Pinoy Cupcake: Calamansi Cupcakes Frosted with Cream Cheese, Glazed with Bugnay Wine and Topped with Butterscotch Mini Cupcakes

Third installment of the Pinoy Cupcake Series.



Is it just me, or did you also noticed that the last 6 posts have something to do with chocolate? I think it's time to break the trend. This week I decided to focus on Calamansi - the Pinoy version of lemon.

We use it with bagoong when eating fried fish, with patis when eating liempo, I use it with salt when eating Chowking's Chicharap. Seldom have I heard of it being used to make dessert so I dedicate this week's post to Calamansi.



Why Calamansi? Why not.

Since there is no recipe for calamasi cupcake, I decided to look for a recipe for lemon cupcakes and found one at Martha Stewart's website. I just made made the necessary substitutions.



Calamansi Cupcakes

(adapted from Martha Stewart's Lemon Cupcakes)

Makes 24/325 degrees



3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 tablespoons fresh calamasi juice

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk and calamasi juice, and beating until just combined after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.



Because of the tangy flavor, it seems a cream cheese frosting would compliment this cupcake. My dilemma is, how can I make it more Pinoy? I decided to glaze it with a simple Bugnay wine (from Baguio) syrup then topped it with Butterscotch (from Bacolod) shaped like little cupcakes.

Bugnay Wine Glaze



½ cup Bugnay wine

6 tbsp sugar



Bring wine and sugar to a boil until mixture thickens.







Happy Cupcaking,

Aikko

Pinoy Cupcake: Tsokolate Ah Cupcakes with Fried Suman and Panucha Frosting

For those who remember Noli me Tangere well, you can probably tell the difference between tsokolate eh and tsokolate ah.

Tsokolate ah is the chocolate drink the Spanish priest (was it Padre Salvi?) would request to be served if his guests are VIPs while tsokolate eh is its bland counterpart, fit for unwanted visitors.

No, it's not June 19 or December 31 but I suddenly just want to do something in honor of Pepe. Uh oh, the geek in me is coming out again! Yeah, yeah, I can just hear Kristine, Bo, Nina, and Shetan laughing! Hahaha :P How could a chocolate cupcake be anymore richer worthy to be called Tsokolate ah? For this, I decided to swap local ingredients to my usual chocolate cake recipe. Instead of using cocoa powder, I used cacao tablea I bought from a recent trip to Pangasinan and instead of the usual milk, I used gatas ng kalabaw from the Salcedo Market.







I made 24 cupcakes but unfortunately, 12 of them overflowed because I placed way too much batter in a liner (see below). Good thing the other 12 baked perfectly fine. Nevertheless, the 12 that overflowed was still yummy the gang finished it in no time.

As for the frosting, I tried something new. Went to the sugar section of the grocery store and saw some lonely looking packs of Panucha at the lower level of the shelves. Hmmm... choclate and panucha? An unlikely combination but I think it was worth the try. Unbelievably, it gave a caramel-like taste to the frosting. It's so yummy! Cupcakes wouldn't be complete without a cute topper. I don't know if suman can be classified as cute but it sure works for this cupcake.



Panucha Frosting

1 stick butter

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 bao of Panucha

2 tbsp milk for the panucha

2 tbsp milk for the frosting



1. Chop the panucha to small pieces. In a double broiler, melt the panucha till smooth then add water to prevent it from hardening again.

2. Place melted panucha in an ice bath for five minutes. After which, add 1/8 c milk. Stir vigorously to blend both milk and panucha.

3. Cream butter for 1 minute and add the powdered sugar slowly.

4. Add the panucha mixture. Make sure that it is completely cooled before adding to the butter mixture. Otherwise, the butter will melt and you'll no longer be able to pipe the frosting

5. Mix well to makesure all ingredients are well blended

Happy Cupcaking,

Aikko





ps: This is part of my experimental Pinoy Cupcake series I started some time ago. Hope there's more to come. Cheers! I mean... tagay!