A Gentleman's Cupcake

A Gentleman’s Cupcake

I’ll be the first to admit that I spend far too much time browsing sugary food blogs featuring impossibly cute cookies, cheesecakes, crumbles, and cupcakes. Those quaint treats with dainty sprinkles nestled upon pastel fabrics with impossibly soft lighting would make anyone drool.

But sometimes an occasion calls for a baked good that is more…gentlemanly. Sometimes there’s a need for a cupcake that holds open the door for the glittery cookie at a party, smells of earthy spices and a hard day’s work, feels weighty in the hand, is made of ingredients sold by a farmer and a local chocolatier, and—perhaps most importantly—is never found on a stick or called a cake pop.

Enter the Gentleman’s Cupcake. Made simply from local sweet potatoes, flour from New York’s Cayuga Pure Organics, dark chocolate, sugar, and sea salt, these cupcakes add a sturdy confidence to any occasion.

A Gentleman’s Cupcake
Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens (Yes, I see the irony..)
Makes 12 cupcakes for about $7

1 cup of flour
¾ teaspoon of baking powder
¼ teaspoon of baking soda
Few dashes of salt
1 stick of softened butter
¾ cups of sugar
2 eggs
2 sweet potatoes, roasted, peeled and mashed (in oven at 425 degrees for 45 minutes)
2 tablespoons of milk
½ teaspoon of vanilla
1 bar of dark chocolate, chopped into small triangles
1 bar of sea salt chocolate, chopped into small triangles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line twelve muffin tins with 5x5-inch rectangles of parchment paper. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, beat butter until whipped. Add sugar and beat until light, about two minutes. Add eggs, then sweet potato, milk, and vanilla, and beat until combined. Add dry mixture to wet and beat until just combined.

Fill muffin tins about 2/3 full with batter and bake for five minutes. Remove from oven, press in dark chocolate triangles, and return to oven. Bake 15 minutes more, remove from oven and top with sea salt triangles. Cool on wire rack.