taste of fall (in the summer)

Two of my favorite things combined into one: cupcakes and chai. I'm not much of a baker (honestly, I prefer cooking, making entire meals instead of a carb-laden treat) but cupcakes are my exception to the rule. I simply adore this little bundles of deliciousness. And when combined with one of the greatest flavor combinations EVER (thank you, India), you literally have a recipe for one of the best desserts I have tasted.

I found the original recipe online, as I do for most of my culinary experiments. My first batch was good, but the cupcake itself was extremely dense and started drying out within a day or so. Not my ideal cupcake. I like the more buoyant kind, the lighter-than-air, melt-in-your-mouth sort of texture. So today, I looked for a recipe that was supposedly more like that. So here's my combination: an altered vanilla cupcake recipe with the extra spices (although I halved the ingredients...don't need that many cupcakes) and the original frosting recipe (white chocolate? cream cheese? cardamom? together? oh my goodness...) and boy, did it work! Om nom nom....

3-1/2 cups AP flour
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 ¼ teaspoons ground ginger

1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cardamom

¼ teaspoon ground cloves (I've used nutmeg instead, since I rarely have ground cloves)
1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, unsalted
2 cups sugar

6 eggs
3 tbsp canola oil
2/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare cupcake pan with liners.

In a large bowl, sift to combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, fitted with a flat beater, cream the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until light. Add eggs, one at a time. (Don’t worry if the batter looks curdled.) Add oil and buttermilk. Slowly add flour mixture in 3 additions and mix until just combined. Try not to overmix!

Fill cupcake liners about 1/2-2/3 full. Bake about 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

And then you frost it with this amazingness:

White Chocolate Cardamom Frosting

From “Enlightened Cakes’’ by Camilla V. Saulsbury, Cumberland House 2008.

(makes 1 ¾ cup, enough to frost 18 cupcakes)

4 ounces (1/2 of an 8-ounce package) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, room temperature]

3 tablespoons fat-free milk

3 (1-ounce) squares white chocolate, melted

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla1 ¼ teaspoons ground cardamom

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese and milk with an electric mixer at medium speed until just blended and smooth. Beat in melted white chocolate until blended. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until smooth. Beat in vanilla and cardamom, until blended.

Oh my. Heaven in a paper wrapper.