Chai Cupcakes with Honey Vanilla Frosting
I love watching a good cooking or baking competition show and one that I have been enjoying lately is the Silos Baking Competition with Joanna Gaines. It features home bakers competing for a cash prize and to have their baked good featured in her bakery. A couple of the contestants won their rounds by baking delicious and creative cupcake creations and this inspired me to come up with my own cupcake recipe.
I love the taste of chai and think it goes well in pretty much any baked good - muffins, scones, cookies, cakes - when done properly. The trick with a chai baked good is to make sure the spices are balanced so that they aren’t overpowering and also aren’t so subtle that you don’t taste it at all. With this recipe, I have hit that sweet spot and on top of it, the cupcakes and the frosting are naturally sweetened.
This recipe uses maple syrup in the cupcakes, which adds a nice moistness to the cakes, and the frosting uses Sucanat. You’ll definitely want to make sure you finely grind the Sucanat so that it blends in well. If you are used to frostings made with white powdered sugar, this frosting is a bit different texture-wise because of the Sucanat so it’s not going to get quite as puffy and light but it will be creamy and smooth. And the final natural sweetener included in this recipe is just a touch of honey drizzled on top since I love the combination of chai tea and honey so I couldn’t resist adding a touch of honey to these cupcakes.
For those who may be new to Sucanat, Sucanat is an abbreviation for “sucre de canne naturel” or natural cane sugar and is a less processed, more natural sugar in comparison to granulated white sugar/brown sugar. Due to the minimal processing involved in producing Sucanat, it retains more of its nutritional properties as well. The minimal processing does mean that the granules of Sucanat are larger and not uniform though so when adding it to recipes - and especially when adding it to this frosting - you will need to grind it in a coffee or spice grinder first so that it can better incorporate in with the the rest of the ingredients.
Hope you enjoy!
Yield: 12 cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes
255 g all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cardamom
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
227 g milk (of your preference)
250 g maple syrup
75 g coconut oil, melted
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
Frosting
3 oz. Sucanat, ground in coffee/spice grinder
1 and 1/2 sticks butter, softened
1 and 1/2 tbsp. heavy cream
1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract or paste
1/4 tsp. salt
Honey, for drizzling
Directions
Cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
Whisk the dry ingredients together (flour to ground ginger). In a separate bowl, whisk the wet ingredients together (milk to vanilla). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined. Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin tin. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting (see below). Once cupcakes are completely cooled, pipe or spread on the frosting and then drizzle the top with honey.
Frosting
Using a stand mixer or a handheld mixer, whip together the butter, cream, vanilla, and salt on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes.
Add the ground Sucanat and whip on medium-high speed until smooth and silky, about 3-5 minutes.
