Brown butter and pumpkin cupcakes and an ode to brown butter

Brown butter, I heart thee.

Thou art most flavorful.

I heart your aromatherapy.

That nutty scent is oh so wonderful.



Regular butter is world renowned

But it is just not the same.

Perhaps I am being lame,

But I prefer my butter browned.



And so, brown butter,

I heart thee.

You render me nutter,

And fill me with glee.



On that note, I made brown butter pumpkin cupcakes topped with brown butter cream cheese frosting. I was so excited by this recipe from Fine Cooking (I heart thee too, Fine Cooking) that I even roasted a pumpkin for it! Talk about keen and motivated! The original recipe was meant to make a 9-inch layer cake, but I chose to bake it as cupcakes to make it more transportable so that I could share it with friends. Brown butter love should be shared.



The cupcakes were spectacular! The little cakes were so light, tender, and moist. I was really not expecting such a great texture from a pumpkin cupcake. I figured that it would be heavier somehow, but these were quite the opposite. I baked 12 cupcakes with the batter, plus 12 madeleines.





And the frosting? Oh the frosting! I cannot even describe how good it was. The brown butter really comes through in the frosting. The frosting is not too sweet (I actually used 1 cup of icing sugar, which is a quarter cup less than what is called for in the original recipe), slightly tangy, but oh so nutty brown buttery. I was eating it by the spoonful! I was dipping whole pecans directly in the bowl (pecans made a pretty tasty vessel for this brown butter frosting, by the way). I will dream about this frosting for months to come. I adored it. Seriously, I did! And then I wrote the "poem" (yes, I know, I am less than poetic! I plead brown butter-induced temporary insanity).



My only comment about the recipe is that I was surprised that Fine Cooking suggests to remove the caramelized bits in the brown butter, and to use only the clarified, brown butter. I was pleasantly surprised that, even without the lovely caramelized bits, the brown butter is still very nutty and aromatic. However, next time, I would add the brown butter as is (brown bits and all) because I think the little caramelized specs would have made the frosting even prettier.



If you are looking for a fall pumpkin cake recipe, or if you heart brown butter as much as I do, this recipe is great and it works, from start to finish!



The only trouble I had: photography (a painful, ongoing issue with me). I had to photograph the finished cupcakes at night. Terrible idea. I should have skipped the gym in the morning to take better photos of these cupcakes. I am sad that I just did not have the proper lighting to do them justice. As I desperately tried to get that one good shot, I even tried taking photos of the cupcakes in my closet for better lighting! The next photo was the best of the bunch. It's too bad the photos did not turn out as well as the cupcakes. The cupcakes were wonderful, photography be damned!



































This was another great magazine recipe. Magazine Monday success (even though it was not quite a Monday).