Brown Sugar (cupcakes), Babe

From the moment I started making these cupcakes, I've been singing "Brown Sugar" by D'Angelo the lyrics include..."Brown sugar babe, I gets high of your love. I don't know how to behave." And while D'Angelo was talking about a girl in this song, I truly am talking about Brown Sugar.

I made Brown Sugar Cupcakes with a Brown Butter Glaze from the recipe featured in the  February issue of Martha Stewart Living. This issue was brought to my attention by fellow food blogger and chef extraordinaire Jess of Chubb. She and I will be making the same recipes and blogging or results so be sure to check out her site as well! So to start it off, here I go documenting my try at these delicious-sounding cupcakes.

Creaming the butter and sugar started of well but when I added the last egg, things went awry. Turns out, my last egg was not at room temperature. I'm positive that as a result of that which in turn meant more mixing my cupcakes came out dense. Then when it came to adding the buttermilk, I became paranoid and warmed that up: DO NOT. Luckily, I didn't add it to my mixture and opted for the buttermilk out of the fridge. When it came time to bake, things went off without a hitch. With my oven set at 325 degrees the cupcakes took about 25-30 minutes to bake. They weren't dry or hard, just heavy. Further, The recipe yield said 29 cupcakes, I was only able to make 17. They smelled delicious!

Next came time for the Brown Butter Glaze. It did not take the 10 minutes as the recipe said but rather 5 or 6. Make sure none of the sediment gets into the browned liquid when you pour it out. It's not very hard to filter. 

The recipe called for 2 cups of confectioner's sugar and vanilla. I was tempted to add a pinch of this and a bit of that extra such as cinnamon or allspice but I decided against it... this time. When I added them to them to the butter, the mixture came together nicely. I immediately added the glaze to my cupcakes so it could set. If you think the cupcakes smelled good coming out of the oven, the butter glaze smelled heavenly. In fact, I wore the sweatshirt I currently wearing while I was making it and I can still smell the glaze on it! Delicious. 

Of course my favorite part of this recipe was glazing the cupcakes. I put the glaze on the entire cupcake in two layers/increments. I personally thought that 2 cups of powdered sugar was a bit too much as the mixture was quite sweet. But, if you managed to get a proportional amount of cupcake and icing then it blended quite nicely.

All in all, definitely a winner. Would make these cupcakes again, if only to perfect my pound cake to a lighter, fluffier texture. I took these cupcakes to my visit to Philadelphia to see friends. They thought they were good. In fact, I would recommend microwaving the cupcake for 10 or 15 seconds prior to eating so that the glazes warms up but does not completely melt.