February 24 - Turkish delight cupcakes (kinda)

I love you, Kitchen Aid.

These cupcakes were brought to you by my beautiful new hand mixer. Let me just say this: in a cagematch knockdown-dragout-fight to the death between Kitchen Aid and Black & Decker, Kitchen Aid kicks Black & Decker in the balls.

I decided I wanted to try to make Turkish Delight themed cupcakes - a rosewater flavored cake with pistachio frosting. Why would I do this? To utilize my other new toy, of course! Food processor power!!

So first: the rosewater cake.

1 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch Kosher salt
3 eggs (room temp)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp rosewater (I would use more next time)
6 tbsp unsalted butter (melted)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together. Beat eggs until homogeneous, add sugar and beat until mixture lightens. Bring rosewater and milk to a boil in a small pan. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture, mix until just incorporated then add hot liquid in a steady stream. Stir in butter and vanilla. Fill cups just past half full, bake 17 minutes or until tops are springy to the touch and toothpick comes out clean.

Spring has sprung! Into my cupcake pan!

My rosewater flavor didn't come out as much as I would have liked, but the flavor was still nice. Like a lightly sweet yellow cake. The texture was also a bit tough, but I suspect I may have over mixed the batter after I added the flour. I was probably a little overexcited about my new handmixer. And who wouldn't be? It's beautiful!

Quite a nice rise, I think.

Ok, now for the frosting:

1 1/4 cups half and half
3/4 cup unsalted pistachio nuts (more on that later)
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks (room temp)
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup unsalted butter (room temp)
1/3 (ish) cup confectioner's sugar

Bring half and half and pistachios to a boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand one hour. Beat sugar, yolks, and flour until light yellow and well mixed. Bring half and half mixture back to a simmer and gradually incorporate hot mixture into yolk mixture. Return all to saucepan and put over medium heat until mixture bubbles thickly. Transfer to food processor, add vanilla, and process until pistachios are finely chopped. Refrigerate for two hours. Beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy, then gradually incorporate pistachio cream. Add confectioner's sugar until desired sweetness is reached.

Like a pistachio hot tub.

Apparently it's unheard of to want unsalted pistachios. Why wouldn't you want salt? Salt is so delicious! Sigh. So after scouring the grocery store, I settled on a bag of shelled, roasted, salted pistachio nuts. And I rinsed them off. Yes, it's ghetto. I know. But you know what? It worked. So shut up.

I heart food processor.

The frosting turned out beautifully, really. The pistachio flavor was great, and it wasn't crunchy at all. The sweetness was there, but subtly so. I felt it was a very sophisticated cupcake. If such a thing exists.

For some reason I thought they'd be green.

While the Turkish Delight thing didn't really come through, the cakes were certainly tasty and somewhat unique. I think people were surprised at the flavor and mild sweetness of the frosting. I wouldn't change a thing about the frosting. More rosewater next time. The end!