Egg Nog Cupcakes n Sauce

I was so excited about creating this recipe that I ACTUALLY GOT UP EARLY BEFORE THE KIDS to make it. You may well have already sussed that originally these were due to be regular iced-up cupcakes. An hour in though and I realised I didn’t have any butter left to create a buttercream topping – but on that note neither was I convinced that adding boozy eggnog to fatty butter (and then a load of icing sugar to boot) was really going to work, even taking into account the season of over-doing-it. I also considered a meringue based topping - it would sure look the part, snowy mountain peaks and all that – but I’m not a big fan of baking that’s primarily style over substance.

So as it turned out (and I love it when this happens in the kitchen) I took a bit of a punt in going off-piste and creating something more like a mini sponge pudding – with a (chilled) sauce. I was a little nervous about how best to re-create a liquid-based concept within a sponge as well as a sauce (the things that keep me awake at night, I swear…) but I’m thrilled with the resulting flavour (and note my secret ingredient* that cleverly cuts the sweetness).

Re flavouring the sponge: in the end I found that it helped to actually taste and tweak the raw cake mix before baking with it (something I often do if I’m developing a cake flavour; if you can get over the occupational hazard of eating raw egg then this a good tip).

Incidentally, though I used muffin paper cases, I didn’t bake in one of those ‘deep-dish’ style muffin tins. Given that this is quite a loose cake mix and I wanted a quick but even bake (no undercooked middles) I used an older tin I have with slightly more shallow inserts. Seemed to do the trick. (I’m such a geek – sorry).

Don’t be put off by the chilled sauce – it really does compliment the sponge beautifully I promise. This is Christmas on a plate…

INGREDIENTS

150g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarb of soda
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g softened butter / marg
125g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
250ml egg nog (I used my own recipe from last week)

For the sauce:

300g full fat cream cheese*
100ml more egg nog
130g (approx) icing sugar, sifted…

Combine and serve….

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C and place 12 paper muffin cases in a (shallow) cupcake tray.

2. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.

3. In another bowl cream the fat and sugar. Add the egg (don’t panic if it curdles – or add a little of the flavour) and vanilla. Stir. Add the egg nog. Stir again.

4. Combine wet and dry by adding the flour mix, a third at a time, to the sugary mix. Give it a firm but gentle hand [insert joke here]

5. You may now find it easier to decant into a jug. Pour evenly between the cases. Bake for 17 minutes. Leave to settle in trays for a further 10 minutes before cooling on a wire rack…

6. While they’re cooling, whip up the cream cheese. Add the sugar and egg nog. Chill the sauce in the fridge until very cold. Serve with the cupcakes, turned out of their cases in a puddle of the sauce.