Peaches are one of my favorite fruits. When it's late summer, and the peaches are fragrant, sweet, and so smooth that you can eat them with a spoon (like ice-cream) - well, that is when I am in heaven. All year long, I long for peach season. So when I first see peaches in the supermarket, I get really excited and forget that it's early in the season and the chances that the peaches will be smooth and soft and sweetly juicy are low.
Peaches were on sale at Trader Joe's, a pound for $4.99. I bought a whole box excitedly, forgetting that I am only one person and the chances that I can finish the box are low. Those chances were made lower when I tried a few and found that they were all very hard and worse - quite sour. So they languished in my room until I felt guilty and decided that I needed to do something with them before they went bad. Luckily, I had Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Peach Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Frosting bookmarked.
I made them in a flash and you know what? These might be the best cupcakes I've ever made. They're soft, moist from the peaches, and with juicy bits of peach studded throughout. The brown sugar is noticeable in the frosting in a good way, making cream cheese frosting (which I already love) even more spectacular. I may never make a plain cream cheese frosting again. This cupcake tastes like summer to me.
That being said, there are still a few changes I would make to the recipe. I used four large peaches rather than three because I adore peach flavor and wanted to use my peaches up, and I found that I liked this change. It was more peach without being overwhelming. I also used all purpose flour instead of cake flour because the local Safeway didn't carry it. The cupcakes were light and fluffy without it, so don't sweat it if you don't use that. I used cinnamon instead of nutmeg because I didn't have nutmeg on hand.
And last of all, although the frosting was delicious, there was a very faint sort of chalky texture, which I think comes from the cornstarch. My frosting was pretty stiff after sitting in the refrigerator for an hour, and so I think that next time, I will decrease the cornstarch by half and just let the frosting sit in the fridge a little longer.
I had a cupcake for breakfast today. The grapefruit makes it healthy, right??
Peaches were on sale at Trader Joe's, a pound for $4.99. I bought a whole box excitedly, forgetting that I am only one person and the chances that I can finish the box are low. Those chances were made lower when I tried a few and found that they were all very hard and worse - quite sour. So they languished in my room until I felt guilty and decided that I needed to do something with them before they went bad. Luckily, I had Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Peach Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Frosting bookmarked.
I made them in a flash and you know what? These might be the best cupcakes I've ever made. They're soft, moist from the peaches, and with juicy bits of peach studded throughout. The brown sugar is noticeable in the frosting in a good way, making cream cheese frosting (which I already love) even more spectacular. I may never make a plain cream cheese frosting again. This cupcake tastes like summer to me.
That being said, there are still a few changes I would make to the recipe. I used four large peaches rather than three because I adore peach flavor and wanted to use my peaches up, and I found that I liked this change. It was more peach without being overwhelming. I also used all purpose flour instead of cake flour because the local Safeway didn't carry it. The cupcakes were light and fluffy without it, so don't sweat it if you don't use that. I used cinnamon instead of nutmeg because I didn't have nutmeg on hand.
And last of all, although the frosting was delicious, there was a very faint sort of chalky texture, which I think comes from the cornstarch. My frosting was pretty stiff after sitting in the refrigerator for an hour, and so I think that next time, I will decrease the cornstarch by half and just let the frosting sit in the fridge a little longer.
I had a cupcake for breakfast today. The grapefruit makes it healthy, right??
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