Learning to Brown Butter for Pumpkin Cupcakes

Saturday night was “Turkey-stravaganza” – a gathering hosted by a couple friends who cook turkey and other Thanksgiving items, and attended by assorted friends. It’s a fun way to share the Thanksgiving experience with our friends.

I volunteered to bring a dessert, since that tends to be what I do best. I decided to try something from the Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook that I bought on a whim awhile back using a Border’s gift card.. kind of a random selection, but I get most of my books from the library and wanted something that I’d consult multiple times. A cookbook fit the bill, and it’s hard to go wrong with cupcakes, right?

The most appropriate recipe that jumped out was the Pumpkin Brown-Butter Cupcakes. I like baking with pumpkin, as it is such a distinct yummy flavor and tends to produce moist, flavorful baked goods. Plus it’s healthy! The recipe involved “browning butter” – a new kitchen technique that I hadn’t really heard of before, let alone tried out. I wasn’t sure what to expect based on the details in the book, and it was an interesting baking experiment for me!

Today I was surprised to find a posting on the browning butter technique in my Google reader – would have been helpful before I attempted the recipe, but I managed to do ok on my own. Basically, “browning butter” refers to cooking butter past its melting point so that it turns into a nice nutty brown color. This results in a distinctive flavor, that’s a bit, well, nutty! Apparently it’s popular in the fall/wintery recipes.



Materials and Methods

Pumpkin Brown-Butter Cupcakes:
¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ fresh sage leaves (optional – I didn’t use these)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon (I <3 cinnamon, so I used more)
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs


1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Brush muffin tins with butter and dust with flour tapping out excess. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the sage, if desired, and continue to cook, swirling occasionally until butter turns golden brown. [At this point, I wasn’t sure what to expect. On medium heat the butter started kind of fizzing and bubbling and I got nervous, so I turned it down. But then I let it cook for a long time ~ probably close to 20 min~ and it never turned brown.. it stayed a distinct bright yellow. I knew this wasn’t right so I finally turned up the heat, and finally it started looking like it did in Martha’s pictures. Lesson is, some bubbling/fizzing is ok!] Skim foam from top, and remove from heat. Pour into a bowl to stop the cooking, leaving any burned sediment behind (see Figure 1); let cool.

Fig 1. pouring out the butter, leaving the burned bits. Sorry it's blurry - I have discovered that it's hard to take pictures while pouring hot butter!

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, both sugars, eggs, and brown-butter mixture. Add flour mixture, and whisk until just combined.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each ¾ full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 min. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.

I found the cupcakes cooled pretty quickly, so I’d say go ahead and start making the icing while they cupcakes are baking.

Brown Butter Icing
½ cup unsalted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 Tbsp milk, plus more if needed

4. Brown the butter again, like  in (1).

Fig 2.mmm sugar...

5. Add remaining ingredients and stir until smooth (Figure 2). Add more milk a little at a time, if needed.

Fig 3. Have not frosted cupcakes this way before; it seems more fun than using a knife :)

6. After cupcakes have cooled, dip the tops in the icing (Figure 3). Let them set and store at room temperature.

The final result!

Conclusions:
The cupcakes went over very well at the party. They had a rich, decadent flavor. I found the icing to be very sweet, and think we used too much on the actual cupcakes – but we were just trying to use everything we made. If I made these again I’d cut back on the frosting.

Also, I think that experimenting with healthier cooking options over the past couple years has changed my tastes a bit – these seemed a bit too rich for me now. It’s a lot of butter! It does give a really interesting flavor, and it’s good if you want to impress people. But I’m curious as to other healthier options for pairing with pumpkin, like coconut oil. Guess I'll file that under "future directions" ;)