Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Thai Tea Cupcakes
























Over a year ago, I attempted to make a cupcake with a creamy Thai tea filling. The filling turned out to be a disaster so I was left with a regular cupcake with some Thai tea frosting. I said I would try making them again, but I hadn't until now. It's not the same cupcake; instead of a creamy tea filling, I decided to flavor the cake itself with Thai tea. I used CurrySimple's Thai tea syrup just like last time, and I based the recipe off Cook's Illustrated recipe for yellow cupcakes. I wanted a moist cupcake to make up for omitting the creamy filling.

The main reason I wanted to get the Thai tea cupcake right is because I'm Thai. (How my best friend of 10 years thought I was Taiwanese is beyond me) Now, that may be a silly reason, but really, I like to use food to blend together the different cultures I belong to. I grew up eating a variety of both Thai and American desserts, so now I'm trying to come up with combinations that work. Hopefully, Thai tea cupcakes are just the beginning.

Thai Tea Cupcakes
adapted from Cook's Illustrated

Thai Tea Cream Cheese Frosting
from previous post

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large egg, room temperature
2 large egg yolks, room temperature
1/4 cup Thai tea syrup

Directions:
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line mini muffin pan with paper.
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment.
3. Add butter, sour cream, egg and egg yolks, and vanilla; beat at medium speed until smooth and satiny, about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula and mix by hand until smooth and no flour pockets remain.
3. Spoon batter evenly among cups. Bake until cupcake tops are pale gold and toothpick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 24 minutes.
4. Use skewer or paring knife to lift cupcakes from tin and transfer to wire rack; cool cupcakes to room temperature, about 45 minutes.
5. Pipe Thai tea frosting onto cupcakes and keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

9 comments:

crystal said...

i think i remember the thai tea cupcakes! they were good. i want to try these!

Anonymous said...

those look familiar!!! (and delicious by the way)

Anonymous said...

These are DELICIOUS! Seriously, awesome stuff Talida! Thanks for bringing them!

annie said...

looks so yummy!
haha...gotta love her. i also do not know why she thought that when the rest of us knew!

talida said...

@monkey: The ones you had turned out pretty dry. If you're visiting this weekend, you can! :)

@zach: Looking forward to reading the post about yesterday's lunch.. I need to know which one 5 was!

@danny: Thanks! I bake to share, so I'm always glad to have a group to feed.

@annie: Yeah, gotta love Annette ;)

Yvo Sin said...

lol. I knew a guy who was really into Asian girls (I know... but he wasn't into me, so that was fine) and he said something once about liking Thai girls... blah blah Taiwan... and I'm like, girls from Taiwan are TAIWANESE... not THAI. And I had to explain how Thailand is a whole other country and shit. "..." Yeah...

Anyway, these not only look delicious, but I was actually going to email you to ask you if you could bake with tea! That is so strange. (Reason being, I received a whole lot of bottled tea, and my boyfriend keeps begging me to bake with it - "Scones! Muffins! Cookies! PLEASE... cupcakes?" but he knows damn well I don't bake. So I was wondering if you could point me in some directions here...)

Cheers :)

Siobhan said...

Those were absolutely the highlight of my day. I've been thinking about them ever since I ate one.

talida said...

@yvo: Funny how you read my mind! I posted another tea recipe just now :) If you navigate to the categories section on my blog, you can see a whole tea section and all the tea goods I've made in the past years. While I try to use the best tea ingredients possible, sometimes I have to find tea alternatives, like the Thai tea syrup. There are tons of things to be made with teas - I hope you're able to come up with something!

@blondie: It was great meeting you and Brownie! I love reading about what you gals are eating and drinking :)

Cupcakes In Heels said...

omg they look yummilicious! i haven't bake new recipes for the longest time, so tempted to bake these thai cupcakes! thanks for sharing =).