Vegivore Eats | Jumbo Sweet Potato Cupcakes (with BouRye-vanilla glaze)

  With the fall holidays upon us, it would be easy for me to say I made up this recipe in order to give to you a seasonal baked good recipe to prepare for your various gatherings. While I encourage such things I need to be honest with you and with myself: this recipe was created specifically to use up extra mashed sweet potatoes and cranberries. 

I picked up from Wilson Farm (Lexington) this week a ton of produce to use for FFTB's Fresh Shares and other personal cheffing clients, sweet potatoes and cranberries included.  Even after filling all client orders (whipped sweet potatoes, as well as pork cooked with fresh cranberries), I still had left about 3 cups of the peppered, maple sweet potato mash -- and a whole flat of cranberries.  Sure, I could eat these "sweeties" (orange version of mashies?) for days and simply freeze the cranberries.  Ooooor...I could bake with it all...

These cupcakes were modeled after pumpkin or squash bread/cake recipes that have worked in the past; I assumed that a starchy mass like sweet potato would probably work like a canned pumpkin or fresh puree.  The vitamin-rich root vegetable not only adds nutrition* and bulk but acts as a binder in this recipe.  Cake flour produces a delicate crumb, and cranberry simple syrup (and buttermilk, too) gives this cake a certain tart takeaway**.  The flavors of pumpkin pie add spice where there's already sweet and slight sour, and brown sugar adds molasses to the mix; dark and pungent.

That all sounded delicious (and tasted great, too) but I couldn't just stop there.  I needed...something else...to knock it out of the park.  So I made a BouRye-vanilla glaze.  BouRye, a marriage of bourbon and rye (offered exclusively by High West in Utah), brings to the party notes of smoke and caramel...nutty and alcoholic, blending seamlessly with the vanilla, and then again with the pecan garnish on top.

The cake turned out moist, soft and the prettiest orange color.  The flavor wasn't completely dissimilar to a pumpkin muffin but was not as sweet, and I didn't want to run to a tub of cream cheese and use the muffin purely as a vehicle, which is usually my first instinct with a pumpkin or squash baked good. 

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon -- a successful culinary experiment!

JUMBO SWEET POTATO CUPCAKES

Makes 6-8 huge honkin' cupcakes

3 c cake flour

1 Tbs baking powder

 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground ginger

small pinch nutmeg

smaller pinch cloves

3/4 tsp Maldon or other flaky salt

1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar***

1/3 c butter, room temperature

2 eggs, room temperature

1 c cooked, mashed sweet potatoes

1 tsp pure vanilla extract (I used double-strength)

1/3 c cranberry simple syrup or High West BouRye***

3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  

Line a jumbo muffin pan (or two, if you have 6-cavity ones) with papers and set aside****.

In a large bowl, whisk together the first 7 ingredients (flour through salt) and set aside.

In a second large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and eggs until fluffy, then add the sweet potatoes, vanilla and simple syrup and mix well (You'll have lots extra simple syrup from the linked recipe...delish in soda or cocktails).  

Add a third of the flour mixture, mix well, then add another third and mix well, add the buttermilk and mix well, then finish with the last third of the flour mixture.

Fill the baking cups and place in the preheated oven.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, starting to check on them after 25 minutes. 

Remove from the oven when the tops look done (they should be domed and not wet at all), and cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a rack.

Cool completely before glazing.

...

BOURYE-VANILLA GLAZE

Enough for the jumbo cupcakes and then some!

1 c powdered sugar

1/8 c heavy cream

1 tsp BouRye

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/8 tsp table salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix all ingredients together.

Hold the cooled cupcakes upside-down and one by one dip the tops in the glaze, turning to coat completely.

To finish this decadent autumn dessert even more decadently, garnish with a pecan half each.

...

*PRO TIP (more like FUN FACT):  One baked sweet potato gives you 400% of your daily requirement of Vitamin A!

**PRO TIP: Replace the cranberry simple syrup with an equal amount of BouRye.  The flavor will be much darker but equally as tasty -- I tried this, too :)

***PRO TIP: If using extra BouRye instead of cranberry simple syrup, adjust the sugar to 1 1/2 cups.  Whiskey adds a lot to flavor but not sweetness!

****PRO TIP: From a distance of about two feet, spray the insides of the liners with PAM to keep them from sticking to the cupcake.

PRO TIP:  I recently learned the correct way to eat a cupcake.  This strategy is ideal for this cupcake.  That way, when you bite into it, you get the whole world of flavors all together!