#rumchatacupcakes

Thank you Frances for this RumChata cupcake recipe! I followed the directions and they came out a little overcooked and my kitchen turned out a mess but they're not too bad.  Here is a link to the original recipe in case you don't trust mine. 

For the cupcakes you will need:

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup RumChata

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

4 egg whites

To begin, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Make sure your stick of butter is room temperature (cutting it into small pieces will help move it along quicker) and combine it with the 1 1/2 cups of sugar.  Beat the two until the mixture is fluffy. 

Next, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon). Set aside (not pictured).  Then mix together the RumChata and vanilla extract:

Next you're going to alternate adding the dry mixture and RumChata mixture to your butter and sugar.  Start by adding 1/3 of the dry mixture to the butter/sugar, then 1/2 of the RumChata/vanilla, another 1/3 dry mixture, second 1/2 of RumChata/vanilla followed by the last 1/3 of the dry mixture.  

Now in a separate bowl separate your egg whites.  This is a total pain and for a clever trick that absolutely failed for me, visit this link for a video of how to do it using a pop/water bottle.  I attempted the bottle trick and it just broke the yolk so I gave up and separated the egg whites the old-fashioned way with the shells and scooped out the little bit of yolk that escaped.  Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 Next, "beat the egg whites until soft peaks form." I'm not really sure what this means but I used my mixer to beat the eggs for maybe 20 seconds until they looked like this:

Fold the egg whites into your batter (DON'T use your mixer for this part) and then fill cupcake liners.  The recipe says to bake for 20 minutes or until the cupcakes "bounce back" when you touch them.  If I made these again I'd probably cook them for 16 or 17 minutes instead of 20.  

Now for the cream cheese/RumChata frosting:

(Make sure your cupcakes are cooled before frosting).

What you will need:

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup butter, also room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla

4-5 tbsp RumChata

1 package (2 lbs.) powdered sugar

I was really excited for this part because I randomly bought this bad boy at Walmart for like, $2 and have been waiting for a reason to use it:

Back to business.  Combine the butter and cream cheese until they are smooth:

Next, add in the vanilla and SLOWLY add the powdered sugar. I emphasize the word slowly because I did this "slowly" (I added the bag of sugar in 5 parts) and still had a cloud of sugar EVERYWHERE.  You might possibly change the genre of your background music to classical to calm your nerves as I had to at this point.  After this step, add in 4-5 tablespoons of RumChata based on the thickness of the frosting. 

I definitely recommend taste-testing at this point because the frosting is AMAZING.  Now, get out your frosting tool and have at it, OR do what I ended up having to do and use a teaspoon to frost your cupcakes.  I attempted the frost-er I had purchased and the amount of frosting that fit in it was about enough for 2 cupcakes and made a mess everywhere.  

OH YEAH AND MY CUPCAKES LOOKED LIKE THIS:

It's been a while since my cake-decorating days, clearly.  Using a teaspoon won't make your cupcakes look amazing, but they will be much better than my first three:

At this point I finally tried one and as I said before, it was a little overcooked and stuck to the paper, but wasn't too bad.  The RumChata taste was pretty subtle and overall tasted like a recipe for pumpkin muffins that I make but you should try these at least once. After eating one and looking back at how ugly the rest of them are, I cried for a second before I realized I'm not meant to be a confectioner and at least I have content for this blog, leading to a good grade in the class this is for, thus, hopefully (keep your fingers crossed!) contributing to me getting my master's degree next year! And I have a bottle of RumChata (minus 1 cup and 4 tablespoons) now!