The shape is right, the frosting looks delicious and the colourful sprinkles on top of the cupcake promise a sweet treat.
Until you take a bite – and get a taste of the herbs and pepper in this savoury cornbread muffin, with its garnished cream-cheese topping.
Lately, we've seen a growing number of eye-fooling savoury recipes: non-sweet versions of such favourites as coffee cake and banana-walnut loaf. Serving a savoury bread in the guise of a cupcake provided an opportunity recently to wow our guests with something completely unexpected.
We began with a cornbread recipe and added in rosemary and red peppers. (The full recipe is available below.) The “frosting” is cream cheese sharpened with goat cheese and then finished with a light sprinkle of chive and red pepper chopped super-finely.
You can make these as mini-cupcakes to be served on trays at your next cocktail reception or lined up in trios on long rectangular plates during buffet meals.
For a sit-down dinner, toss a lightly dressed field-green salad with a champagne vinaigrette, place a single cupcake on top of each serving and add some seedlings to finish the dish.
There is a cornucopia of ingredient combos one can use in savoury cakes: black olive and feta, baby shrimp and peppers, black forest ham and cherry tomato. And it's a perfect time to experiment with the herbs in your garden.
The kids won't know what hit them.
Recipe
Savoury Cupcakes
Entertaining columnist Sebastien Centner recently served these eye-fooling rosemary-and-roasted-pepper cornbread muffins with cream cheese icing.
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
2 whole eggs
1 cup creamed corn
8 ounces sour cream
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup yellow cornmeal
¼ cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon coarse black peppercorn
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
1 bunch chopped chive (approximately ¼ cup)
½ cup roasted red peppers, patted dry and coarsely chopped
Icing:
1 cup cream cheese
½ cup chevre
3 tablespoons finely chopped red bell pepper
2 tablespoons chopped chives
Method
Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl combine eggs, creamed corn, sour cream and oil. In separate bowl combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add dry mixture to wet mixture and blend evenly. Stir in the parsley, green onions, rosemary and the roasted red peppers.
Pour batter into greased muffin tins and bake until tops are golden brown (approximately 12 minutes). Remove from oven and let rest before removing from tin.
To make the icing, blend cream cheese and chevre together until smooth. Gently spread approximately 1 teaspoon on each cooled muffin. Garnish with red peppers and chives.
Sebastien Centner is the director of Eatertainment Special Events in Toronto (www.eatertainment.com).
