Happy Canada Day!

How do you make a cupcake taste Canadian? Put maple syrup in it, of course. I wanted something just a touch more original though, so I decided to incorporate another Canadian favourite (of mine): gooseberries! Gooseberries aren’t as common or popular here in Ontario as they are out west, but I’ve still been able to enjoy them fresh here (tart green striped grape-like things), as well as in jam.

I prepared a dozen cupcakes for my husband to take to work (who has to work on Canada Day!?), and filled them with gooseberry jam. I had enough batter left over for four additional cupcakes, and for one of those I decided to layer the gooseberry jam between the cake and frosting rather than in the centre. I ended up preferring it like that – I should have made them all that way!

I haven’t made full-sized cupcakes in a while, so my swirled frosting piping skills are a bit rusty. Oh well, I still remembered how to layer the two colours of frosting into the piping bag in order to get a decent swirl.

It was quite an adventure, trying to get frosting that was actually red! I put in a few drops of red food colouring, which of course turned the frosting pink, and then the bottle was empty. Oops! I found some Wilton gel in orange, leftover from Hallowe’en; I added some of that, and the frosting turned this strange colour that managed to be simultaneously pink and orange. Prange, or maybe orink?

I figured, why not temper this colour with a bit of… ooh, neon purple? The frosting turned puce. Wow. I couldn’t be farther from red.

I then stirred in half a bottle of neon pink, which was the closest colour to red I had left in the pantry. I assumed it wasn’t going to work and I was going to have to discard half a batch of buttercream. How awful.

But then, suddenly… the frosting was red. Bright, primary, perfect red! I don’t understand it either.

Recipe

Maple Cupcakes

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp maple extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt

1/2 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 350 F and line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Cream together butter, sugar, and maple syrup. Beat in eggs one at a time until smooth. Sift or whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Mix into butter mixture alternately with milk. Once everything’s combined, I like to turn up the mixer to the fastest setting for about 30 seconds to whip some more air into it.

Fill the liners about 2/3 full with batter and bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Gooseberry Filling

3/4 cup gooseberry jam

Optionally, bring jam to a simmer in a small saucepan and simmer for a couple of minutes, until it starts to reduce. Pour (or strain if you like) into a small dish and let cool in the refrigerator until a bit firmer.

In the cooled cupcakes, incise little cones, slice off a bit of the point of the cone, fill cupcakes with about 2 tsp of jam, and replace the ‘lid’.

I used the Swiss meringue buttercream from How To Eat A Cupcake. It didn’t turn out as smooth as it normally does for me… maybe because I used previously frozen egg whites?

Happy Canada Day!