The Cupcake Kick, Part 4.

Since the Iron Cupcake Challenge for March is nuts/seeds, I was torn between whether I wanted to do a nut or seed cupcake.  And then I decided to do both.  My last post was the seed, so here's the nut.

A while back I made a batch of beet ice cream and one of the recipes I read online mentioned serving it with candied pecans.  I love candied pecans.  So I made a batch but just put pepper on them, instead of a spice mix.  Well, those were some tasty pecans.  Very few of them made it onto the beet ice cream.  So when I began debating my nut for the Iron Cupcake, I came back to those candied/peppered pecans, and used them as my starting point.  And I ended up with these:

Salt and Pepper Pecan Cupcakes

A butter pecan cupcakes (complete with bits of candied pepper pecans in the cake) with a gooey salted caramel centre and caramel frosting, with a candied pepper pecan on top.

I started out by candying the pecans.  There are many methods, but this one is easy and I was on a timeline! I take about 1/4 cup corn syrup for every 1 cup of nuts, stir them up together and pour them onto a baking sheet.  Grind some fresh black pepper over top, and put them in a 300 degree oven for about 20ish minutes, stirring every 5 or 10 minutes.  I kept 24 halves for decor, and chopped up the rest (about 1 cup) to use in the batter.

While the pecans were toasting, I made the cupcake batter.  I used my favourite white cake recipe and at the end stirred in the candied pecans.  

Once the batter was in the pans, I (ok, my lovely assistant Jillian) put half a chewy Werther's in each cupcake (Superstore was apparently out of the little square caramels in the clear plastic wrapper that I remember so fondly from my childhood, so the Werther's was the back-up caramel...  turns out they taste a lot like the Macintosh toffee bars which I love and always remind me of going to the cottage as a kid.  I also always think of my traumatized best friend who refuses to eat Macintosh toffee because of the time her loose tooth came out while chewing the sticky toffee at my cottage, but I digress...).  Because I was going for a slightly salted caramel taste, I ground some sea salt over each caramel before putting the trays in the oven.

They baked up nicely while we watched some television and then I came back to frost.  I wanted a caramel frosting but didn't feel like cooking the sugar, etc, so I created a brown sugar caramel frosting.  It went something like this:  dissolve 2/3 cup brown sugar in 1/2 cup water (you can heat the water a bit to aid in the dissolving).  Cream 1 cup margarine (or whatever shortening) with 2 cups icing sugar.  Add in the brown sugar water and more icing sugar (I ended up using 7 cups of icing sugar in total to get my desired firmness).  I have a lot of frosting left over, so you could probably halve those numbers and still have enough, unless you like lots of frosting, in which case why not make the whole batch, and eat the leftovers by the spoon.

Here's the cross section, showing the gooey caramel centre.  Apparently I just happened to cut a cupcake that had less pecans in the actual cake than most of the others.

I also decided that there wasn't quite enough of the peppery flavour, so I ground some black pepper over the tops of the finished cupcakes.

As of somewhere around April 1, you'll be able to go to the Iron Cupcake website and vote for this cupcake.  If I were to win, here's the loot bag I'd get:

The March ETSY PRIZE-PACK:

• A Bunnycake Easter Plushie by DOGBONEART,http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21636297.
• A whimsical piece by CAKEASAURUS,http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5729584.
  
• as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
• a collection of all new printed cupcake liners, 200 in all from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery,http://www.acupcakery.com/
  
• PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

And then there are the corporate prize providers: 

HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS,http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers,http://www.1800flowers.com . 

And that concludes the adventure that was (and still is, in terms of my breakfast at least) Salt and Pepper Pecan Cupcakes.

Happy Cupcakes!

- Carolyn