again. I have mentally made a pledge to attempt every single cupcake recipe in that book, no matter how long it takes me! =)



For the recipes shown in this entry, click HERE.

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Here's a recap if you've missed the other MSCC entires:

September: Zucchini Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

October: Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Swiss Meringue Buttercream