Cupcake redux

I've been on a cupcake making spree. The past three weekends I've made some sort of cupcake. The past two weekends was adapting Alton Brown's fudge cake from "I'm Just Here for More Food" into cupcakes. Today I making the chiffon cupcakes from Good Eats.

When the episode, "Honey, I Shrunk the Cake" first aired I was drawn to the chocolate version and made it. It was a very nice cupcake and the texture was so tender and nice little mini cakes.

I wanted to try the vanilla version too. I also wanted to try them in cups like AB did, even bought 8 Fiestaware teacups for the job.

Then, a few days ago I got an idea to make the chiffon cupcakes as lemon cupcakes. I have this ultra potent lemon extract than is excellent in my angel food cake. I figured exchanging the vanilla for lemon would be a wise decision.

The other modification was to use Splenda instead of sugar. I had to not measure the sugar in weight and opt for volume since Splenda is so light and airy. Otherwise, the switch had no effect on the batter.

While I enjoyed making the cupcakes in the teacups, the final cupcakes didn't reach the top of the cup making icing them difficult. Since there are no paper covers, I am afraid taking them out of the cups will cause them to dry out. In the future, yes I will be making this again, I'm sticking with traditional paper lined muffin tins.

The icing ended up being a hybrid of the buttercream from the episode and a quick lemon frosting in the Joy of Cooking. Basically, butter, shortening, milk and powdered sugar with the lemon extract. I didn't make peace with the raw egg. LOL.


Chiffon Cupcakes from AB