Browned Butter Cupcakes with Fig Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Fig Filling

Did I totally miss my blogiversary? Yes, yes I did. Gawd! I'm like a man! It's been two years since I started this little blog and I totally missed it. Does it count that I made these totally awesome cupcakes a week later? Well it should because these cupcakes are definitely worthy. They smell so delicious even before they bake because of the browned butter. I actually ended up creating this recipe on accident.

You see I attempted to make my very first batch of macarons. Unfortunately, I have not perfected the technique yet. I need more practice. You can see large grains of the almond flour in the cookie. They tasted wonderful though.

I used the italian method. Check out my fail and let me know if you have any tips.

So...I had whipped up a batch of amazingly delicious fig butter swiss meringue buttercream and had quite a bit left over....so I had to do something with it....I couldn't just eat it out of the container off the spoon....ok....so I do that too...it just seemed destined for better somehow.

So I came up with these...your're welcome.

Browned Butter Cupcakes with Fig Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Fig Filling

CUPCAKES
Ingredients:
1/2 cup browned butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1.  Pour glass of wine, set aside for yourself. Baking with a glass of your favorite beverage always makes it better.

2.  First brown the butter in a small sauce pan. (I started on low and gradually raised the temperature little by little, swirling occasionally, until the milk solids started to turn brown and it started to smell nutty.)

3.  Then place the browned butter in an ice water bath. (You can do this early and let it cool completely on the stove or use a water bath, which ever you prefer. I let it cool in an ice bath in the sink and let it sit there while I got everything together and preheated the oven.)

3.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking tin with cupcake liners.

4.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the browned butter, vegetable oil, and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

5.  Beat the eggs in one at a time then scrape down the bowl. Add the vanilla, milk and mix. Then add the cake flour and baking powder.

6.  Mix until batter is smooth. Then pour evenly (I used a ¼ cup measure) into prepared cupcake tin. Bake for 12-17 minutes until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. (In my oven, mine came out perfect at 15 minutes)

7.  Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing them and letting them cool completely on wire rack.

FILLING
Ingredients:
1/2 cup or so Fig Butter (I used Trader Joe’s)
Slash of apple juice

Directions:
1.  Core the middle of the cupcake out to make room for the filling. (I used my nifty cupcake corer, love it, but you can also just use a paring knife.)

2.  Add a splash of apple juice to the fig butter to thin it out just a tad and then put it in a large ziplock bag and snip off the corner of the bag to just pipe in the filling.

FIG SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM
Ingredients:
5 large fresh egg whites (150 g)
1-1/4 cup (250 g) superfine granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups (340 g) (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, cut into cubes
2 teaspoons (10 ml) pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1/4 + 1/8 cups fig butter (I used Trader Joe’s)

Directions:
1.  Add egg whites and sugar, and simmer over a pot of water (not boiling), whisking constantly but gently, until temperature reaches 160°F, or if you don't have a candy thermometer, until the sugar has completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot.

2.  Place bowl back on mixer and fit with whisk attachment. Whip until the meringue is thick, glossy, and the bottom of the bowl feels neutral to the touch (this can take up to 10 minutes, or longer).

3.  Switch over to paddle attachment and, with mixer on low speed, add softened butter in chunks until incorporated, and mix until it has reached a silky smooth texture (if curdles, keep mixing and it will come back to smooth).

4. Add vanilla, salt, and fig butter and continuing to beat on low speed until well combined.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Recipe reprinted from Sweetapolita