Orange Cup Cakes 1/10/10

On the cover of the cookbook that I am cooking my way through (see Cooking The Book) there is a beautiful photo of a cupcake in a blue stripped cupcake paper with a gorgeous dollop of orange icing with a silver nonpareil. This is a marvelous looking cupcake. This recipe is not identified on the front cover, in the index, the back cover, the publisher’s notes, nor in any place in the book that I can find and I have looked. I decided that this cupcake was more than likely the Orange Cup Cakes on page 40, however with a different icing than the recipe offers. I decided to give it a go nonetheless. I honestly didn’t want to venture out to get silver nonpareils so I chose to decorate the cup cake with sprinkles that I already had.

First up, the ingredients: Unsalted butter, sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla, orange juice, and orange zest.  We will combine 2/3 cup sugar, 4 ounces softened unsalted butter, 1 1/2 self raising flour, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and 1/2 cup orange juice, 

Looks pretty huh?

Mix together on low for 2 minutes, until blended. Increase speed for another 2 minutes until smooth.

Add in 3 tablespoons orange zest.

Mix together. Using a spoon or measuring cup, I prefer a 1/3 cup measuring cup, fill the lined cup cake tin.

Fill the cups evenly. If you run out of mix before having filled all the cake, fill the empty cup with water, this helps prevent the pan from overheating and overcooking the nearby cup cakes. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden.  For the icing, I looked through the book and found a recipe for another icing that I felt was similar to the one on the cover. For this icing, you simmer water in a saucepan, in a heatproof bowl you combine 2 tablespoons butter and one cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons water. Mix the sugar, butter, and water with a whisk over the heat until smooth. Using a spoon, place a dollop of the icing after it has cooled off for a minute onto the cup cake. Immediately decorate the icing with a sprinkle or decoration of your choice.

In the future, I think if making this icing again, instead of using water, I would use juice instead of water. I felt the icing didn’t have any enough flavor and instead was just sweet. I would most assuredly make this recipe again, the cup cakes themselves are delicious and light with a wonderful orange flavor. Next time I will make the orange butter cream icing recipe that goes with the cup cake recipe.

Orange Cup Cakes

4 ounces unsalted butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 self raising flour, if you don’t have self raising flour, you can add 2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of all purpose flour.

1/2 cup orange juice

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

3 tablespoons orange zest

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons water/juice

color as desired with food coloring