alexandra’s kitchen: Pumpkin Cupcakes

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Oh man, Old School is too funny. So it's Saturday night, I started watching the Red Sox game, but tired quickly — sorry Nick (and all those other die-hard fans out there) for my lack of spirit, but seriously, it's already 6-0. Anyway, after flipping through the channels, I came across Old School, a movie I still have not seen start to finish but that I feel I've seen 100 times because my lacrosse team quoted it incessantly when it came out in 2003. Anyway, I've been laughing out loud ... my poor grandmother ... I'm probably waking her up.

What else, let's see, I just had the most delicious moussaka for dinner, followed by Balzano apple cake for dessert, two treats left for my grandmother by my auntie. I must learn that moussaka recipe — it is unbelievable!

Oh and these cupcakes, the third in a series of pumpkin recipes, are really a seasonal treat — they'll please everyone: On Monday, fearing if I left them in my reach they would disappear as quickly as last week's apple cake, I dropped the remaining 11 of this batch of 12 off at The Bulletin's office, and they were a big hit. Unfortunately, I still have about a quart of the cream cheese frosting left in my refrigerator at home ... I really hope I don't return to Philadelphia with an empty stomach.

Next pumpkin recipe: Thai Pumpkin Soup with Sweet and Salty Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Yield = 12 cupcakes

1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup pumpkin purée
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1¼ cups sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt

frosting and decorative garnishes (purchased at Fante’s) if desired

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Whisk together the flour and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix only until just combined. Place paper liners in muffin pan or coat with cooking spray. Fill each cup only three-quarters full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
8 oz. butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Beat all with an electric mixture until smooth. Chill until ready to serve.

The Eggmobile

The eggmobile houses laying hens. It follows the herd of cattle, arriving to grass they've grazed on four days earlier.The hens peck at the four-day-old cow pies, eating various insects, larvae and parasites - rich sources of protein - and accomplishing a whole lot more along the way: By eating the fly larvae and parasites, they rid the land of potential pathogens and disease; by scratching through the droppings and spreading them across the grass, they enable the manure to sink into the ground and fertilize the soil; and by eating the pesky insects, they reduce the presence of one of the cows' biggest irritants.

The Barn

Joel Salatin stands in the open-sided shelter where his cows spends a portion of the winter. During the winter, the cows eat hay (dried grass accumulated throughout the growing season), and live on a bedding consisting of woodchips, sawdust and old hay to absorb the cows' excrement. When the heavy cows tread on their nitrogen-rich manure and on the carbon-rich bedding, packing it together, they allow the mixture to ferment (anaerobic composting). By adding corn to the bedding, Salatin entices his pigs to turn the bedding into compost: When the cows return to pasture in March, the pigs dig through the densely packed bedding, searching for the tasty fermented corn, aerating the pile and turning it into compost for the spring.

Corn Pudding