[Photograph: Miana Jun]
Soaking popcorn in milk and cutting blossoms from stems seem unlikely steps to make cupcakes, but Cooking With Flowers uses both to create these dainty desserts.
Tips: Choose air-popped, lightly or non-salted popcorn for this recipe; popcorn popped in oil or fat will give the milk a funky flavor you don't want ending up in your cupcake.
Tweaks: Taste the chive blossoms before you use them—if they're too strong for your liking, hold off on garnishing the cupcakes with them.
Reprinted with permission by Miche Bacher. Copyright © 2013. Published by Quirk Books. Available wherever books are sold. All rights reserved.
- Yield:makes 12 cupcakes
- Active time: 40 minutes
- Total time:3 hours, including soaking/baking
Ingredients
- Cupcakes
- 2 cups popped popcorn
- 2 cups milk
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- Petals of 4 chive blossoms, plus more for topping, if desired
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 6 large egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- Frosting
- 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions
-
1.
Soak popcorn in milk for about 2 hours. (If you want to leave it longer, refrigerate it, but bring it back to room temperature before you use it.)
-
2.
Strain popcorn through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing the soggy popcorn to get all the good stuff out. Discard the solids.
-
3.
Preheat oven to 350°F and line a 12-cup cupcake or muffin pan with liners.
-
4.
Put flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and chive petals in the bowl of a mixer and mix briefly to combine. Add 11/4 cups of the strained popcorn milk and butter to flour mixture and beat for about 2 minutes on medium-low speed.
-
5.
Drop egg yolks and vanilla into the remaining 3/4 cup strained popcorn milk and mix with a fork to break up yolks. Beat mixture into the batter a bit at a time, pausing occasionally to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.
-
6.
Fill the muffin cups two-thirds with batter and slide the pan into the oven. Bake cupcakes for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack.
-
7.
For the frosting, beat cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla with a mixer on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes, or until no lumps remain. Frost each cupcake and top with chive blossom petals, if desired. Serve the same day.
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