Wednesday, February 15, 2012

ORANGE CUPCAKES WITH ORANGE-WHITE CHOCOLATE CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

orange cupcakes with or cr ch frosting (4)
I’m currently out of White Lily all-purpose flour and planning on not buying more anytime soon.  First of all, I really don’t want to eat bleached flour.  Regular unbleached all-purpose flour is bad enough.  But I wanted to know if I could still make light and fluffy cupcakes without White Lily, so I adapted my favorite cupcake recipe from Southern Living to find out.  Bottom line:  White Lily all-purpose (not self-rising) flour  makes the best cupcakes, but using a combo of unbleached all-purpose flour and cornstarch does produce a tender, though slightly more dense, cupcake.  For me, I’ll trade down to avoid bleached flour.  At least for now.
orange cupcakes with or cr ch frosting (5)


Orange Cupcakes with Orange-White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting 
Cupcakes Adapted from Southern Living’s Classic Vanilla Cake Batter
Rating:  9.5 out of 10

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INGREDIENTS:
1-1/2 cups minus 3 Tbsp. unbleached all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. Diamond kosher salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 Tbsp. finely grated orange zest
1-1/2 large eggs (1/2 large egg = 2 Tbsp.)
1/4 tsp. orange extract
1/8 tsp. lemon extract
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk + 1-1/2 tsp. cider vinegar)
Orange-White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Heat oven to 350F.  Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper baking cups, and coat with non-stick cooking spray.  Sift and whisk flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt into a small bowl.  In mixing bowl of a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat softened butter, sugar and zest at medium speed 5 minutes, till light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated.  Beat in extracts.  On low speed, add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Beat only until blended after each addition.  Batter will be thick; Use immediately.  Fill 12 muffin cups with batter, dividing equally.  Bake 15-17 minutes, or till a toothpick inserted near center returns with just a few crumbs.  Cool in pans 5 minutes, then transfer cupcakes to wire rack to finish cooling.  Frost with Orange-White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.  Yield:  12 cupcakes
orange cupcakes with or cr ch frosting (3)

8 comments:

Patricia Palmer aka GrandPat said...

These look so good. Could you use whole wheat flour? Pat

Katherine Roberts Aucoin said...

They look yummy and then to read the post below about the cream cheese frosting! Wow, i could really use about two of these right now.

Judy said...

Yes, Pat, you can use ww flour but the cupcakes won't be as tender. I use white whole wheat flour when I make chocolate or pumpkin cupcakes and then it's not so noticeable.

MelindaRD said...

They look really good. Keep experimenting and maybe you'll find a flour that works as well.

lisa is cooking said...

I always use unbleached flour too. You might try unbleached pastry flour to see if that gives you a lighter result. But, these look great as they are. The orange and white chocolate flavors sound delicious!

Judy said...

Lisa, thanks for that tip. I'll look for unbleached pastry flour.

teresa said...

oh wow, these sounds just amazing!

Magic of Spice said...

These look so good, and very moist to me and I think more dense is a
plus :)